Heh, if you want gun crazy Americans, come down to Texas where everyone and his brother has at least one. Always remember though, it's not the gunrack with the firearm in it you have to worry about, its the empty rack below it.

Nah, I see to many folks w/ cup holders sized for Big Gulps or beer cans in them on the bottom rack.

that one in particular may be a myth, but it's certainly true that people are being awarded ridiculous amounts of money for ridiculous claims.

Edit: Damn you Charon!

Rediculous amounts of money for rediculous claims are actually a myth in general. Every study of the tort system that has been done shows that juries are pro-defendant more often than not. Why does the myth persist? Because the crazy cases get the crazy media coverage! They are very few and far between, but the sane cases attract no attention so it seems like "omg teh system iz teh brokenz!"

Not to say that you're somehow inadequate for believing it. Congresspeople responsible for slash'n'burn style tort reform believe it too. Though even if they knew the truth, politicians would still do whatever they thought their constituents would like, even if they knew the voters were morons.

My favorite tort myth is the burglar who broke into someone's garage while the family was on vacation, and got trapped. He had to subsist on dog food for a week until they came back, and then sued them and got a bajillion dollars or whatever.

well, yes, the ones that actually go all the way through court are generally well-reasoned. the thing is, there are many cases that get settled outside of court, because the guys getting sued figure it's cheaper--in terms of money, PR, or both--to just take care of things quietly outside the spotlights.

i'm more worried about civil liberties, too, because i don't think it'd take much of a restructuring of the legal system to largely fix those problems. our sue-happy culture, i'm less sure is fixable. though i'll be the first to admit that i'm not a legal expert by any stretch of the imagination.

Huh, well interesting what stuff out of a movie makes it into RL, or actually its technically possible it also happened in IRL and inspired the line in the movie. I've seen crazier things.

But I'm sure if you look you can find a few actual cases where buglars have successfully sued the victim.

As to the earlier mention of gun retarded laws in Canada, I'll clarify that for some of you who arnt familar with how the gun registry works in Canada.

So far it has drained over 1 Billion dollars. It is a horribly flawed system, that even at one point setn a 'gun registry certificate' for a black and decker 120 volt AC cordless drill. There was a huge deal made about that (for a damn good reason) though the guy in question was jailed and fined for fraud or some crap like that. I dont quite remember. This was back round.. 98? While ago anyway. Since then the system is still horribly plagued with problems.

People have registered guns, and goten back a registry cert for the wrong type of gun. In one case, one of the guys I used to shoot with, registered his shotgun. He got a card registering him for a .50 cal browning machinegun. Which.... is blatantly illegal for civilian ownership in Canada. How the HELL that ever got on there I dont know.

So he sent them a letter back stating their mixup. Now.. theyc ant just take the card back. Instead they sent him a letter stating this was a screwup that he has to keep for the rest of his life, to prove that this is not a real gun, and is only a screwup in teh database system their too lazy to fix. They then sent him a registry card for a hunting rifle.

In the end he wound up with FIVE registry cards, four of which are for totally different types of guns than the one he was registering, and a resulting 4 retraction letters that he now has to keep to prove that he never infact owned those 4 guns. Because if the police go in for an 'inspection' and dont find them he can get into alot of legal trouble. And they do NOT need a search warrant for this ladies and gents. Gun owners in Canada have to do the one thing NO ONE, not even 20 time convicted murders have to. The right to refuse a search without a warrant.

So tack on alot of overboard control laws, the need to have a gun users permit, a permit for each specific weapon, and transportation permit for EACH location you desire to transport the gun to (At least in the case of handguns) and you start to see what I mean.

So then this past summer there was some gangwar in Toronto. People using ILLEGAL handguns in crimes. So suddenly everyone was like BAN HANDGUNS! umm... they all but are banned allready. It's really not that hard to get an ilelgal handgun. It takes a hell of alot of time and money to get a legally owned one. You also need to constantly renew your lisences every few years. So on and so forth. The guy with illegal weapons in his house? Can still say show me a search warrant too.

Theres all sorts of assinine crap like that. And then to top it off, of cousre not only does registering a gun not stop some one from going on a shooting spree, but totally imbalanced people (Like one guy who this summer went on a shooting spree at a school in Quebec) not only get registered firearms. But then go on to commit said shooting sprees. The idea of the registry is supposedly to keep firearms and such away from people like this guy, and this was just the most recent spectacular failure of the system. Because they dont ever bother to actually check.

So much of this discussion has revolved around pistols, but only because I would expect that when it comes to rifles, shotguns, etc., and especially at long ranges for rifles, it is a given that firing around a corner should incur pretty substantial penalties.

Hmm my first thought it to chime in with the shotting around corners equal no...

However then thinking about modern technologies.

