Pointing phasers at each other

[swaaye]

Just recently, I've started noticing that our favorite characters like to point their phasers at each other. I think what brought it to my attention was Redemption Pt1 (I think that's the one). Here we have a scene with Worf and Guinan in the holodeck doing some practice shooting and Guinan has her phaser casually pointed at Worf in most of the scene lol.

Generally, it's a good idea to not point firearms at your friends. Now I've started noticing it all over the place. I think that they should have taken the phasers more seriously when filming.

 

[Delta1]

The holodeck/range phaser might not have been a real phaser. No harm in tagging someone with a simulated firearm. (But I'm sure the Enterprise's safety officer would still have a fit.)

 

[AdmiralGarak]

The holodeck/range phaser might not have been a real phaser. No harm in tagging someone with a simulated firearm. (But I'm sure the Enterprise's safety officer would still have a fit.)

The Enterprise's safety officer has been on sick leave ever since his console electrocuted him and then blew up in his face, which sent him flying half way across the bridge because his chair didn't have a seat belt.

 

[swaaye]

Watch how often they wave their phasers in each others faces next time you're watchin'.

 

[Cyke101]

Watch how often they wave their phasers in each others faces next time you're watchin'.

Hell, remember that one time when Riker used his phaser to scratch his ear?

 

[Snaploud]

Don't they have some sort of technology that prevents friendly-fire without lifting a safety? I seem to remember reading that in one of the books...

 

[Cyke101]

Don't they have some sort of technology that prevents friendly-fire without lifting a safety? I seem to remember reading that in one of the books...

Maybe, but it's still not a good idea to wave it around anyway, I think. Given all the times that every single piece of Treknology has malfunctioned (even the stove!), I'd still treat my phaser with the utmost respect.

But the firing safety does bring up a good point. We see those TNG/DS9/VOY style phasers getting slapped out of our heroes' hands plenty of times, and I've always wondered why, when the phaser rolls on the ground, the phasers never just spray-fired all over the place, even in the midst of a gunfight. Those buttons must be really sensitive.

 

[Mysterion]

Don't they have some sort of technology that prevents friendly-fire without lifting a safety? I seem to remember reading that in one of the books...

Maybe. An M-16 rifle has a "safety" setting but you still don't wave it around at people.

Most of the time on Star Trek (and a lot of other science fiction) the way you see people handling weapons just doesn't ring true.

 

[Kirk1980]

Mostly because nobody involved in Trek has any military/firearms training.

 

[Timo]

Probably somebody does. But if the actors aren't familiar with the usual customs and mores, and the directors have no interest in it, then it's unlikely that anybody would intervene at the sight of a misuse.

TOS had relatively few examples of this, even though the actors were no more war veterans (okay, Doohan, 'course) than the later spinoff casts. Indeed, when the Fake Spock is seen casually pointing a phaser at Kirk in "Whom Gods Destroy", we can take this rare occasion as a clear hint that he is indeed a fake...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bertie]

But the firing safety does bring up a good point. We see those TNG/DS9/VOY style phasers getting slapped out of our heroes' hands plenty of times, and I've always wondered why, when the phaser rolls on the ground, the phasers never just spray-fired all over the place, even in the midst of a gunfight. Those buttons must be really sensitive.

Maybe they are like Glock pistols in that you really do have to pull the trigger to get the thing to fire; there are various safety mechanisms in place against accidental fire that are only disengaged with a real trigger pull. On Glocks this is partly accomplished with a mechanical mechanism located where the finger touches the trigger; on phasers one might imagine some kind of tech that can detect whether force is really being applied on the trigger position, not just a general shock to the weapon.

 

[Mysterion]

^^^^
Even with various safety mechanisms in existence, it is still very bad form to be pointing a weapon at someone you do not intend to fire said weapon at. You just do not do that. Never. Never ever.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I am suddenly reminded of a scene in Pulp Fiction. Preceding the need for the services of Mr. Wolf.

 

[Bertie]

^^^^
Even with various safety mechanisms in existence, it is still very bad form to be pointing a weapon at someone you do not intend to fire said weapon at. You just do not do that. Never. Never ever.

