i take it revolvers are preferred over pistols?

anyways, i was a thought for when docwagon shows up and some genious player tries to grab their weapon.

and yes, complexity will always be a reliability issues (see computers and KISS, why i use linux more then windows these days).

anyways, there are real life gun companies working on such systems iirc...

Which they have rightly earned.

At least from the personal experiences of almost everyone I know. The vast majority of whom are on the sides of angels. (In one case, that's almost literal!).

My Mother remembers the days of her youth when "Officer Paddy" was a good man and someone you can go to for help.

I didn't get to live with that.

Am I saying all cops are bad? No. But the days when they were "Someone you can trust" have long since past us. And, yes, this includes during prohibition when they ignored the laws just as much as the Moonshiners did. (I grew up in 'Shinin' Country. An "Honest Cop" was one that stayed bought, and damned if they weren't honest back in those days! They had respect! In both directions. Or, so say the oldtimers when I was younger.).

Want a good example? This happened not that long ago. Guy pulled over for a random spot check while driving, did nothing wrong (Too many witnesses saying otherwise), but one cop freaked out and he and his partner unloaded ALL their ammo into the parked car.

One: They barely hit the damn thing, parked not even ten feet away.

Two: Again, too many people saying the guy in the car did NOTHING to provoke the police. Certainly not enough to have them UNLOAD their pistols, reload, unload again, reload, and continue until they had nothing left, putting everyone in the area (Including the one fellow IN the car!) at risk with their dreky shooting.

Let's just say that Lone Star does not get a very high Professional Rating in my games until it's time to pull out the big guns, and the Shadowriders come out. But Shadowriders are not Police or Peace Officers in any way shape or form. So they don't really count.

Now, the times we've needed them... Not around. Don't show up for hours, if not the next day.

In fact, they were even nice enough to show a repeat, violent offender who pointed him out so they could catch him when they asked for information in the neighbourhood. He was out on bail in less than 12 hours. My family has stated that they will never, ever assist with a police investigation again as they have, quite frankly, put our entire household at risk.

Sorry, ONCE they did, but only because they were called hours before and were finally following up on things.

OK, rant over.

For reliability, yes, revolvers are prefered. Ammo capacity and quick reloading generally outweighs reliability concerns, however. Current biometric locking systems have a 20% failure rate, for one reason or another. The sheer number of potential failure points for a fingerprint authentication system, for example, is staggering.

The user may not place his finger in the correct position, the user may not grip the weapon strongly enough or grip the weapon too strongly, the user's fingerprints may have changed due to wear or injury, the battery might be dead, the scanner might fail, the processor might fail, the non-volatile memory might fail, the fingerprint database might be corrupted, the mechanical lock might not disengage and so on.

i think i read about some kind of magnetic or rfid ring system at one time...

Pay runners to rob Docwagon and Hospital Facilities of their equipment for "illicit" use?

The RFID system was considered by Colt by canceled because of concerns about battery life.

The magnetic rings systems work, but you have the place the ring in the correct spot relative to the pistol in order to deactivate the mechanism, creating great potential for human error. Furthermore, magnets do become weaker over time and can interfere with electronics and magnetic media. Wearing a ring that is likely to erase or corrupt the magnetic stripes on your credit cards isn't the wisest thing to do out in the world, so if you try to carry such a weapon for self defense you'll find yourself spending far too much time fumbling around in your pocket for a ring.

an electromagnet on the ring could work but then lifespan would still be an issue. In SR this is fairly easy to ignor keeping in mind how most don't run out of energy regularly.

i think mythbusters tested what was needed to kill of a creditcard, and it took more then one would expect iirc.

but yes, i can see the worry. as for positioning, i would say that it should come as part of the natural act of gripping the weapon.

still, as i was watching something from the british doing fighting in afghanistan, it hit on me that except for the extra space needed (and space is a premium in a mobile first aid vehicle) attached guards that have the specific job of securing the area and the medical personel is probably the way to go.

and iirc, that was how a docwagon team was described in some book or other iirc.

