While packing for con last night, I found an arrowhead in my armory. And it reminded me of something.

Last year I wrote this particular missive on Facebook the week after Dragoncon. With just a few days to go, I wanted to say it again. I'm also taking it a step further (yes, there's more at the end).

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I'm about to talk about something that fortunately hasn't become a crisis yet.

I'm talking about cosplayers whose characters are archers.

Green Arrow, Katniss, Merida, Hawkeye, them sorts.

I did not witness this personally at Dragoncon this year, but I was told of it, and I'm starting to notice it in pictures. In onesies and twosies, and no I don't have examples and I'm hoping that's indicative of the problem really being that small.

That said, I know the fun of cosplay that involves getting stopped and posing for pictures. Which is perfectly fine (as long as you're not blocking traffic for more than 90 seconds or so, and even that's pushing it).

What's not cool is pointing weapons into the crowd while posing.

And even then, I can kinda, sorta, maybe understand waving the orange-tipped airsofts about, to a degree.

But there's that, and then there's posing with a bow.

With an arrow nocked.

At full draw.

What in the WILLIAM TELL FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?!?!

I don't care how light the draw is.

I don't care if the arrow is blunt.

Unless the arrow has a fucking boxing glove on the end and the bow is strung with slack yarn, someone posing like that has their arms full of what physicists call potential energy.

And all it takes is for one photobomber to bump into someone posing this way for them to lose their grip and turn potential energy into kinetic energy.

Sending a foot-and-a-half-long, pencil thin projectile into flight.

Into a crowd of dozens.

At eye level.

Do I really need to explain why this is a bad thing?

I really want this to fucking stop. Right now. BEFORE someone gets hurt.

I'm not advocating that con weapon policies start outlawing arrows or requiring bows be unstrung or anything like that. I'm cool with bows.

I'm cool with posing with them drawn but without an arrow (and you still get good shots that way.)

I'm even cool seeing them nocked with the bow aimed at the ground (the archer's version of the "alert" carry.)

What's NOT cool are loaded weapons being aimed into a crowd for the sake of a fucking cosplay photo.

So let's cut that shit out.

And stay safe out there, ok?

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A few additions need to be made, now that time has passed and con is almost upon us again.

~ First, if you're a cosplayer of an archer character who definitively HASN'T gone and put people at risk like this, you have my respect, my gratitude, and my thanks. By no means am I trying to be a buzzkill or an asshole by claiming that anyone with a bow is a walking hazard. Only those who draw one while showing no arrow awareness. (I don't even know if arrow awareness is a thing, but bows don't have muzzles, so fuck it, close enough for government work)

~ Second, I am not now nor have I ever been a member or representative of the security department at any convention. I'm just a weapons specialist who's somewhat of a stickler for safety. I have absolutely zero say as to the weapons policies of Dragoncon or any other convention.

(FWIW, from the D*con website as of the evening of Monday the 25th:
~"No functioning projectile weapons"
~"Any weapon used in an offensive manner will be confiscated and rule #7 enforced. We expect you to use good judgment" )

~ Third and final, I'm willing to put my money where my safety-conscious mouth is. If you're a Dragoncon photographer who's dead set on doing a shoot with an archer character and absolutely ~must~ have some shots of a drawn bow, I will gladly rent you one of Barbarian Labs' safety mats for use as an arrow backstop.

And I will waive my usual rental fee.

(To do so: hit the email icon and drop me a line by 5 PM EST on Wednesday, August 27th, 2014. Offer not valid at any other convention. First come, first served.)

Look, weaponry is my life's work. I love making art with implements of destruction, and I love having fun with them too.

But having fun and staying safe aren't mutually exclusive, and shouldn't be.

Have fun and stay safe out there, ok?

~J

The question of "how much training time does one need?" has been on the mind of late.

A couple weeks ago I was talking a friend through purchasing their first handgun, what training they were looking for, how much practice time they could/should take and so on.

And recently it's been a side topic of discussion with some colleagues over how much training time is considered good or adequate or even above average over in the stage/screen combat world.

And few outside the fight choreography world know this, but there's a particular boom-and-bust cycle usually centered around pilot season. It goes something like this:

1. Combat-heavy show is announced in the trades.
2. Every actor fitting the description of the combat-heavy roles chases what combat training they can get.
3. The show gets cast.
4. The bulk of actors training, not being cast, suddenly lose interest in combat training.

The short answer to my original question is the ever-dependable copout of "it depends."

That said, I did some math on real-world operator training time, specifically USMC grunts.

So the question becomes, on average, how much combat training time to people who fight for a living get?

Grab a pencil and a calculator, we're off!

Call it 8 hours training time a day starting from boot camp (8 hour days, my ass, but long hours plus hurry-up-and-wait time makes it close enough for government work.)

8hrs/day, 7days/week. Figure 3 weeks of actual combat training (as opposed to other business being taken care of). That covers grass week, range week, BWT and Semper Fu. That takes us to 168 hours by the end of boot.

Off to SOI (Grunt school). Now, our non-grunts go to a short version of grunt school. It's a month long, 7days/week. That adds another 224 hours. 392 in total by the end.

Now bear in mind, this is for our cooks, clerks, and mechanics. 392 hours to ensure that even if they do nothing but push paper the rest of their careers, they at least know what a raid, ambush, patrol, and guard post look like from both sides.

Refresher training? Figure about 2 weeks annually. Call it 80 hours/year.

Now back to our grunts.

 SOI for grunts is a 2-month course, minus weekends but similar hours.

That gives us 320 hours in SOI, 488 hours total.

That does NOT give me an advanced level of warfighter. That gives me a boot that can be called upon to shoot who they're supposed to 4 falls out of 5.

Let's be generous and say that on dropping to the fleet, what with this, that, and the other, our new Grunt gets about 2 month's worth of training before deploying. That covers ITX (which they used to call CAX, Mojave Viper, and other things) and about a month's worth of miscellaneous field ops, ranges and so on. Add another 320 hours.

Now we're at 808 hours. To get someone competent in at least 3 weapons systems and familiar in at least 4 more. (YMMV depending on specific MOS).

Now deploy them. 7 months. Full time. Is that always combat? Nope. But I'll use the 9-5 M-F option again to distinguish patrols, raids, and combat from working parties, standing post, and suchlike. Again, mileage may vary, but it's the yardstick we've been using so we'll get some good rough numbers from it.

Now we're at 808 hours of training and 1120 hours of experience. 1928 in total. To create what grunts call a "one-hump chump." Still might be a dirtbag of some variety. But on the whole, generally reliable and effective fighters with their own weapons systems. Some may have effective cross-training outside their MOS. A few might even be ready to lead teams soon.

A good skillset. And like all skill sets, perishable if not used.

Not only that, but keep in mind what these numbers don't cover...

- Workouts. Training burns some calories, PT builds more. So tack a good workout schedule on that.

- Study. There are a lot more bibliophilic grunts than you'd think. For every one that's reading Hustler, there's another that's reading Gates of Fire and On Combat, and a third reading both, along with some Clauswitz, Musashi, and Kipling.

-Any manner of super secret special ninjas black classified elite pick-your-own-hardcore-adjective training. I've been talking about standard Marine ground-pounders. Highly skilled, not-to-be-fucked-with ground pounders, but ground pounders all the same.

Something to keep in mind when judging exactly how well trained a weekend seminar makes you.