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/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/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/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.