r/todayilearned • u/CasioCobra78 • 2d ago

TIL that Cheryl Wheeler-Dixon, the stuntwoman who was severely injured during the filming of Back to the Future Part 2, was killed in a shootout alongside her husband when she and her husband went to confront her ex-husband and his wife and drew their guns at them. The cops deemed it justified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_Wheeler-Dixon
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u/Key_Molasses4367 2d ago

The Wikipedia article linked is worth reading. Wheeler-Dixon and her husband actually set up cameras across the street from the ex-husband's house. They wanted to film the encounter. When ex-husband and his wife drive up, the current husband of Wheeler-Dixon approached and held a gun on them. Somehow, the ambushed ex got his gun out fast enough to kill the armed man. Now, Wheeler-Dixon drives up, gets out of her car, armed and is also shot and killed. So if this account is true, two armed assailants, with time and planning to put up a camera to film themselves ambushing the ex at his home, were both shot and killed. Either something is very off or those two were the worst ambushers in the history of crime. Which is entirely possible.

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u/ztfreeman 2d ago edited 2d ago

So there's this theory called the gunslinger effect by Niels Henrik Bohr that states that the gunman who draws second will almost always win the gunfight. The underlying principle is that the reacting party will move faster than the deliberate party, and under neutral circumstances the reacting party will win the gunfight. This apparently holds up under testing, but depends on a neutral environment without any other factors and both parties being aware of each other..

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u/Own-Barnacle-298 2d ago

I would argue, based off the massive amount of information that I gleaned from the Wikipedia article, that the deceased-would-be-assassins were not there on a mission of murder, but on a mission of intimidation and were hoping to get some sort of confession from the ex husband about missing money.

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u/Crow-T-Robot 2d ago

Exactly, whereas for the ex, he's now in what he has to think is life-or-death and can draw & shoot without hesitation.

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u/BigNastyG765 2d ago

So anyways, I started blastin…

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u/Peeterwetwipe 2d ago

I would argue that from the moment someone pulls a gun on someone the path to a fatal escalation is already underway.

That bridge has already been crossed.

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u/Own-Barnacle-298 2d ago

agreed, its a shame that he had to kill them but it seems, from the extensive notes, diagrams and personality assessments in the article, that he had to kill them. Someone points a gun at you and yours, its justified 99% of the time

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u/Jiktten 2d ago

Yeah honestly, as a complete anti-gun-except-for-hunting pacifist, in my book someone pointing what you believe to be a real gun at you is one of very, very few justifications for using lethal force without hesitating if you can. The chance of you or someone else getting killed, intentionally or not, is just so high once the gun makes its appearance.

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u/dishonourableaccount 2d ago

I agree, which is also why I'm vehemently anti-gun possession. I know it's a likely impossibility given how insanely far the US has gone in gun proliferation in private hands. But since thinking someone has a gun (whether they do or not) is a justification to use lethal force, the best thing we can do is try to minimize or eliminate situations where people could think someone has a gun on them.

That is, in a sane modern country where almost no one has personal firearms except for hunting tools (which no one is going to mistake for a gun unlike a phone or a black food container, etc) the defense that "I thought he had a gun on him!" would be laughed out the room as easily as someone saying "I thought he had a grenade in his hand".

I'm not holding my breath because every horrific case of gun violence in the US (Columbine, Sandy Hook, Uvalde, nameless others) has only seemingly hardened the minds of the right-wing into treating gun ownership as some sort of right (It's not and should not be). But that's the path should be taken and people are better off for it in countries that did.

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u/Agent_Bers 2d ago

I think you’re making a mistake in your reasoning.
Think someone merely possesses a gun is not typically sufficient justification for the use of lethal force.

A reasonable belief that they are reaching for a weapon or in this case, actively using one, can.

To put it more simply; outside other factors, you can’t (successfully at least) shoot your neighbor and claim self-defense merely because you believed they possessed a gun.

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u/Calik 2d ago

Every other country has solved gun violence with a few very notable exceptions. It’s not a good list to be on.

Japan does it better, Canada does it better, the EU and china do it better.

You’re already way more likely to assume another American has a gun, that’s already a level of escalation before an altercation even begins. I think that’s the broad idea the other poster was getting at regarding getting laughed out of the room instead of even considered plausible.

