1890: What to Bring

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What to Bring

Title text: I always figured you should never bring a gun to a gun fight because then you'll be part of a gun fight.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Bare necessities, could use elaboration. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

A table based on variations of the phrase "never bring a knife to a gun fight", an idiom usually attributed to either Elmer Keith or The Untouchables.

The third and fourth columns describe fighting (extinguishing) two types of fires -- wood and oil. Neither should be battled with knives or guns.^{[citation needed]}

The last column of the table is based on reactions to an oil fire, which should be extinguished by removing the oxygen (such as by covering it with a lid). Attempting to apply water to an oil fire will result in a very large, dangerous flame.

Should you bring ... to ...	a knife fight	a gun fight	a wood fire	an oil fire
a knife	If you bring a knife to a knife fight, you will be evenly matched with your opponent.	If you bring a knife to a gunfight, you will be at a perilous disadvantage.	Attempting to fight a wood fire with a knife will lead to you being burned.	Attempting to fight an oil fire will lead to you being burned, in addition to causing metallic scrapes.
a gun	Bringing a gun to a knife fight will leave your opponent at a perilous disadvantage.	Bringing a gun to a gunfight will leave you evenly matched with your opponent.	Shooting either a wood or an oil fire is an ineffective way of extinguishing them.[citation needed]
water	Splashing either a knife-wielder or a gunman with water will serve only to agitate your opponent.		Wood fires are best extinguished with a well-aimed splash of water.	Pouring water on an oil fire is notorious for creating huge fireballs, aggravating the situation even more.
a lid	Attempting to put a lid on the head of a knife-wielder or gunman will probably not help matters, as it may only serve to agitate said knife-wielder. There's a possibility that your attacker may be momentarily stunned by the surrealism of the situation, but even that will only buy you about a ten-foot running start. Though a metal lid with the right sort of handle could be a buckler used as a defence.		Trying to put out a wood fire with a lid would require a lid bigger than can possibly be considered 'brought with'.	An oil fire is best extinguished by cutting it off from oxygen; stovetop oil fires generally spawn in cooking pans, which often come with lids suited to making an airtight seal.

The title text makes the observation that that when a knife and a gun are present at a fight, it is considered a knife fight. Only when two guns are present is it a gun fight. So, by never bringing a gun to a fight, you can never technically be a part of a gun fight (of course, this would also put you at a perilous disadvantage).

Transcript

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Discussion

Presumably water in a gun fight _might_ work if the guns involved are particularly old fashioned (e.g. see Flintlock) 162.158.154.55 06:35, 15 September 2017 (UTC) A flintlock style uses a metal 'frizzen' which hinges over the 'pan' into which the priming power is placed. This not only protects the powder from the weather (and a splash), but also keep the powder in the pan as the firearm is moved about. When the mechanism is fired, the flint comes striking down on the surface of the frizzen which both opens the cover and directs sparks into the pan. The type of firearm that might be made inactive with a splash of water is an older design called the matchlock which held a lit cord or match in a mechanism over the open pan. The gun is fired by allowing the match to fall into the pan and detonating the powder.

Water in a gun fight would also work if the guns are water guns or if the fight is against the Wicked Witch of the West 172.68.65.198 15:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I see that bringing a lid to a knife or gun fight might serve as some sort of a shield? 141.101.107.66 06:52, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

It'd work quite well against a knife (even if the knife penetrated the shield, it still wouldn't be able to get to any part of your body except the hand holding the shield, and it'd quite likely get stuck), but not against a gun (you can make metal thick enough and strong enough to resist gunfire, but pot lids are kind of obviously not designed for that, and they're generally not big enough to confuse an opponent about where your body is either). Magic9mushroom (talk) 10:39, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

If your lid is big enough, you can extinguish a wood fire too 141.101.105.240 09:50, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Is this Randall being political about the situation with North Korea? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, although the world would probably be a better place if more people (and countries) followed the tag text. Fluppeteer (talk) 10:29, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

But what if... you bring a wood fire... TO A KNIFE FIGHT?! Also, I'm not the only person thinking about BOTW's lowest-defense shield, am I? OriginalName (talk) 11:24, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

US Military personnel use "lid" as a euphemism for their uniform hat. I think that interpretation is represented in the drawing for "lid to a knife fight". 162.158.74.201 12:57, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Using a gun to extinguish fire probably was influenced by this official tweet of a sheriff 5 days ago "To clarify, DO NOT shoot weapons @ #Irma. You won't make it turn around & it will have very dangerous side effects", which was necessary after stupid people started to try to fight the hurricane with guns. Sebastian --172.68.110.94 15:23, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

The sentence "which often come with lids suited to making an airtight seal" is inaccurate. Lids don't form an airtight seal, and airtightness is not necessary to extinguish a pan fire.--Pere prlpz (talk) 23:58, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

