Quote of the Day
Stress is the great finisher of the unpracticed shooter. After the battle of Gettysburg, 27,574 muskets were collected from the field. Of these, 24,000 were loaded; 12,000 were at least double-loaded, and of these, 6,000 had anywhere between 3 to 10 charges down the barrel. The soldiers who had left them behind were so terrified that they loaded without realizing they were not firing. – David E. Petzal, Field & Stream’s “The Gun Nut,” Amateur Hour
I’d seen those stats before, I believe, in On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by LTC Dave Grossman, but I thought it was interesting enough to be QotD.