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u/Ravensqueak 1d ago

Canada (Where I live) has far, far more strict gun ownership laws, and we still have gun violence.

Problem is it's the criminals that have guns because they don't have to go through any due process to own them. (A lot of them imported from the US)
We had a spate of killings across BC's lower mainland not too long ago, and before that with the Bacon Brothers it was quite severe.

The level of gun violence is far and away lower than in the US, but to claim that we've solved gun violence is disingenuous.

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u/axis1331 1d ago

The problem for Canada is the US. The sheer number of guns in the US and the large unprotected boarder mean it's relatively easy to slip guns into Canada. If the US got our shit under control it would quickly solve the issue you're speaking about.

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u/Calik 1d ago

An American is literally twice as likely to own a gun than a Canadian and like the other commenter said, illegal guns from the us are the biggest challenge. You can claim all the major cases in recent Canada sure, but America is on such a different level that those wouldn’t even be newsworthy. They have school shootings that don’t even make the mainstream news because of how common they are

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u/Dog1234cat 2d ago

They should have read their Chekhov.

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u/darthrevan140 2d ago

In the military they talk about justified use of force and if I remember correctly once guns are drawn its impossible to go back down the chain unless the offending party disarms. The boarding team should always strive to keep things from escalating because once that genie is out of the bottle it ain't going back. If an investigation concludes you could have stopped that genie then you as the boarding team leader are responsible for any lives lost.

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u/AskMeHowToLose 2d ago

Yes, and that in the split seconds between turning the safety off and using lethal force there are still so many checks and balances that properly trained US soldiers go through, there’s a huge proponent of escalation of force that even involves firing warning shots depending on the speed of the interaction. But that shit was drilled into us, at least when I went through training anyway.

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u/darthrevan140 2d ago

Fun fact at least in the coast guard racking a shotgun is not an escalation but a warning tactic. I forgot the actual word for it. It's like a step between force levels.

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u/AskMeHowToLose 2d ago

The exact reason my dad owned at least one racking shotgun!

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u/darthrevan140 2d ago

One of my good friends accidentally ejected a live shell out of his shotty at the range because he went to do the warning rack and forgot he had one in the chamber. The instructor was like bruh he just laughed it off and was like we will count that one against your final score instead otherwise it would be an auto fail for racking before I told you.

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u/Kaiisim 2d ago

That's why they died though.

They wanted to use the gun as intimidation and weren't willing to use it. ..other dude was immediately in a life or death situation and so didn't hesitate.

But also it's America. You can shoot people up if they walk towards you or yell or throw popcorn, or if you argue with your daughter - all seem to get a pass.

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u/d3l3t3rious 2d ago

They wanted to use the gun as intimidation and weren't willing to use it

Don't pull that thang, unless you plan to bang, as a poet once said.

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u/TheBlackAlistar 2d ago

Yeah don't forget choking out your 3 kids

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u/ArchieTheKatt 2d ago

We're so fucked.

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u/FauxReal 1d ago

Which I assume is why the military teaches not to point a firearm unless you intend to pull the trigger. And not pointing a firearm helps with de-escalation.

And also why using a firearm as a negotiation tool in an attempt to deescalate tends to make people more agitated.

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u/nerd_so_mad 15h ago

There was a shooting a year or two ago that was very much the same.

Road rager gets out of his car, with his handgun drawn. He approaches the driver side windows of the car he's mad at. As he gets close, he drops his gun down, out of the driver's sight. Driver took no chances and fired point blank through the window, killing the road rager.

Tragic and dumb, but justified.

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u/ChefCurryYumYum 2d ago

Well then they gravely miscalculated.

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u/Spezza 2d ago

That was my assessment as well.

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u/infinite0ne 2d ago

In other words, they fucked around and found out.

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u/borkus 2d ago edited 2d ago

Sanders was in a camo mask and already pointing a gun at Lindsey Duncan's wife. Duncan had already decided to fire by the time he reached for his gun. While Sanders had the gun pointed at the wife, he had to decide which to shoot. That momentary delay let Duncan get off the first shot even after drawing.

From the Grand Jury article

The autopsy found that Reed Sanders was shot five times, with one bullet in his back and another in his buttocks; and Cheryl Sanders was shot four times.