The phrase "don't bring a knife to a gun fight" is not a statement of general naive lack of preparation, but is specifically used to advocate literal firearms as a means of defense over literal knives. The "gun fight" refers to encounters with armed criminals who, the phrase suggests, will still use their gun to your disadvantage whether or not you are capable of fighting back. It has been subverted occasionally as an implied threat (usually in drama rather than reality) when the situation is reversed, i.e. the criminal is armed with a knife and the would-be victim is armed with a gun. The violence implied by "a gun fight" tends to restrict more metaphorical use of the phrase. The title text seems to be based in the original meaning, with the implication that Randall expects a gun being used against an armed criminal to escalate violence. 162.158.74.231 (talk) 20:08, 16 September 2017 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Struggling to work out whether this comment is tongue in cheek, or for real.162.158.155.32 16:31, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Hmmm... Since I don't see the humour in this comment if it was meant as a joke, and trolling is just pointless, I'm going to go ahead and treat it as a serious comment. No. Just no. A literal knife to a literal gun fight would be where the saying came from, but even then only as a metaphor or simile, as an issue easily understood. It should be obvious to anyone who knows how guns work that the gun would have an almost complete advantage. The saying actually means being on unequal footing in some conflict, where the person being warned is trying to attack or go against someone who is better prepared. The stereotypical jock trying to argue a point against the captain of the debate team (presumably the captain being the most experienced at making logical well-reasoned arguments, and as such would have no problem winning such an argument). A brand new private in the army challenging a multi-stipe sargeant to a fist fight (presumably anyone who has risen to the rank of sargeant and gained several stripes besides is quite experienced at fighting). A child challenging an Olympic medalist to a race (besides being an adult, presumably someone who has won a medal has tremendous ability at whatever kind of race this is). "Bringing a knife to a gunfight" is a common SAYING to describe such situations. NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:01, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Just noticed that the comic on xkcd got a little correction: The "Water to a knife fight" Cueball was missing an arm. --162.158.202.202 23:12, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Here's still the old image. Can anyone update it? --162.158.202.52 21:59, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

The gun is the only thing with two uses, so it's obviously the most useful. 1337357 (talk)

A nuke would neutralize all of these threats, so obviously it would be the "most" useful. But nuking a wood fire to put it out would probably be overkill. Randall isn't trying to say that something is the "most" useful, he's just showing us different scenarios.Herobrine (talk) 13:13, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Is this a co-violence matrix?

This should probably be in the Charts category, but I can't figure out how to do so. 172.68.65.106 18:53, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Done. Herobrine (talk) 01:55, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Brining a knife to a wood fire would probably help after a knife fight if you have a bad wound you need to cauterize or something… Szeth Pancakes (talk) 19:43, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

The transcript is not currently incomplete. Any objection to removing the Incomplete tag? Nitpicking (talk) 03:21, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Huh. However, even though someone posted here about the updated image in 2017, it has not been swapped. I've never edited one of these pages to change the comic image, anyone feel like stepping up? Nitpicking (talk) 03:24, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Simple for you/anyone like you to do:

1) Upload the new image first (presume you have sufficient rights to do so, as a named contributor of some standing), if it isn't already somewhere in the uploads area and you know where it is.

2) Edit the page and accordingly change the line (very near the top, in the comic-template element) that says:

| image     = what_to_bring.png

3) (Optional but expected...) Add something, maybe in a Trivia section, to explain there was an original image (*with linky to "what_to_bring.png"*) that had been corrected.

...the assumption with those instructions is that you/whoever upload the long-revised version (not the _2x one!) as "what_to_bring_NEW.png" or however you'd like to uniquely name it as different, rather than update/overwrite the current on-server image.

Yes, you should also be able to do that (and *linky* to the prior-version-of image, in the historical note bit while not needing to change the comic-template-block at all ...I'm almost certain), but it's not the usual practice. And it might even be more complicated to do, at least the first time anyone tries to get the prior-version link just right and not looking odd. ;) 162.158.159.27 04:06, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. Nitpicking (talk) 18:17, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I feel like the intended takeaway from this graph is that of the four implements, the gun is the most useful. 172.71.178.207 18:09, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

The quantity of water isn't really specified in the matrix. Although the illustration shows a bucket, bringing an appropriately-supplied firehose or water cannon to either type of fight would quite probably win it. --172.70.142.124 04:36, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Avoiding knife fights?

Where did it say “the best way to survive a knife fight is to not get into a knife fight” again? I am pretty sure that I read it in the context of this comic back then. (And I acted accordingly since then! It worked, I am still alive.) --172.70.247.126 17:11, 16 August 2023 (UTC)