ARCH - Re: What Changed -- was History repeat itself

Dewart, Charles R. --G3 Contractor (Anteon Corp) Charles.Dewart at hood.army.mil
Wed Apr 11 13:47:40 PDT 2001


According to the SEM last year, he had about 15 cases.  But still he hands
us the gun and tells us to point it at our head a pull the trigger.  

But they won't try to document the cases of eye injury in woods battles even
though the Society Chirurgeon himself has said he has treated them at
Pensic.  A poked out eye is a poked out eye.  

So what are they doing to reduce that possible injury; stop the woods
battle?  Figure the odds, about as great as getting hit in the eye with a
bounced back arrow.  No, less.

Gilli

-----Original Message-----
From: Eadric Anstapa [mailto:eadric at scabrewer.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 3:27 PM
To: ansteorra-archery at ansteorra.org
Subject: ARCH - Re: What Changed -- was History repeat itself


Your excellency this is a  great question and I don't think there is any
single answer.  I think there are a combination of factors that have
blossomed into the current level of concern.

1.  We have always known that there was a chance of these types of injury
and there had even been reports of it happening but until recently there was
no proof.  Now there have been a few actual well observed and documented
injuries.

2.  There are other complaints from Gulf War about Crossbows hitting to hard
and people getting badly bruised.  I think that this led to an overall level
of tension and dissatisfaction with CA among the masses at large.  The
crossbows were all found to be legal poundage and the bolts of legal
construction (although perhaps designed to reduce bounceback and therefore
hit hard).  Perhaps the hard hitting crossbows simply engendered a level of
ill will towards combat archery and  the grill/faceplate penetration issue
is an easy target and attractive whipping post.

3.  Not all Kingdoms allow CA.  In some areas it has always been deemed too
risky.  Some kingdoms do allow CA but to minimize risk they have only
allowed Golf Tube arrows.  The above mentioned issues have caused these
non-CA and Goof Tube only Kingdoms to rally around the flag and speak up
more strongly against the type of combat archery that we use here.

4.  As Gilli mentioned we live in an over litigious society where McDonalds
can sell you Hot Coffee and if you burn yourself on it you can press suit
against them and win millions of dollars simply because you didn't know it
was that hot.  Waivers mean diddly and protect no one since people can not
sign away their right to sue.  Now that the Society and the individuals
involved have documented cases of this injury there is some worry that if
nothing is done about it then this could be construed and negligence.
Waivers never cover negligence.

Finally, to give everyone an idea of how much concern there is over this
issue there were 87 messages posted to the SCA Missile-Combat list the
entire month of December.  The month of March it was virtually dead the week
before and the week of Gulf War.  The weekend after Gulf War the flood
started and the month ended with 487 messages.  In April there have already
been 192 messages posted to that list and the greatest portion of all the
messages posted since Gulf War have been related to safety concerns.

Always In Service,

Lord Eadric Anstapa
Coastal Regional Archery Marshal, Ansteorra
eadric at scabrewer.com


----- Original Message -----
From: <baron at elfsea.ansteorra.org>
Subject: RE: ARCH - History repeat itself
>
> Almost 22 years ago, I fought in my first war.  It had
> combat archery, though that was still a novelty at the
> time.  I've been active in the SCA ever since.  I have
> NOT been seeing these kinds of problems all along.  Why
> is that?
>
> Combat archery is not new.  So what's changed that
> we're beginning to see this sort of problem?  It seems
> to me that answering this question should be a
> prerequisite for taking action, lest our action prove
> unefficacious.
>
> - Galen of Bristol
>


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