ANST - Re: History Repeats Itself Again and again and again

[Sluggy!]

Greg Shetler wrote:

> The argument about natural hazards is specious.  We went a long time
> without *needing* eye protection before we introduced archery.

... and we went a long time without *needing* vam braces and we went a
long time without *needing* 3/4" wide helm straps and we went a long
time without *needing* full gauntlets on an archer's bow hand.

> Archery was introduced as an experimental thing, with the understanding
> that we may need to modify things as we went.  The intention from the
> beginning was to modify *archery* to make it doable, as an addition to
> the game we were playing.
 
> Archers have joined a game that was well established and mature.  It is
> very poor grace to say that if those who were playing that game are now
> being injured by the folks who were invited to join, that they should
> change their armor to accomodate the addition.

I must admit that I don't care much for the somewhat condescending tone
of those two paragraphs. I would counter that highway speed limits were
not held to 30MPH just because older cars couldn't go faster.

Our sport is evolving. Change is inevitable. 

I will implement the new standards on my arrows and I'm sure I'll be
involved in bringing many other arrows up to the new standards. We'll
learn to shoot them as well as they can be shot and continue to add
value to our forces on the field. Then some other issue will come up and
we'll end up with eye protection anyway. Then we'll be shooting
expensive, overly complex arrows _and_ wearing eye protection. Hopefully
by then, we won't also be completely cocooned in 13 layers of bubble
wrap.

Sluggy!
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