(Abhrams M1A!).... and their balsitic comptuers.


Not much difference from timing the 'fire now' sequence of a tank move at 60mpg over rought terrain to the human arm random movements from an awkward position.

With a smartgun, staying on target is not really 'that' important as the 'on-target / fire' sequence is at the speed of electrons. As long as the motion is predicatable enough for the balistic computer to calculate the current drift so that the barrel is ontarget when the bullet exists the barrel you hit.

For much the same reason you can (in third editions) open up full auto, and hose down 20 badguys and miss your eight friends in the room.

The gun ONLY fires when it is on target. You tell it to shoot 'this target' then wave the gun around at random. When the balistic computer says everything is lined up it fires.

Doesnt matter if you arent perfectly steady, it you twitch the gun isnt firing. So unless you are twitching so bad, that the time it takes the charge to ignite and the bullter to leave the barrel cause the shot to miss, then you are good to go.

That being said, 'blind' firing with a smartgun shouldnt get the bonus. Since it is whats allowing you to blind fire.

Smartlink aren't drones so you can't have them shoot on their own... But nothing prevents you from loading an agent with a targeting program in your cyberhand.

Brewing, not storing--which was the issue at hand.

Could be. I was going by:

Another source about the McDonald's case
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm

http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-f...B_mcdonalds.htm
"Third-degree burns do not heal without skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability of the victim for many months, and in some cases, years;"

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/ar...icle/000030.htm
"Third-degree (full thickness) burns extend into deeper tissues. They cause white or blackened, charred skin that may be numb."

What happened was it went into the deeper tissues, which does not need charring. Just extensive damage and well... ouch.

edit:
http://www.stronghealth.com/services/burnt...ypesofburns.cfm
"Third Degree Burns
A third degree (full thickness) burn destroys all layers of the skin. Skin grafting is necessary to repair the skin, because no skin cells are left to reproduce themselves. Third degree burns can result from:
Prolonged flame (house fire)
Steam or scalding liquids
Chemical or electrical injury "

Yeah, I think I'm going to trust the Medical Encyclopedia over wikipedia on this one.
Well, I learned something today. Thanks!

Your welcome.

I wish I still had my lexis nexis account, that way I could have accessed the actual court transcripts of the case. Ah well.

Well, I learned something new today.

I didn't know that burns went all the way to the 6th degree (bone damage).

Seeing how far we've come from the original topic, I will attempt a link back to the subject at hand: what degree of burns would be inflicted by incendiary rounds fired from a pistol around a corner?

Damn, that sucked.

Just to keep this sort of on topic:
On the note of penalties etc incurred for shooting round corners using the smartlink, for at least the camp thats all for penalties does this sound more or less correct?

Penalty for shooting from cover, and viewing using only the smartlink camera:
-3 pool penalty, based off the penalty for using magesight goggles

-total recoil penalty (after compensation) to vision based perception tests
X2 double effect on uncompensated recoil for firing tests
Depending on circumstances, recoil modifications such as gunstocks, shock pads etc may or may not apply. (Largely based uppon how the player is actually holding the gun)

I've also decided in the end to leave the smartlink bonus in due to the various arguments cerntering around the SL's tracking abilites etc. This still, to me leaves shooting around corners using smarguns a viable tactic, but with some downsides.


And now for the following derail! weee!
/Megaderail!
Oh btw Charon on the subject of thieves sueing victims etc here's but one source of a number of cases:

http://www.overlawyered.com/topics/respons...nsib.html#crime

In particular of note is one that was successful:
http://www.walterolson.com/articles/mugmill.html

Though that wasnt specifically the victim being sued, it's relatively close. And shows infact that the precedent is very much there to the point in if you probe abit further on that site there was some law passed I belive it was in Australia that specifically made it so criminals could not sue victims etc.

There's also this:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/archive/inde...p/t-439577.html

About a tresspaser sueing after falling through a roof.

Now I realize these arnt the best sources available but keep in mind this is stuff turned up in less than a minute of searching the net. Also especially when it comes to tresspassing. Which is infact a criminal act, there is a very reall threat of the owner being sued. When I was working as a security guard for Minto that was one of their biggest concerns. They would rather have the house burn down than have a tresspasser get injured on their property, as they would likely get sued and the costs involved as well as any monetary settlements would cost them far more than having to rebuild the house from the foundation up.

Also I worked in the security field for over three years, one of the biggest things they allways pointed to was taking caution in apprehending folk. To the extreme of making sure your fingernails were well trimmed, becuase if you scratched some one while restraining them they could at least attempt to sue you in court. Even if they did win it costs you alot of money and time. Both in lost wages from work, and in paying court and lawyer fees.

