Modern 3-point rifle slings hold the gun VERY close to the chest, enabling the soldier to keep his hand on the handgrip (positive control) while pointing it down and to his left. A gun is not in any position to be fired unless the stock is firmly seated against the shoulder and the sling rotated to allow more freedom of movement for the barrel end.
That soldier is standing at ease while keeping control of his weapon. There is nothing wrong with his posture, regardless of who he’s standing next to or where.
It doesn’t bother me that a solider is standing while keeping positive control of his weapon. That’s one of the things soldiers are supposed to be doing. The only possible outrage from this picture comes from any context that might be associated with it–I’m not even aware of where it was taken, given the uniform and ethnicity it could literally be anywhere in Israel/Palestine/Gaza.
The soldier in that image has his gun in a ready-to-fire position, and is automatically more “menacing”. He is actually pointing a gun at a child for no discernible reason, so why WOULDN’T it make you more angry?
I wonder how many photos there are of US and NATO soldiers holding weapons while children play nearby in various parts of the world. A quick google indicates there are a bunch. The finger outside the trigger guard is about the only indication we have from photos like these whether or not the solider was ‘aiming’ his weapon.
Was this US soldier in Iraqabout to shoot a small child in the hand to assert US dominance over the populace? We may never know… (if threads like this are any indication).
If you curl up your index finger inside your thumb, creating a very small hole, and look through that, you can see depth in an otherwise 2D picture.
Have another look at the picture and you’ll see that the gun is indeed pointing towards the little kid’s head.
I do agree however that his poise, while not at ease, is not directly threatening. A normal pose in an enviroment that could turn hostile.
I think he’s just looking at the kid, and the point of the gun kind of automatically follows his line of sight.
Still, though not aiming at the kid, this is a serious breach of weapon handling “etiquette”/safety.
You never ever (EVER!) point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot.
That was my impression as well, though I simply cannot tell whether it is actually pointing at the kid, or a trick of the camera angle. I was inclined to think it was pointing at the kid.
What I will note, is that in my experience (now some 15 years old) Israeli soldiers are, or were, horribly blase about gun safety - probably because they have a citizen army, so everyone is used to carrying guns about. It was often the case that some teenager on the bus heading for his or her unit simply tossed his or her gun onto an empty seat, uncaring of where it was pointing.
[QUOTE=Latro]
Have another look at the picture and you’ll see that the gun is indeed pointing towards the little kid’s head.
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No idea about the painters trick…I couldn’t tell the difference doing what you suggested…but I disagree that the guy is pointing the gun at the kids head. Here’s my reasoning. The soldier is standing with his foot nearly to the green cabinet thing in the background. The toe of his boot is approximately on the first tile after the green cabinet thingy. Since we can see his backpack, that means his body orientation is slightly left facing. The kid has both his feet on the 3rd tile out from the cabinet, which suggests to me that it’s pointed off axis wrt the child by at least 2 feet (assuming those are 1 foot tiles). It seems clear to me, though obviously not everyone is seeing it the same way.
In case it isn’t immediately obvious, the thing about optical illusions is that they’re illusions. Removing half your information doesn’t suddenly provide more information about a 2D image - at best, it gives your brain an excuse to make things up that it thinks fills in the gaps.
[QUOTE=Grumman]
In case it isn’t immediately obvious, the thing about optical illusions is that they’re illusions. Removing half your information doesn’t suddenly provide more information about a 2D image - at best, it gives your brain an excuse to make things up that it thinks fills in the gaps.
[/QUOTE]
Saw the previews to a new show on (I think) Science called Brain Games…and it’s all about such optical illusions.
If you close one eye and squint, and look through a pinhole, it looks exactly like this Hamas soldier in the same neighborhood is pointing a gun at one of the kids.
But don’t worry it’s just an optical illusion. All they’re doing is wiring up some high explosives and using the kids as human shields, for goodness sakes.
War is hell. Try to find an image of it that looks like justice is being served.
In my point of view, the way the photograph is presented, the way the rifle is being held does appear unnecessarily belligerent towards the child. Then again, I’m aware that this photograph is presented like this to back somebody’s point of view.
No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bank guard carrying an M16. Many of them are older guys a la what you’d find on The Andy Griffith Show and not always on the ball. A bank up in Chiang Mai in the North was just knocked over last week by a university student – they caught up with him – who did the deed when the guards were all off on their lunch break.
To me it doesn’t look like the gun is even pointing at the kid.
It’s hard to determine from this perspective and I don’t know the exact angle the gun is at, but his back is flat against the wall behind him, and the gun is flat against his chest. Then we’d assume the guns trajectory is parallel to the wall.
Possibly the gun is aiming angled away form his chest, maybe someone really good with geometry could figure out if the gun was pointed at the kid. If you can’t tell for the image, that is definitely not my strongest subject.
[ul][li]It cannot be told from the picture whether or not the gun is pointing at the child.[/li]
[li]From many body-language cues of all the people involved in this scene, it’s clear to me that the gun, even if pointing at the child, is not aimed at him. The older child has already been mentioned, but I’m going to point out that to my mind, the soldier is definitely at ease in the situation, he would be wearing a very different look on his face if he were in a situation where it made any sense to him at all to be pointing a gun at anyone, let alone at a child.[/li]
If this soldier were under my command, I’d very definitely at least ask him for some really good explanations about his gun-handling, and I’d **probably **discipline him for atrocious gun-safety.[/ul]