Of course. Was merely pointing out why they might not be discharging when people drop them all the time.

 

[Cyke101]

But the firing safety does bring up a good point. We see those TNG/DS9/VOY style phasers getting slapped out of our heroes' hands plenty of times, and I've always wondered why, when the phaser rolls on the ground, the phasers never just spray-fired all over the place, even in the midst of a gunfight. Those buttons must be really sensitive.

Maybe they are like Glock pistols in that you really do have to pull the trigger to get the thing to fire; there are various safety mechanisms in place against accidental fire that are only disengaged with a real trigger pull. On Glocks this is partly accomplished with a mechanical mechanism located where the finger touches the trigger; on phasers one might imagine some kind of tech that can detect whether force is really being applied on the trigger position, not just a general shock to the weapon.

I imagine that with phasers being so simple to use, a safety mechanism might be something like the sensors used in modern day cardio machines, where they're equipped with handle bar sensors to detect heart rate through the hands. If you let go, the sensor alerts the computer who then tells you to hold on again. I suppose it's not hard to imagine faster and more accurate sensors on phasers in the future, in that a phaser can't fire unless it's actually being held (or programmed for autofire, of course). The size of the handle-bar sensors are roughly the same size as phaser handle.

 

[Timo]

For all we know, phasers are personally encoded to the thumbprints of their current user, and nothing else will cause them to fire. When do we witness a situation where a villain would get hold of the phaser of the good guy and use it against its former user?

(In ST:FC, Lily Sloane does grab Picard's gun, but there's no reason to believe she could actually have fired it: Picard has every reason to pretend that Sloane really poses a threat to him, because that will calm her down. In certain other circumstances, the person grabbing the gun would be well trained in phaser operations, and would know how to rapidly reset the ownership of the weapon.)

Of course, there are downsides to a gun that has a mind of its own and the authority to refuse from firing. Could you really trust your life on such a weapon?

On the issue of pointing a hand phaser at a non-target, we probably have to consider that phasers seldom fire exactly where they are pointed. That is, almost all the phaser beams in TOS are shown to be off-boresight, at an angle to the "barrel", and many of the TNG beams are that, too. Perhaps the general direction where the emitter head points is not particularly important, and only the movement of the user's thumb on the triggerpad will point the beam to the desired direction?

In that case, a phaser pointed at your buddy's chin would be as harmless as a whip or a morningstar held under his chin: it wouldn't really be pointing anywhere, not until the operator initiated the complex set of movements that gave the weapon its power to do harm. There's no such thing as an accidental discharging of a whip (although there may certainly be accidental misaiming of a whip!), and there might not be such a thing for phasers, either. The beam would be "flaccid" until specifically thumbed to the direction of the target.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JuanBolio]

I would imagine the phasers in the target range were set on the lowest possible setting. While not a good idea to have one pointed at someone else, as long as you keep your finger off the trigger nothing is going to happen, and even if it did all setting 1 is likely to do is knock you on your ass.

 

[AJBryant]

Hell, remember that one time when Riker used his phaser to scratch his ear?

Yeah, that was an "Inspector Clay's dead -- MURDERED! And someone's responsible" moment.

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

Safe handling practices for modern firearms (which generally include one or more safety mechanisms) dictate that you never point a gun at anything you're not willing to kill or destroy. Ever. You essentially pretend that the safety doesn't work and that the gun would spontaneously go off if you point it at (e.g.) yourself, your cat, your buddy, whatnot. Do you really believe that would happen? Not really. But you treat the gun that way to be even safer with it.

With phasers, it's pretty clear that there is some sort of intrinsic aiming mechanism in the weapons that directs the beam to a target if it's within a reasonable degree from the aim point. We've seen phasers shooting at a notable tangent from their point of aim. However, it's probably also likely that there are electronic countermeasures we didn't hear about that 'confuse' enemy weapons sensors into missing. I can't imagine any other reason that the enemy troops would have such bad aim Clearly, their weapons are being fooled into missing their targets.