Still, while participants moved faster when reacting than initiating, reactors only rarely beat initiators. The extra milliseconds it took volunteers to respond to the movements of their opponents greatly offset any benefit the reactive advantage granted.
“Rarely” is not “never”, reaction is faster than conscious action by the study’s conclusions (just not fast enough to offset acting first), and, furthermore, in an actual shooting situation, the important thing is not to actually be the second to draw, but to provoke your own reaction regardless of whether the signal you react to (ie an errant twitch of the opponent’s fingers) is genuine or a false alarm.
The ‘conventional’ wisdom is to wait for the other duelist to reach for their gun because reflex is faster than conscious action.
Well it’s not. Not even close. Action beats reaction every time.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/reactions-faster-actions-study-finds-flna1C9442417
“Rarely” is not “never”, reaction is faster than conscious action by the study’s conclusions (just not fast enough to offset acting first), and, furthermore, in an actual shooting situation, the important thing is not to actually be the second to draw, but to provoke your own reaction regardless of whether the signal you react to (ie an errant twitch of the opponent’s fingers) is genuine or a false alarm.
Bunch of armchair duelists in here lol
You didn’t have to draw on me like that