Hey, look. More people who don't read.

Of course they can't use live animals and kill them just for the show. Killing fish to eat, is waay different than killing them for entertainment.
They have to go with what the general public would think, and most would not want to see fish being killed on national tv.
The minigun's use was donated by the owner. It's the same type used by Jesse James on his show.

[QUOTE] Of course they can't use live animals and kill them just for the show. Killing fish to eat, is waay different than killing them for entertainment.
They have to go with what the general public would think, and most would not want to see fish being killed on national tv.
QUOTE]

I certainly agree with the notion that killing animals for entertainment is cruel and inappropriate. However, I reject the notion that it should not be done, because of what the general public will think. Not doing something due to public pressure is lunacy. If political/social correctness and acceptance had been a deterent to scientists and social innovators, the sun would still be orbitting a flat earth populated by fuedal lords and peasants.

Ha Ha! Jamie if you are reading this I loved the mini-gun, I just have one question. Where would I be able to rent one of those?

-Jon L

listen, the myth was about how easy it was to SHOOT a fish in a barrel, not how easy it is to KILL it. i dont understand the whole shockwave thing.

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listen, the myth was about how easy it was to SHOOT a fish in a barrel, not how easy it is to KILL it. i dont understand the whole shockwave thing.

Normally when you shoot something you are trying to kill it.

Ah, indeed, but "normally" when you kill something that you are shooting at, you actually have to HIT it first...
The point of that saying is to express the ease at which something is done. If you shot a rifle/pistol/shotgun/bow/minigun at a barrel packed full of salted (previously killed, too, for all you PETA fans)fish, you're not going to miss from a foot away, from ten feet away, or, if you are skilled, 300 feet away. Whether its a cask or 55 gallon drum (and lets not start on how you'd penetrate a steel drum...I've done it with a 22lr on occasion). YOU WILL HIT A FISH.
And its not that hard to shoot a fish (Well, a salmon in shallow water from 30-40 yards) in a river either, as I've seen it done---yet again with a 22lr.
So, though I love the show, I boo the results and I guess I question the common sense of whomever thought it meant one fish.

So next, are ya going to try to hit the broad side of a barn with a bazooka? I know you can shoot, I have seen you shoot scopes on rifles (though it DID take you two tries to get that right, too...with period equipment)

quote:

Originally posted by wolfy-hound:
Hey, look. More people who don't read.

Of course they can't use live animals and kill them just for the show. Killing fish to eat, is waay different than killing them for entertainment.
They have to go with what the general public would think, and most would not want to see fish being killed on national tv.

If your objection is that the fish weren't killed for food, I'm sure they could find some cats who would be happy to dispose of the recently killed fish. Besides, in either case, these fish were once alive and now are dead.

And I find no reason to believe (unless you're from Berkeley) that the general public would have a heart-attack after seeing some dead fish. This is the Discovery channel for crying out loud. Lion eating a zebra = good; Human shooting a fish = bad? I don't get it.

http://www.penbay.org/usfc/usfc1881_gloucesterfisheries.html

quote:

Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 1881.

Notes on the Fisheries of Gloucester, Massachusetts.
By S.J. Martin. [Letter to Prof S. F. Baird]

The schooner Mertio Delmar was in New York Monday; she had 130 barrels of medium-sized mackerel caught thirty miles southeast from Cape Henry. Last year the first mackerel were caught on the 23d day of March. The next, April 19, when 12 sail arrived with 1,705 barrels. The next were caught April 25, when 30 sail arrived in New York with 6,000 barrels of fresh mackerel. The mackerel sold in New York Tuesday at 12 and 10 cents each. All the old mackerel are out of the market. The first salt mackerel will bring a good price.

I hope the mackerel-catchers learned a lesson last summer about selling their mackerel out of pickle to save inspection. They began to sell mackerel out of pickle five years ago. The last three summers it has been carried on extensively. Mackerel sold out of pickle last year for $4 per barrel were sold afterwards for $l0 per barrel. I do not see where the general inspector gets his pay when the mackerel are sold out of pickle; that

Even if you were not familiar with any history of the age of sail, you could try google, lol.

