Television and Gun Accuracy Don’t Mix
by John LottHas “Burn Notice” gotten new writers? They used to have some very insightful comments about guns and crime (e.g., see the episode in season 2 entitled “Lesser Evil”). Yet, now one needs a scorecard to keep tracks of all the errors in some of the shows. Take some of the errors in the most recent show, “Partners in Crime,” posted on Hulu.
At 10:10 into the episode, Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell) explains to Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donovan) that an individual who they are checking up on in Florida, “Owns a gun, but it is registered.” The only problem is that Florida, where the show is said to be occurring, and the vast majority of the rest of the US, doesn’t have gun registration. Indeed, only four states require the registration of handguns and one state requires the registration of all long guns (several other states require the registration of so-called “assault weapons.”
At 16:20 Sam Axe says: “The cops are probably matching ballistics right now even without your gun.” Ugh? Now I concede there’s possibility that this comment might have been geared solely to freak out Tim (the suspected thief”, but given the previous conversation about guns being registered between Weston and Axe, I am not so sure. And there are never any knowing winks between the main characters to indicate that they are in on some joke they’re playing on the bad guy.
Now the only possibility is that two states (Maryland and New York) have spent millions of dollars registering the ballistic fingerprints of new handguns before they’re sold. The notion is that this data bank could then be used to catch criminals from bullets found at crime scenes. But this never solved any violent gun crimes for the simple reason that the friction from the barrel that produces markings on the bullets also causes the inside of the barrel to wear (read: “change”) and thus produces different markings on bullets over time. Also two barrels that come off the same assembly line will initially very likely produce essentially the same markings on a bullet (it would be like taking molds of all new tire treads with the notion of keeping them on file to help solve crimes where tire tracks are available).
Finally, at 35:30, Michael Weston has this conversation with the bad guy in the episode.
Michael Weston: [The gun] was stolen and the serial number has been filed off.
Damon (Jeff Parise): Which means that it is untraceable.
Michael Weston: Completely untraceable.
Again, I concede that it is possible Mr. Weston knew this statement was false, but that he made it anyway to freak out Damon. In this case, though, part of the statement is true and part of it is false. Why add in incorrect information if you have a strong explanation anyway and the false information might let the person you are trying to trick think you don’t know what you are doing? It is particularly troublesome in this show because the whole premise is that Mr. Weston has all the angles on potential problems thought through.
The false part of the statement involves the claim about serial numbers. Serial numbers can’t really be effectively filed off. The stamping of the number into the metal creates structural abnormalities in the metal below the stamped number that can be discerned by a forensics lab. The portion of the metal where the numbers were stamped is denser than the surrounding metal and that makes it possible to determine the original serial number.
Now the statement about the gun being stolen is a different matter because there is no one to trace the gun back to. That said, given the earlier statement in the show about gun registration, registration doesn’t work to solve crimes. In theory, if a gun is registered and it is left at the scene, it could theoretically be traced back to the owner. There are a couple of problems with that. 1) Crime guns are virtually never left at the scene of the crime. When they are left at the scene it is almost always because the criminal has been seriously wounded or killed, and thus you are going to catch the criminal anyway. 2) Even when the crime guns are left at the scene they turn out not to be registered to the criminal who left them at the scene.
Here’s a link to a piece that I wrote for the Canadian Newspaper “The National Post” a few years ago. Additional information is available in the forthcoming third edition of More Guns, Less Crime.
Don’t get me wrong, the show is still entertaining, but the frequent factual errors can become quite disconcerting. “Burn Notice” used to really stand out from other television shows for its insightfulness. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. One suspects that political correctness on gun issues might be the cause for the changes.
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127 Comments
I think that's why I'm more of a television sci-fi fan, or why I watch mostly the Discovery Channel and the Military Channel: there aren't any politics to get in the way of the writing.
They were not trying to be accurate. It was all part of messing with the criminal's mind. For instance, the Sam Axe dialogue was a parody/satire of the CSI shows (Show by him even pulling of the Horatio Caine sunglasses trick). Westen's and the whole show is about his ability to manipulate and deceive the criminals because, as the cliched but true statement goes, criminals are stupid–especially amateur ones such as those in the show.
