go off half-cocked

go off half-cocked

民主党の指名候補争いで勝利を宣言したクリントン氏と大統領選で争うことになったトランプ氏ですが、支持者は彼の無謀な発言は実現しないと思っているようです。

Many Trump supporters don’t believe his wildest promises — and they don’t care

ALBUQUERQUE — As he does at nearly all his rallies, Donald Trump made a dramatic promise to thousands of his followers at a recent event here.
“We’re going to build a wall, and it’s going to be a real wall — it’s going to be a wall that’s going to make that ceiling look quite low, and it’s fairly high,” Trump said, gripping the sides of his lectern and gazing up at the ceiling of this city’s convention center as the crowd roared with laughter and applause. “And it’s going to get built fast, and it’s going to look beautiful because someday they’ll call it the Trump Wall. Who the hell knows?”
The wall along the Mexican border is one of Trump’s most enduring and popular proposals, prompting raucous cheering and chants wherever he goes. Yet many of Trump’s fans don’t actually think he will build a wall — and they don’t care if he doesn’t.
Many also don’t think that Trump as president would really ban foreign Muslims from entering the country, seize oil controlled by terrorists or deport 11 million illegal immigrants. They view Trump’s pledges more as malleable symbols than concrete promises, reflecting a willingness to shake things up and to be bold.
“Trump says a lot of things right off the cuff. Does he mean it to the ‘T’? I don’t think so,” said Dennis Kerns, 55, a retired ¬elementary-school teacher who lives near Albuquerque and came to the rally with his wife. “When he talks about bombing ISIS and all of that — his advisers aren’t going to let him go off half-cocked and bomb here and bomb there.”
（以下省略）
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/many-trump-supporters-dont-believe-his-wildest-promises--and-they-dont-care/2016/06/06/05005210-28c4-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_dontcare-910pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

今回取り上げる表現はgo off half-cockedです。
『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版、大修館書店）では「準備が足りず失敗する」とありました。英国式ではgo off at half-cockと表すそうです。

LDOCEでは“to do something without enough thought or preparation, so that it is not successful”と定義されてありました。

cockを調べると「（銃の）撃鉄；（発砲するときの）撃鉄の位置」の意味があることがわかりました。

ここでは「口先だけの約束は実行するような失敗はさせず、ISに対する爆撃もさせない」となるかと思いました。(flyingbird)