In the musical he tells his son to "fire [his] weapon in the air, this will put and end to the whole affair". Sounds like an honorable piece of advice, nevertheless both people that follow it in the play end up dead. Seems like the whole point of challenging someone to a duel is to have the duel. It just seems like bad advice. Did people actually challenge someone to a duel and then just fire their weapons in the air? What was the point?