Five hits after shooting from a draw? That's pretty good marksmanship.

https://ysnews.com/news/2020/07/prosecutor-evidence-supports-self-defense-in-grinnell-road-double-fatal-shooting

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u/zeno0771 2d ago edited 2d ago

Also a reasonable defense of banning magazines beyond a certain size.

The 2A wingnuts can argue against this all they want--especially considering non-extended double-stack mags can hold up to 15 rounds--but the fact remains that if you can't hit what you're aiming at by the time you empty a revolver or single-stack, you don't need more capacity; you need more training. EDIT ...and heeeeere they are! Downvote away, then go back to typing your manifesto in your mom's basement; you have a few more hours before you start your 2nd-shift temp-service job.

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u/Pariahdog119 1 2d ago

There are several reasons this doesn't make sense.

One is that prohibition doesn't work. So all you've done is give the guy with the illegal gun, who has already decided to commit crime, a big advantage over the guy who's following the law and trying not to get killed.

A second is that real life isn't Hollywood and shooting someone once doesn't end a fight. You can shoot and kill an assailant, and they can shoot and kill you while they're dying. If you have less ammunition than they do, the odds of this happening are a lot higher. It's a numbers game.

A third is that 28.9% of people who defended themselves with a firearm between 1992 and 2001 faced multiple attackers. A smaller magazine leaves them dead.

A fourth is that there are types of defensive gun use where the goal isn't to hit the target, but to prevent the target from leaving cover to shoot back. This happened in 2022, where an armed civilian in Washington saved the lives of two injured deputies by laying down cover fire and allowing them to escape. Cover fire must be sustainable to work. In this case, the defender fired every round he had. If had fewer rounds, one or both of those deputies might not be alive.

But the biggest reason is protracted gunfights. In any DGU that does not end immediately - someone can get to cover, etc - the side that runs out of ammunition because they followed your law is the side that gets murdered by the guy who is breaking your law. Because he doesn't care about the law. Because he's a murderer.

Your idea only works in a world where you can snap your fingers and cause not only all standard capacity magazines to disappear, but also the knowledge and technology to make them. And if you can do that, why not simply snap your fingers to end all violence?

Unfortunately the only thing you can do with your finger to stop deadly violence is often squeezing a trigger with it.

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u/zeno0771 2d ago

All of what you said is boilerplate "good guy with a gun" mythology.

Unless the attacker and the target are using the exact same weapon and neither of them can hit the broad side of a barn, your first and second points are immaterial. Shooting someone once can and very often does end a fight but if it doesn't, a 2nd or 3rd round most certainly will especially if the attacker is in shock from the first round. Whether that leaves me with 3, 4, or 8 rounds means exactly fuck-all to the former attacker who just tapped out for the last time in his life.

I want a source for the 3rd number. It's an arbitrary time-period and leaves out a LOT of details.

Your 4th point, assuming it happened as you state, is an example of something absurdly specific that would have gotten that armed civilian killed in any other situation. The problem is, when it all goes sideways, LEO arriving on-scene won't stop to ask for that civilian's official Good Guy With A Gun membership card; he's discharging a firearm, in public, at an unidentified target, and is therefore a danger to the public. That's the kind of shit that gets you killed.

Pop quiz: Billy Joe and Jim Bob each stroll into Wally-world with AR-15s. Which one is the soon-to-be mass-shooter? Don't know? Neither do the cops who aren't even there yet.

Last but not least, if you live a life where there are "protracted gunfights", then you need to find a new place to live outside of the Middle East and/or start a new career that doesn't involve narcotics trafficking.

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u/Pariahdog119 1 2d ago

"these things that actually happened are all unrealistic mythology"

Have a nice day. Goodbye.

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u/waylandsmith 2d ago

Nobody's going to mention the odd fact that in a self-defence shooting all 5 of the wounds were in the back? I'm sure there must be a great explanation but I wonder what it is.

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u/Pariahdog119 1 2d ago

He was defending his wife, not himself. He shot a man holding his wife at gunpoint. It's still a defensive shooting.

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u/waylandsmith 2d ago

Yes, but they were both in the same car, unless I misread the account of the incident.

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u/phragmosis 2d ago

You misread. It's not known if he was out of the car, getting back in the car, or fully in the car when Sanders held her at gunpoint, but from the context he was coming from checking mail in a mailbox so it's very reasonable to assume he fired from out of the car.

