No. That one gives you more ammo than you could possibly need, and extra guards who are sadists with itchy trigger fingers.
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If it has infinite inertia, you can’t make it change direction.
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Right.
But if you apply enough force, all the rest of the universe will.
There might be side effects, though.
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Just turn the gun around, and beat a prisoner* to a pulp with it. “I don’t need bullets to take out any of you.”
- Note that the prisoners in my little imaginary theater of the mind are all blood-sucking, demonic vampires. There are no moral issues here.
Most evil answer: the buddy system.
Divide the prisoners into pairs, have them form indelible bonds* with each other through shared hardships and then tell them that you will shoot their buddy if they attempt to escape.
*Indelible bonds may vary. Do not try at home.
It’s one with the island with truth-tellers and liars. Life is too short. People who like this sort of thing will find that this is the sort of thing they like. I scroll on.
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So is @frauenfelder going to give the answer?
I think my solution is the only one that guarantees that no prisoner could attempt escape and survive. And like many riddles, it uses the nomenclature in the riddle, but in a non-straight forward way.
I’d tell the prisoners that the prisoner with the best list of reasons presented in a word document will go free. Then I would use the bullet points to stock up on ammo.
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You can keep them in a bulletin.
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Considering that there’s only one bullet, a lot of people appear to be triggered!
I guess the obvious answer is that you say you’ll shoot the first person who tries to escape.
The reactions here probably say a lot about people’s faith in the justice system (in the US, I’m guessing). Like, does it help to specify that the prisoners are all rapist Nazis and not non-violent pot smokers?
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I’m personally of the opinion that the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi, but that doesn’t mean I want to imagine myself in the position of being their executioner. While I’m sure part of what’s bothering people is the presumed identity of the prisoners based on our flawed and racist real life justice system, a lot of people, myself included, find it uncomfortable placing ourselves in the position of armed prison guard for those same reasons, especially with lethal force outright stated to be our duty if someone tries to flee. It’s hard to unlink those real life associations and emotions and think of it as a pure thought problem with no ethical component- and, since the entire situation is fictional, it seems gratuitous and in bad taste that it’s written in a way that requires that from the reader.
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I’d rather not to, because I have a nasty feeling it would involve something I can’t condone.
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I’m a British anarcho-communist. There isn’t any room for prisons in my mind.
I’ve also read Blessed is the Flame, so I know what can happen when prisoners have no hope left (you can start with suicide by cop and work your way up from there). It’s a better idea to not accept the kind of ideas that this brain-teaser presents.
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Like, what if 99 of them are rapist Nazis, but one of them was railroaded by the justice system because a cop “trusted his gut over the evidence,” and you have no way of knowing which is which?
In any case, there’s no way a prison guard gets paid enough to deal with all that. Fire a warning shot and hope for the best.
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I know!
I’ll detonate the bomb that will kill the 100 prisoners, blow up the prison and remove the concept of this puzzle for all future people.
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It’s good to know which commenters are comfortable with fun games about summary execution of prisoners.
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If the answer is correct nobody gets shot.
If that were true the scenario would involve no bullets.
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Tell each prisoner privately, “If there is a prison break, I will shoot YOU!!!
It could. The single bullet is a red herring, the scenario could have the guard have a gun but no ammunition. The answer will be to persuade the prisoners that they could be shot, not to shoot the gun. As @Fred_Cairns mentioned this kind of impossible riddle needs the kind of thinking that strips out the excess information.
