Guns Myths Thanks to the Movies

How many of you watch movies or tv shows where the characters good and bad are handling or shooting guns and what they are doing just makes you cringe? At work at the range pro-shop they are always running films in the background. A scene caught my attention again the other day and I felt I had to write about this because they can be so funny. I suppose most non-gun owners don't have a clue and I am guessing the production companies count on that. But in this day they have to realize that there are enough of us out there watching these shows and laughing at the blatant negligence or silly affects portrayed on film.

The most famous (or infamous?) has to be Charlie's Angel's, the original, stance of walking or running with the pistol pointing straight up the air and finger on trigger. We use that as a "running" joke here at the range. And I don't know about you but when I fire guns I have ear protection on. If I fire a gun without, which I have accidentally, it knocks you to the ground and leaves your ears ringing for a day or more. Exceptions to military who have become deaf from shooting that way. Most of the film characters don't even flinch. Not possible!

The scene I saw the other day was in Die Hard 2.  To be fair I went on line and researched silly guns scenes and got more movie titles to share. This Die Hard 2, most if not all James Bond movies, Shooter, In The Line of Fire and No Country for Old Men all have one thing in common. Silencers. One can't just stick a potato on the end of a barrel or better yet as in Shooter a water bottle stuffed with socks??? and have the gun be silent. A silencer does not even make a gun silent. They show gunmen/women sneaking around in a quiet library and blow someone away "quietly". Except for a .22 pistol with silencer there is not going to be a "pffft" when the gun is fired. It is loud still. Duh! Speaking of sneaking around. How about the over obsessiveness of cocking guns?

People are sneaking around quietly only to cock the gun or rifle or shotgun to show how cool that noise is. Shot guns are the worse offenders in movies. I thought the gun was already loaded and cocked and ready to fire? So cocking it means you have to un-cock it to cock it again which also means you flew a round out of the chamber. Not so sneaky and quiet. Boondock Saints is a funny example. Video is above. They had to have the extra noise before they assassinated some guy. They had to un-cock to cock to get that cool noise.  Now. Explain to me about full autos.

Whenever anyone pulls out a full auto machine gun they seem to have 3000 rounds in there 30 round magazine. 30 rounds is 30 rounds. Done in 3-4 seconds. Tops! But Tony Montana seems to have an infinite amount of ammo in his machine gun. (Scarface for those of you not fans like I was) Arnold and Stalone could hold a machine in gun in one hand and a belt of ammo in the other and fire away. Did not even get short of breath. Amazing studs I tell you! Revolvers are guilty of this as well. Somehow a gunman can kill 10 people with a 6 round cylinder. Go figure.

Yes, you have to admit that the scenes are fun to watch. But when you know the down and dirty and not so glamorous details of firearms, these scenes make you roll your eyes. I wonder how many times the cops have come upon a crime scene in real life and found bits of potato or socks splattered all over the dead guys? Hmm. I'll have to research that.

30calgal
"Shoot Like A Girl! If You Can........."