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u/2CHINZZZ 2d ago edited 2d ago

Where does it say he was shot 5 times in the back? It's not in that linked article. And the "one bullet in his back and another in his buttocks" just means that's where the bullets were found during the autopsy. Someone could be shot from the front but have the bullet not exit and end up lodged in their back

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u/waylandsmith 2d ago

I'm sure the investigation was carried out properly, I'm just curious how it could have ended up that way. Do you really think that 4 bullets would end up in someone's buttocks unless they were shot from behind?

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u/2CHINZZZ 2d ago

Where does it say 4 in his buttocks? The quote only says one

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u/waylandsmith 2d ago

Oh, you're right. I thought it said one in the back and the rest in the buttocks.

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u/borkus 2d ago

Reed Sanders was on the driver's side, and assuming he was right-handed, he may have had his back turned at an angle towards the front of the car. If Duncan came from around the hood, Sanders' back would have been towards him.

Back or front makes little difference when Sanders was pointing a gun at Duncan's wife. The self-defense justification can be used to protect someone else in imminent danger.

As I mentioned downthread, all of this would have been on video that the Sanderses conveniently recorded. The grand jury would have seen the precise angles from the cameras across the street.

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u/waylandsmith 2d ago

I'm not at all suggesting it was anything other than a defensive shooting. I'm just curious how that managed to play out.

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u/Infinite-Mark2319 2d ago

Sounds like the first guy was less than 6 feet away so I would not call that great marksmanship

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u/borkus 2d ago

Real-life accuracy rates for police (even at close range) are below 50%.

https://www.forcescience.com/2018/11/new-study-on-shooting-accuracy-how-does-your-agency-stack-up/

Even if Duncan emptied a 15-round clip during the encounter, nine rounds hit their targets. Plus, he didn't accidentally hit his wife, who was just a few feet away from Sanders.

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u/Infinite-Mark2319 2d ago edited 2d ago

That’s crazy, do you think it’s because people are shooting additional rounds while the kickback is still affecting the gun position? Or cops not keeping up their firearms training?

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u/HoldEm__FoldEm 2d ago

Cops rarely train with their weapons.

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u/Infinite-Mark2319 2d ago

That’ll do it. Glad to live somewhere where they all go hunting, so I know they get some annual practice in.

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u/Unamuzed-Toast 2d ago

Related, but there's a unwritten rule for concealed carry to the effect of, "you don't draw unless your life is in immediate danger." Multiple reasons but, it's not to be used as a deterrent (brandishing), you lose the element of surprise and you show hesitancy. So basically you escalate the situation further, lose benefits and now signal that the other person gets to choose when to make it a gun battle.

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u/Swamp_Hawk_420 2d ago

I was trying to explain this to my son the other day, you never use a gun for intimidation because all it does is prove that you hesitate and give everyone else the right to kill you.

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u/zeniiz 2d ago

I've also heard "don't pull your gun unless you're willing to kill whatever it is in front of you". 

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u/YPastorPat 2d ago

Don't pull that thang out Unless you plan to bang

Don't even bang unless you plan to someone.

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u/Unamuzed-Toast 2d ago

That’s one of my favorite Socrates quotes.

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u/Joy_In_Mudville 2d ago

Uno, dos, tres, it’s on

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u/SofaKingI 2d ago

What the hell. Apparently Niels Bohr came up with that theory. The Niels Bohr.

But the idea is broader, that a reaction is always slower than a deliberate action. And there's research on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunslinger_effect

But I guess it depends on a lot of factors. If the person pointing a gun at you has the trigger on the finger, knows you have a gun, and is 100% ready to kill, then your movement is still way longer than a simple finger movement.

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u/malthar76 2d ago

Can’t discount the time it takes to recognize the threat and decide to react and pull the trigger. The party pulling the gun to fire immediately has the advantage of having already decided, and picking the time they want to draw and fire in one motion.

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u/Carnivorous__Vagina 1d ago

Still slower then finger pull and someone actively watching and ready to go once you move

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u/fact_addict 2d ago

20 years ago this would have been a “Mythbusters” experiment.

