Laser Guns To Replace Air Pistols, at the 2012 Olympics in London?

Bananaman

A bit of a concern?

Olympics-Lasers at London for Modern Pentathlon after trial
Mon, Aug 23 2010

SINGAPORE, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Laser guns will replace air pistols in the modern pentathlon at the 2012 London Olympics after the technology was debuted at the ongoing Youth Olympics in Singapore. The new technology will reduce the cost of shooting by two thirds in the sport and the improved safety of the event could mean new venues are used.

"We will have laser shooting for the London Games. Based on this new technology, all countries in the world can compete in our sport," Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) President Klaus Schormann told the Youth Olympic Games website (www.singapore2010.sg) on Monday.

"We can hold competitions in parks and even shopping malls. Safety issues will no longer be a big concern."

The new laser system has received royal approval with Prince Albert of Monaco, also honorary president of UIPM, pointing out the practical benefits of the change. "I think the laser shooting is a great improvement to the sport." he said

"They (the laser guns) will also be easier to carry around, and to take on aeroplanes. It's the way of the future."

Bananaman

There will no longer be any physical sport in the next Olympics due to safety issues.

All sports will now be replace with the Wii, Xbox, and/or Play Station systems.

B'Man

IRLConor

While I can understand the UIPM going down that route, I can't see the ISSF doing it.

rrpc

IRLConor wrote: »

While I can understand the UIPM going down that route, I can't see the ISSF doing it.

+1

It makes sense for Modern Pentathlon because of the difficulty of setting up ranges near the arenas for the other elements of the sport. If they use lasers, once they have the other elements in place, setting up the shooting is very easy.

Even at the Olympics where there is already a range in place, it can be a bit of a logistical difficulty having competitors moving from one place to another for the various elements and of course the ranges are being used by the shooting competitions as well.

Sparks

It's not even certain yet if the UIPM will stick with the laser pistols; apparently there have been serious problems with false negatives and false positives (not detecting a shot and picking up the laser sweeping the target as a valid hit, respectively).

There's also a lot of people in the UIPM who're horrified at the change, according to the gossip.

There was a mention of dropping cartridge events for air events in the ISSF side of the Games, but that's not likely to ever happen; far more likely would be ISSF being forced to drop entire events from the programme under pressure from NBC via the IOC, because the biggest pressure on the Games at the moment is NBC looking for sports they can use to sell more advertising with.

tac foley

Bananaman wrote: »

There will no longer be any physical sport in the next Olympics due to safety issues.

All sports will now be replace with the Wii, Xbox, and/or Play Station systems.

B'Man

True thing.

:= (

tac

tac foley

Sparks wrote: »

There was a mention of dropping cartridge events for air events in the ISSF side of the Games

Be v. interesting to see how they shoot the 300m three-position match with a laser.

No wind, no weather, no lighting conditions, no dicky ammo...

No fun.

No chance.

tac

Sparks

They haven't shot 300m in the Games since 1972 tac. Dropped (along with centerfire pistol) because of the cost of building the Olympic ranges (lots of safety area needed behind the targets for the fullbore stuff with the standards used for the Games ranges).

Coronal

Sparks wrote: »

There was a mention of dropping cartridge events for air events in the ISSF side of the Games

:eek:
Anybody fancy some 50 m airgunning :pac:

Sparks

Well, the Field Target lads do 50m airgun all the time, outdoors, and 7m-50m shooting at unknown ranges without sighters (though with great big scopes with fancy focussing setups that I'd guess would let them guess the range pretty well).

But the mention wasn't of 50m airgun, so much as dropping smallbore altogether and just having 10m as now along with 10m 3P and a few more 10m pistol events.

Coronal

I guessed as much, but the thought of shooting 50 m prone with, say, the standard 10 m airguns up at DRC amused me somewhat :rolleyes:

Sparks

Well, I dunno, I've tried 25m outdoors and 25yd indoors with the Izzy, and it wasn't terribly awful. And I've tried 25yd indoors with my 2002CA and it didn't even blink; 50m with a PCP ISSF rifle shouldn't be an area effect kind of thing

Coronal

Well, I wouldn't expect that the standard distribution of the shots to change that much, they are all drilled into the one hole (assuming a competent shooter :P) at 10m after all. However, I would expect wind to have a much larger effect on the slow moving light pellets, more so than the heavier faster .22 rounds.

I think this calls for a test...

Sparks

Coronal wrote: »

I would expect wind to have a much larger effect on the slow moving light pellets, more so than the heavier faster .22 rounds.

I smell a training exercise...

Coronal

Sparks wrote:

I smell a training exercise...

One thing's for sure, you'd either become very good at shooting in the wind, or never hit the paper...

LCrawford

Sparks wrote: »

I smell a training exercise...

Presidential Decree.......

