Zombie Cliche Lookout: Bigger Fish to Fry
It’s really hard to take responsibility when you screw up, and the bigger the mistake, the harder it can be to own up to. That’s why people have developed so many incredible coping mechanisms to deal with the after-effects of psychologically difficult circumstances. We have lots of tricks up our sleeves: denial, projects, dissociation, rationalization, displacement. The list goes on and on.
If you take this natural human tendency, and put it into an extremely stressful situation, such as a zombie attack, and things have a tendency to escalate. Not only are people more likely to make rash decisions and thus mistakes, they also need to get over those mistakes much more quickly if they want to avoid becoming Grade A Zombie Chow.
About this Episode:
I originally planned to bring up a discussion on firearm negligence with Sam’s captors. If you recall, one of those captors didn’t have a firearm, when everyone else was very well armed. The reason for this was that the character was supposed to have lost his rights due to a negligent discharge. Looks like Brent is picking up the slack on this one.
Discussion Question: Dealing with Negligence
When people think of surviving the zombie apocalypse, they usually think of a lot of guns and improvised weapons like machetes and baseball bats. The trouble is that most people don’t have the training and experience to handle those weapons safely, and invariably there are accidents. The question is, how do you deal with the people in your group who have had accidents due to negligence?
The obvious answer would be to take away their weapons, but is that really the best approach? By disarming them, are you effectively making them victims because they can no longer effectively defend themselves?
Sorry this one is late; the auto-publisher messed up.
Instead of disarming them entirely, I suggest giving them weapons that they’re better capable of handling. Instead of giving someone with little to no experience with firearms a Glock, give them a crowbar or a baseball bat. You can try teaching the person how to properly use a gun in your down time, and in time you can give him or her the Glock after you feel you can trust the person in better handling said gun.
Seems pretty reasonable to me, but what happens when they question why you should be making that call to begin with?
Typo alert: “This list goes on and on” (not one). 🙂
Typo alert: “put into into” I’ll let Dave find this one though if he’s having trouble I’ll give him a big hint later! 😀
Got it.
Not quite sure that fix makes sense, I think you meant ‘it’, not ‘in’. 😀
Ah, right you are. A typo within a typo fix.
Fixed!
This is why I like baseball bats. No training needed. If you’re a gun group and someone is negligent, perhaps downgrade their weapon’s rights. No more gun for you – here, have this crowbar instead…
true, however, what if this person was negligent due to the fact that the could not react correctly to the zombie, although having a gun is a risk, if they cannot really take the means to defend themselves at long range, and are forced into short range, and required to fight?……..although I suppose they are dead meat, if they can’t fight at all…
Baseball bats + crowbars: fun to use but dangerous. Broken wrists abound after a while.
I’m not sure I’m following the broken wrist thing. Care to explain a little further?
This is true. I prefer the “hunker down” method and assume anyone using any weapon is sort of in trouble anyway.
So it’s a tool of last resort?
Not being able to defend yourself from a distance would definitely be a problem; although speaking from the perspective of someone else in the group, I’d say that it’s a necessary evil.
Definitely not a bad idea, and a good backup on top of it.
Living in a land where the mainstay weapon of choice is going to be either a crowbar or a baseball bat, if any group member makes a mistake with that then the chances are they are already zombie chow! no need for a reprimand. 🙂
Hah, that does simplify things.