Strikes me that step one would have been to determine what was actually meant by the phrase. I guarantee there is little space not occupied by fish in the barrel in question.

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Strikes me that step one would have been to determine what was actually meant by the phrase. I guarantee there is little space not occupied by fish in the barrel in question.

This interpretation - salted fish packed solid in barrels as the origin of the phrase, making it unthinkable to miss a fish if you shot at the barrel in question - has been mentioned many, many times in the past, long before the segment in question was ever scripted. It has also been mentioned repeatedly, before, during and now, after the airing of the segment.

How it was ignored is as unthinkable as missing one of those fish.

It is very disappointing to see the show drift towards meaningless concoction, without even so much as a one minute exploration of the origin of the "myth" in question.

Bring back Heather. Or just rename the show "The Random Bu!!Sh!t Hour" and be done with it.

If they producers had any integrity (Ha) they would end the show now - they've obviously run out of viable ideas, and did so long ago - shut it down on a relatively high note, and invent something else for the team, or part of it, to do.

I'll expect this to happen shortly after a flock of pigs flies over the house.

you actually have to hit the fish doesn't mean you kill it even if you just hit its tail.

that is where i had my question, according to the test if you hit the water you kill the fish, they proved it by sticking the g force things in the water. But this is where i think they really messed up. even thought they messed up the myth entirely, and yes i do want heather, they also are making a snap judgment. That test has to be wrong b/c according to the test if a bullet hit water every thing with in like a 3 ft radius gets hit w/ over 100 g. this has to be wrong b/c that implies that if you shoot a human in the stomach with a 9 mil they would die since we are mostly water so the 100 g force they said travels through the water would pass the heart. Thats not true since i know people from WWII who were shot by a BAR and lived. (for none gun people a BAR is a LOT stronger than a 9 mil)

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If they producers had any integrity (Ha) they would end the show now - they've obviously run out of viable ideas, and did so long ago - shut it down on a relatively high note, and invent something else for the team, or part of it, to do.

There are plenty of good myths yet to be tested, such as whether a swallow can carry a coconut. Unfortunately, it seems the producers cower in fear of PETA so they won't do it.

actually i think he is right they are out of myths, what they need to do is change the show up and instead of myths make it a challenge base show, in my opinion they should make so that fans post challenges and they have a competition. idk i would like that.

and for the record pigs can fly, they just need some "assistance"
BREAK OUT THE ROCKETS!!!

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I don't know what you guys were thinking with this one, but you messed it up. Fish in a barrel are packed in tightly and usually cured in some fashion, like with salt. No one in their right mind would attempt to keep a single fish in a barrel. I appreciate the fun in shooting into a barrel of water, but if you are going to test a myth have at least some idea of what the myth is about.

Well, if that is true, then there's really no myth to test. Really, how hard would it be to shoot a fish when you have a barrel full of them? You're actually supporting the confirmed outcome of this one. Personally, I'd be bored out of my mind if they stood over a barrel of fish and shot them. Not exactly what I would call the most test-worthy material.

And, this just proves that there's more than one way to interpret a saying- just because they interpret it differentely doesn't mean it is wrong. Agreed?

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The findings in this myth, require them to go back and re-evaluate bulletproof water. because if ther is someone in water they can be killed by the shock wave just like the fish. so in bullet proof water someone might not be safe through 2 ft of water

Hmm... I hadn't even thought of that, that's a pretty good point. Unfortunately, I've not watched Mythbusters that long (I don't watch TV all that often ), so I've never seen that episode, only heard of it. Thus, I don't know the outcome... I'd slap myself for not seeing it if it wasn't already torture enough to write all that I am.

However, a couple things about your point, assuming that water does, effectively, stop a bullet from killing:

1) Air. If I'm getting shot at, there are really two options: keep my head out of the water and get shot IN the head, or hold my breath the entire time I'm getting shot at. Chances are, whoever's shooting at me is going to get me if I'm in a barrel.