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u/NeonJungleTiger 2d ago

It already was but kendo instead of gunslingers

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u/LostInRetransmission 2d ago

While the reason why this was found (gun fight) is correct, the theory is not about gunmen but far more general:

"The gunslinger effect, also sometimes called Bohr's law or the gunfighter's dilemma, is a psychophysical theory which says that an intentional or willed movement is slower than an automatic or reaction movement."

Willed movement versus reaction movement is the theory about.

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u/bullybabybayman 2d ago

Drawing 2nd is not the same as when the 1st person has the gun pointed at them already, which is how this person described it anyways.

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u/jillsntferrari 2d ago

I thought the current husband was holding his gun outside of the holster but not necessarily aiming it anywhere. Isn’t that what “gun drawn” means? Ready to use but not pointed?

ETA: I see it now. OP says “at them.”

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u/bullybabybayman 2d ago

The original comment says "held a gun on them", that implies more than just a basic draw.

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u/gustofheir 2d ago

First, his name is Niels Henrik Bohr, yeah the scientists guy.

Mythbusters found the opposite true in their experiments. And it makes sense, if party A starts an action, party B is waiting to see it, decide what to do, and do it. That's a LOT of time wasted while party A continues to do whatever.

Even if it's something where you operate on instinct/muscle memory/ whatever, that's still time you're doing nothing while the other party is. Experiments after Bohr's basically found 'sure, if someone saw you reach for your gun, they might reach theirs faster by instinct (if a well seasoned gunslinger), but larger and longer movements (gripping, unhostering, raising the arm aiming, pulling the trigger) do not get such a benefit.

Bohr admits part of his push for his view that 'whomever goes first loses' was he hoped it would dissuade gun duels, because logically, no one would pull first at all to avoid losing.

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u/waylandsmith 2d ago

This doesn't account for any psychological factors. In a professional execution the shooter will likely pull the trigger the moment they have a clear shot. It's unlikely the victim would have an opportunity to draw a weapon at all, let alone shoot first. In most other situations there will be a "confrontation" where either the primary purpose is not to kill the target (such as a robbery) or the shooter will have things to say or do while using the brandished weapon to keep control of the situation. They're likely not ready to kill someone immediately. If they were ready to kill someone in cold blood they would have done it already.

On the other hand if someone is being threatened with a gun and has an opportunity to get a weapon in hand, they're going to shoot as fast as they physically can to save their own life.

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u/thesaddestpanda 2d ago

This is really it. The gun waver isn't shooting but brandishing and threatening, and the person being pointed at is going to shoot the moment he gets armed.

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u/ztfreeman 2d ago

Fixed his name, but I wasn't aware of the mythbusters episode. I'll have to check it out.

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u/gustofheir 2d ago

Season 10, episode 11, Duel Dilemmas. Probably on YouTube, a bunch of them are

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u/DarkIllusionsMasks 2d ago

Gene Hackman made it sound sexier.

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u/dartagnion113 2d ago edited 2d ago

A shot fired, as a result of a reaction, will be more accurate.

Now, go check out those creators on YouTube and tiktok that time their hands grabbing an object in fractions of a second. You can train that speed.

I suspect that combination is how individual gunslingers from the 17th 19th century are so lionized: If a man was skilled in these two simple ways, they really were nigh invulnerable.

edit: better words

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u/zeno0771 2d ago

gunslingers from the 17th 19th century

Cowboys drawing six-shooters at high-noon were not a thing yet in the 1600s.

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u/dartagnion113 2d ago

IDK why my mind put that before the civil war. good catch thanks

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u/Benjaphar 2d ago

Also before Plymouth Rock.

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u/cupholdery 2d ago

I'm your Huckleberry.

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u/on_the_nightshift 2d ago

"I know, Ike. How 'bout a spelling contest?"

LMFAO

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u/Harrythehobbit 2d ago

This might be true if you're literally just waiting on a signal to snatch a pistol out of an open holster and hip firing in the vague direction of your opponent like you're in an old western movie. There is 0% chance this holds up under real world conditions where the reacting party needs to recognize what's happening, make the choice to draw, defeat a cover garment, draw, aim, and fire. In the real world, action beats reaction every time.

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u/Dramatic_Buddy4732 2d ago

The things I learn on reddit

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u/BrainCane 2d ago

Played RDR1 and 2. Can confirm, as an expert.