Club Obi Wan

Disclaimer: please read this with a grain of salt, and try not to shoot the messager. I relay the fond memory of a teenager of 20 years ago. Nothing more.

Anyway, when I was back in my teens, and at the beginnings of my interest in whipcracking, I read something in an Australian publication that really caught my eye. I must say now though that I no longer appear to have this book, and cannot back up what I say with a reference.

It was a book on early pioneer history of Australia's North. There was a bush policeman/drover by the name of Wentworth D'Arcy Uhr in the 1800s in far north Australia. This book quoted a contemporary report of the time that a man had pulled a firearm on D'Arcy Uhr during a bush trip and that Uhr had disarmed him with a stockwhip.

Now, this might have been a tall story, or something a local journalist contrived (lied about, or creatively 'expanded upon'). I note it down only for interest, and to say that I definitely read this, and remember the book. I also believe this publication preceded the Indiana Jones films, so cannot be explained as wishful thinking on the part of Indy fans.

I wonder, though. How really would a whip disarm a man holding a revolver? Would the whip cut him across the fingers? Or pull the gun away?

Funny story JMObi and really mysterious
I think it is possible to hit your enemy´s wrist or capture his gun by wraping it with the cracker and fall, but however you try to disarm anyone, I think one thing is certain, he or she or it ^^ must be a really bad marksman or at least pretty clumsy

Yeah, the only way it makes sense to me is if the guy with the pistol wasn't really going to use it - just threatening somone with it. Anyway, I wanted to quote this story some months ago, when I joined, but held back because I couldn't find the book. I ended up saying 'to heck with it'.

I'd say it would be possible to be true, but surely an element of luck would be involved, even for a fantastic whip cracker.

Half of everything is luck, James. And the other half? Fate !

I'd say that it is somewhat of a tall tale. There's also the apocryphal stories of guys with whips going faster than quick draw artists, (and hitting their target before the guy with the gun can squeeze off a bullet.) This is most likely an exaggeration of facts as well.

But just to play devil's advocate here, I think it all has to do with reaction times, (to quote Jack Burton, "it's all in the reflexes...") By the nature of whips, really...if someone is GOOD, and they're throwing it to hit you, you can't really dodge. The whip moves a bit too fast, (hence in the Australian sport of "Whip Boxing," it's not really dodging the whip, it's hitting your opponant more often...Accuracy.

Taking the gun by wrapping it? Probably not the case. More likely laying open the back of his hand so that he instinctually dropped the gun.

And really, if someone's got the drop on you with a gun, and MEANS to shoot you, (not a matter of IF, but a matter of WHEN,) and you were armed with only a stockwhip, what have you got to lose?

Whips practical weapons? No way. Whips against guns? Dude, you're in the wrong fight. Whips as the only means of defence you've got? Well, I'd rather have the whip than be empty handed...

But Zorro and Indiana Jones can do it!!!
(The preceding was sarcasm)

Ahhh, but only through the magic of editing, and a healthy suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience....

I agree with what everyone has written here, and thanks for all your comments and suggestions. Excellent points thefish (is it Dan?).

But, here's my own, slightly plausible (should the mythbusters try this one?) account of what might have happened, were it actually true - after all, it may well have been taken from a factual police report.

D'Arcy came upon a crime in progress while he was working as a drover - the crime was probably what they call cattle duffing in Australia (someone walking stolen cattle across country). Since he was not then acting as a policeman, he had no sidearm with him. He challenged the head criminal, who started to pull his revolver from his holster. D'Arcy Uhr's stockwhip shot through the air like a lightning bolt and blasted the bad guy's hand away from the holster, causing him to drop the gun on the ground. In a swoop Uhr leapt from his horse and picked up the pistol before the crims knew what had happened to them.

D'Arcy Uhr and his assistants later file a report with the local Police constable, 300 miles away. I'm being colorful and creative here )

Aussies have never been big exponents of the ol' quick draw thing. Pistols were, in those days, generally kept in secure flap holsters.

There are a lot of crazy and amazing things that have happened out in the outback, or 'bush' as Australians often call it. This colorful account seems plausible to me, given the sort of interesting characters I have met such as drovers, stockmen and prospectors.