2) There's probably not enough water in the barrel to effectively stop or slow down a bullet enough to prevent it from delivering a lethal blow- I definitely could be wrong here, though.

3) I'm fairly certain that, considering the shockwatches went off, a lethal amount of energy was output. However, this is in a rather small barrel that any average-sized human would be pretty uncomfortable sitting in. If you were trying to avoid bullets, chances are, you'd dive into a larger body of water, not a barrel. That resultant energy would be dispersed throughout a larger area, thus possibly alleviating the specific force that may potentially kill any human.

It would be a rather interesting test, though. Regardless of the result, though, I'd much rather NOT be jumping in a barrel when chased by a madman with a gun.

ur arguments just exemplifies several points:
1) THEY R RUNNING OUT OF MYTHS
2) If confined H2O produces lethal shockwaves than i could shoot someone in the shoulder and the shockwave will kill them when it passes th heart

I *REALLY* enjoyed this episode. I think it was the funniest episode since Boomlift Catapult or Elevator of Death, and I laughed more often even than either of those. 'Major kudos to the MB team. Too bad Kamie couldn't get access to an M-61 cannon rather than am M-143 mini-gun. At twice the fire rate with a slug more than 10 times the size of the M-134, an M-61 Vulcan would have oliterated the barrel completely in less than a second!

I do havbe one remark, however, and I'm surprised Jamie didn't talk about it, given hsi background. When I heard the expression "shooting fish in a barrel", I had always more or less assumed it refered to a speargun. A speargun, after all, is what one would use if one were to shoot a fish.

It is a very different thing to fire a round into a barrel than into open water. The shock is many times greater in a (comparatively) small, rigid container than in open water. It is also different inside a human body with its very flexible skin than inside a hard-walled vessel. It's also very different for fish who are much more sensitive to shock in the first place and completely surrounded by the shock medium. All that said, a relatively modest shock in open water can and will stun or kill a fish. Porpuses, whales, certain crustaceans, and even certain fish make use of this very fact to stun or kill their prey with a directed shock wave. No one here wants to see what happens to a human being underwater in the vacinity of an explosion, either. Even at distances where on land a person (other than their eardrums) would be completely safe from an explosion, a person underwater can be turned to jelly by the very same explosion underwater, especialy if the shock wave is reflected off a nearby hard surface such as the hull of a ship.

In answer to the poster just above, mamallian hearts, including the human heart, are extremely tough. One could virtually play basketball with a human heart and then place it in a transplant recipient's chest and it would beat away unperturbed. That said, the shock from a gunshot wound can kill a human being, but usually there is relatively liile impact shock from a bullet wound, because the bullet usually perforates the body and continues on, dissipating only a small amount of its total energy in the body. In the barrel, 100% of the energy is dissipated in the barrel, most of it as the bullet penetrates the surface of the water. This because (more or less) pure water has a much higher surface tension than skin.

quote:

Originally posted by dansswing:

If your objection is that the fish weren't killed for food, I'm sure they could find some cats who would be happy to dispose of the recently killed fish. Besides, in either case, these fish were once alive and now are dead.

And I find no reason to believe (unless you're from Berkeley) that the general public would have a heart-attack after seeing some dead fish. This is the Discovery channel for crying out loud. Lion eating a zebra = good; Human shooting a fish = bad? I don't get it.

Then you need to think about it some more. Many people may object to many things, not the least of which may be the repeated observation of killing desensitizes the individual (especillay young individuals) to killing. This is after all the very means Hitler used to desensitize his concentration camp officers to killing human beings. The mian moral objection, however, is that killing the fish is not *NECESARY* for a show host. The show host will not starve, lose his means of support, or even suffer a ratings drop by not killing a fish. It is absolutely necessary for the lion, who will starve without prey *AND FOR THE PREY SPECIES* whose genetic health is maintained by predation of the weak and sick.

The bottom line is it is a very bad idea to kill anything - even a bacterium - unnecesarily, and it is certainly not proper for entertainment to kill something unnecessarily. Whether the public is apalled or not is irrelavent. Historically nothing has been more popular than public executions with the sole exception of gladiators killing each other and other victims.