Most of the time when it happens at least in north america it seems largely due to either the criminal being a tresspasser, which is really a very minor crime, and then being injured/shot. Or some one actively burglarizing a place etc and being shot. At least in cases when the criminal in question actualy wins. Other times it's largely apparently other countries that allow, or at one point allowed such activity, before it being specifically made impossible by a new law to protect victims.

Ultimately while most of the stories are urban myth as you say, many are grounded in reality. Often, it appears the grounds are on use of 'excessive force' by the victim or some other factor. That or it's not the victim being sued but the security/police etc. Also back in the 80's early 90's my parents used to own a small appartment building downtown. We had a tenant going by the name of 'Mr. Todd Heanie' (Probably mispelling the last name, I'd have to doublecheck it). This 'fine gentelman' was not only mentally unstable but also a complete con artist. We first got wind that somethign wasnt quite right when his previous landlord of also questionable sanity decided to show up at the appartment building at 3am with the intention of shooting our tenant.

Turns out he'd been previously frauded, and even successfully sued by our tenant. Who then mid winter suddenly stopped paying the rent. We couldnt evict him as it was durrign the winter and at the time it was illegal to kick some one out durring the winter. Top it up with the fact that he constantly made false claims about beign on oxygen (complete with proper warning signs etc, neve rmind the litteral 4 foot high piles of cigarete butts and total lack of oxygen tank(s) later discovered when we finally got him out)

He also failed to pay his hydro bill (which was seperate from rent) and then turend around, sued and won against ottawa hyrdo when they cut his power durring the winter due to his failure to pay his bills for the past few months. He also attempted to sue my parents, lost and eventually was evicted but not before causing over $10,000 worth of damage to the appartment. It was also a good thing we had a police officer called in when he came back to pick up his stuff from the appartment, as he broguht along two thug like friends who were armed with baseball bats. And I assure you they were not at all intending to play a game of ball.

He didnt win, and eventually wound up with a warrant for his arrest as it was also discovered he'd been illegally dealing in pharmacuticals, using multiple fake identies to claim several unemployment cheques and a host of other crimes.

Of course this experience may well be why I lend abit more credence to such stories than others might.
/mega derail!

I'd only apply the vis mod penalties in the same turn.

I do think you're a bit more correct conceptually than I was - make it a -3 penalty, and allow SL to apply, rather than removing SL. Same net effect, but worse for you if you don't have SL. Good catch.



Derail in spoilers

On that side-topic :

Several case of this kind

It's a list of several well known apparently frivoulous suits with the key missing facts from most accounts when someone use these case to attack the legal system.

To be fair, I will point out that the Georgia Trial Attorney Association also neglected to cite their sources. It still gives that second perspective that these case usually lack when surfacing in pop culture.

From the first page of this discussion: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/FELIN

A -3 penalty? Let's say a guy in the military has an attribute of 4 and a skill of 4. Now you give him a -3 penalty for shooting around the corner. His average chance of success drops from 8/3 to only 5/3. That's almost cutting his chances of success in half and I don't think that large of a penalty should be given. I think the standard -1 penalty for shooting from cover covers this just fine. I do, however, think that anything that would lower a recoil modifier in this case would need to be looked at carefully by the GM.

I decided to contact the French Army and see what they thought about this. You too can email them at http://www.defense.gouv.fr/sites/terre/contact_form I'll let you know what I hear once they respond.

no! nooooooooooo!

Banaticus, are you taking into account the fact that a person using this technology is not taking any time at all to aim? like, none.

other than asking that question, i'm not going to post to this one anymore.

...probably.

What do you mean, "not taking time to aim" -- a person is taking just as much time as they normally use to aim. Despite the penalty to spellcasting when a mage tries to view a scene through a fiber optic cable, a person shooting around a corner arguably has a better view of the scene than a person looking through any kind of scope. And we don't give a -3 penalty to a person who tries to use a sniper rifle, or any other weapon with a scope, without purposefully taking an "aiming" action.

With smartlinks, I'd assume that most Shadowrunners aren't "aiming" unless they're specifically taking an action to aim. Since the smartlink paints a reticule on your vision and highlights what it thinks a target is, it would seem to be akin to a laser sight -- you're not so much looking down the top of the gun as you're looking to see where the dot is.

Normally, armed people who enter a room are trained to only look where they're pointing the gun and to constantly be looking around (and thus to constantly be moving the gun). If you see someone, you want to be able to shoot right then, not a split second later when you swing your gun to point at them, as then they have time to bring their gun up to point at you.

So I don't put much stock in "not taking time to aim" as most Shadowrunners (and most people in similar positions in real life), don't "take time to aim" anyway. That's why you spend so much time on the firing range -- so that you're used to shooting exactly where you're looking (or pointing). I imagine with the advent of smartlinks, people would be spending more time on the firing range firing sideways, just like old time gunslingers.