1 driver, 2 guards and 1 medic.

They describe it in lots of ways in various places. None ever actually fit in the vehicles described...

Ignoring that, there are various things that really require two medics to do.

Best bet would be rigger running vehicle weapons, two flying remotes, two security guys, two medics.

and a armored bus to drive them all around in?

Pretty much. Seen a Freightliner ambulance? Not quite so big as a Citymaster but big.

just for visual reference:
http://cms.firehouse.com/content/apparatus...il.jsp?id=41272

Actually, ambulances in North America are already getting larger.

See, as we're getting to be the fat bastards of the world, a number of people cannot fit into the van-modified ambulances any longer and...

On the bright side, you get get more Soylent Green out of the fatties...

In the US, larger ambulances that are built on small diesel-engine box truck frames (called Type IIIs) are usually a part of county or township fire department. They carry a lot more equipment (like a mobile hospital) than the van modified ambulances (called Type IIs) which are typically used by hospitals for patient transport between treatment centers. A hyper obese individual can still fit in a van ambulance but it's the local fire department that's going to be pulling his carcass out initially.

You still see some Type I ambulances in rural areas. They're full-sized pickup trucks with a box module on the back.

from what i understand, thats the least of the problems. i think i spotted a program on NGC about a smaller commuter airplane that didnt manage its takeoff thanks to under estimating the weight of its passangers (in part, the other issue was a faulty adjusted control wire for the tail surfaces).

but hey, one got to love the idea of deep frying just about everything

And, in Canada, it's illegal to charge a person based on their weight, despite it costing the airline more in fuel and so on.

They already got rid of the salted peanuts to cut costs.

In the USA, airlines got rid of salted peanuts due to lobbying from people who had severe peanut allergies and groups that advocate for them.
Apparently, just opening a bag of peanuts in a pressurized cabin can potentially kill a person.

hmm, if thats the case, do the person live in a bubble most of the time?

maybe, just maybe if he sits withing meters of the bag being opened, but even then i find it unlikely that any kind of concentration if big enough to get that kind of effect. but then im no doctor, nor expect on the subject. i just find the potential mixture of air to particles highly diluted at first thought.

but then we have people that get migraines if they see a tv or mobile phone, so...

Peanut allergies are the #1 food allergy in the US and the #1 reason for food-related deaths. But there's no correlation between opening peanuts in an airline cabin and affecting someone with peanut allergies. Unless you started rubbing peanut oil on their skin. Are movie theater concession stands next? Restaurants that are moving away from corn oil? It's lobbyists being litigious. I have blood sugar imbalance issues. Should I sue United Airlines in case someone spills a Coke on me?

People are bizarre.

Actually, inhaling aresolized peanut particles can be deadly. to someone with a very severe allergy. This requires very close proximity, but the nature of a pressurized airline cabin makes this more likely than in a place with outside air circulation.

True but aren't peanut packs vacuumed-sealed to prevent them from becoming an aerosol (and to preserve freshness)? And those would have to be some very fine nut particles to float around in the air, like what you would have in a food packing facility. The airline industry-related legal cases I've found were brought about due to skin contact with the oil product.

I'm not saying precautions shouldn't be taken for people with obvious allergies. And I don't want to return to the days of smoking on airplanes. But I don't need companies or governments to be my nanny just because of a few incidents of carelessness. This feels like the "Hot-Coffee-On-Crotch" case all over again. That and peanuts are one of my few vices.

Suddenly, Ideas.

Thousands of them!

There have been anecdotal reports of non-fatal respiratory distress in brought on by inhalation in airplanes where there was a great deal of peanut-eating activity going on in a short period of time. Generally, it isn't enough to kill a person and it is extremely rare. But you never know.

"I'm sorry sir, but we're no longer serving meals on flights due to people with severe soy allergies." "Um... This is a 40-hour flight." "Yes sir, we understand that, but we can't serve Soy on flights due to a pressurized cabin." "Damn... Now I see why Ballistics are so popular!"