There will be NO shooting of air rifles at 50m in case anyone gets a big idea. I decree that it will not work and will severely reprimand any NTSA member that tries............:p

Sparks

Spoilsport!

tac foley

Sparks wrote: »

They haven't shot 300m in the Games since 1972 tac. Dropped (along with centerfire pistol) because of the cost of building the Olympic ranges (lots of safety area needed behind the targets for the fullbore stuff with the standards used for the Games ranges).

True, but I wasn't just thinking of the Olympic Games - the ISSF runs ALL the target-style 300m match competitions...

Any one can shoot a laser off a bipod, too, and hit a target a couple or three miles or more away, hell, I used to do that myself...

tac

Sparks

tac foley wrote: »

True, but I wasn't just thinking of the Olympic Games - the ISSF runs ALL the target-style 300m match competitions...

Aye, I know, but the OP was about the Olympic Programme. There's little chance of the ISSF trying to eradicate one of it's sports, anything they run tends to stay on the World Championships programme at least.

cavan shooter

how could you miss with a laser gun,

Sparks

Because they make them by taking an LP2/LP10 air pistol, removing the barrel, and replacing them with a laser that fires a 4 millisecond long pulse when the compressed air from the pistol hits it.

IRLConor

cavan shooter wrote: »

how could you miss with a laser gun,

Same way you can miss with a real gun: by not pointing it at the centre of the target!

sfakiaman

What I'm looking forward to is when they introduce Light Sabres for the fencing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOwBJHgpGcE

rrpc

Sparks wrote: »

Because they make them by taking an LP2/LP10 air pistol, removing the barrel, and replacing them with a laser that fires a 4 millisecond long pulse when the compressed air from the pistol hits it.

Hmm, it's occurred to me that this could well be jumping from the frying pan into the fire:

(i) telescope sights with a light beam, or telescope sights with an electronic light amplification device or an infra-red device, designed to be fitted to a firearm specified in paragraph (a), (b), (c) or (e),

Sparks

Maybe - you could probably argue that they're not sights, but you'd have to do it to a judge to make it stick, and feck it, that's more trouble than licencing an unmodified air pistol is...

rrpc

Sparks wrote: »

Maybe - you could probably argue that they're not sights, but you'd have to do it to a judge to make it stick, and feck it, that's more trouble than licencing an unmodified air pistol is...

I think it could only be overcome if the 'air pistol' was totally incapable of firing a projectile thus making it an expensive laser pointer rather than a firearm.

Mr.Flibble

Sparks wrote: »

Maybe - you could probably argue that they're not sights, ...

Obviously they're not sights. They're more like mock firearms for a Wii or something like that.

How do Scatt machines work, and are they illegal?

Mr.Flibble

A bit OT, but can anyone spot the potential benefit of this: http://www.scribd.com/full/36058102?access_key=key-g9fzn9lfzsuj1hqlvzu ?

Sparks

Mr.Flibble wrote: »

How do Scatt machines work, and are they illegal?

They're slightly different in that they strap to the barrel, are self-contained units, and have interconnected components at either end of the range; whereas the MP pistols are basicly firearms with one component removed and replaced with a different component.

Sparks

Mr.Flibble wrote: »

A bit OT, but can anyone spot the potential benefit of this: http://www.scribd.com/full/36058102?access_key=key-g9fzn9lfzsuj1hqlvzu ?

Sure. If you require all members of a firing range to have and use those, then you could argue that you don't need to spend quite as much money on baffling for the range. Plus, if you're training a newbie, it's one more safety rope to help out - I mean, how many newbie pistol shooters have almost managed to turn around on the firing line while holding a live firearm and ignoring muzzle safety? You damn near have to sit on them as an RO, and if you're not alert, you're potentially in trouble. This kindof thing would be fabulous for such a scenario.

I'd love to know how the hunting chip works - I can't see a small chip being detectable as a target like that for several miles (which is what you want from a safety system).

It's an interesting idea - but I'm not sure the tech is up to it yet.

Mr.Flibble

Sparks wrote: »

Sure. If you require all members of a firing range to have and use those, then you could argue that you don't need to spend quite as much money on baffling for the range. Plus, if you're training a newbie, it's one more safety rope to help out - I mean, how many newbie pistol shooters have almost managed to turn around on the firing line while holding a live firearm and ignoring muzzle safety? You damn near have to sit on them as an RO, and if you're not alert, you're potentially in trouble. This kindof thing would be fabulous for such a scenario.

No. Try again.

Sparks

Sorry Mr.Fibble, but ten years of teaching anything up to twelve complete newbies how to shoot every week says that it'd be very useful.

tac foley

Next thing, no doubt, will be the use of the 'ride-em cowboy' horse like those you see outside big stores, the run-in-place running machine, and the simulated Wi-i swimming race.

AND you can do it all without leaving home to save even more Olympic funding.

What a load of b******s.

tac

Sparks

News on this - the UIPM has announced they will not use lasers in 2012. However, they think they're great for the Junior matches, and they haven't ruled out introducing them after 2012 for the seniors.