I still haven't caught the show (sorry folks), but my biggest pet peeve is when someone is holding a revolver on someone and there are obviously no bullets in the gun! Second peeve is when someone puts a silencer on a revolver. Third peeve is someone finds a shell casing and says it's 9mm. Then knows what kind of 9mm the gun came from.
I noticed those things too but chalked it up to ignorance on the part of the writer. I'll stick with Burn Notice till it throws what John Nolte calls the leftist sucker punch (the way Psych did recently — don't remember the name of the episode but it was the one with that wrestler guy playing Juliet's brother). Besides, it has the great Bruce Campbell in it.
If you have two bullets from two different scenes, you can match them in a comparison to say the same gun was used in both crimes.
If you have the gun, you can swab it for DNA and run it against the criminal database.
Serial numbers can be effectively obliterated if you know how.
The Bruce Campbell playing David Caruso gags were the best in that entire episode.
What is your source for this?
Bad gun use is just one among hundreds of other cliches seen in film and TV. I don't think there's any political motive, at least in this case. It's up there with "Why do people who come home from grocery shopping always have a French bread sticking out of the bag?"
Believe me, I'm a Trek fan so I'm used to the complaints about bad science, bad astronomy, bad physics, etc.
They think the French bread gives it more depth (the shopping bag, not the story line). Celery is another stand by. These products prove we're dealing with real people in real situations who like really long food.
But say, did you ever think that the flip communicators they use in Star Trek would be like our own cell phones today? Well, I thought it was cool.
I stopped watching Burn Notice two weeks ago when we are served with this leftists nugget:
British guy Gilroy needs Michael Weston to steal a high powered rifle from a militia group. When they arrive near the militia camp, Weston asks "Who are these guys?" Gilroy responds, "Just a bunch of right-wing separatists." To which Weston replies, "You mean white supremacists?" Gilroy, "Tomato, tomato."
And, that's when I turned the show off. Another left-wing suck punch. Another great show returns to the entertainment industry's default position: cultural Marxism. Should I be surprised?
I also sensed a small left-hand turn in Burn Notice this season. Recently, there was a "right-wing" militant group, and in the finale, there were pictures shown of blown-up buses and murdered middle-easterners supposedly carried out by Garrett Dilahunt's character, who is supposed to be an American spy.
I know this show is more about cool gadgets and stuff blowing up, but come on … If a bus is being blown up in the Mideast, %99.999999 percent of the time it's an Islamist.
As long as Bruce is in the show, I'll watch it, but I'm sensing a great disturbance in the Force.
I stopped watching Burn Notice two weeks ago when we are served with this leftists nugget:
British guy Gilroy needs Michael Weston to steal a high powered rifle from a militia group. When they arrive near the militia camp, Weston asks "Who are these guys?" Gilroy responds, "Just a bunch of right-wing separatists." To which Weston replies, "You mean white supremacists?" Gilroy, "Tomato, tomato."
And, that's when I turned the show off. Another left-wing suck punch. Another great show returns to the entertainment industry's default position: cultural Marxism. Should I be surprised?
As to the author's question "Has Burn Notice gotten new writers?" – I don't know if the lead writer is new, but his name is Rashad Raisani.
I've really, really, really tried to watch "Burn Notice" (as I am a HUGE Bruce Campbell fan!) but I seriously cannot get past how dense the show is, how skinny and unappealing Fiona is (and they want us to think she's sexy?!), and something else… oh yeah, the grainy, oversaturated look to the show (I get that it's Miami and it's sunny and oversaturated there, but seriously folks, watch "White Collar" sometime if you want to know how a TV show filmed in the 21st-century should look).
Anyway, if you want to reply to this comment, you're going to need two things: an unregistered cell-phone and a tiny remote-controlled truck. There's nothing you can't rig up with a little know how and a tub of yogurt.
"frequent factual errors can become quite disconcerting."
I believe a lot of it is intentional. It really used to bug me, too, until I read a news account about a guy who tried to murder his wife three different times (and failed) based on what he had seen on Matlock. (Throwing a toaster in the bathtub, etc.) I believe they dumb down a lot of details like that so that TV doesn't become an instructional handbook for the criminally inclined and, shall we kindly say, less informed among us?
An episode of "Quincy"?
Sorry, Freelancer76, but you are incorrect on these points. Take your first point. It depends on how many times the gun is fired between those two crimes. The more it is fired, the more wear there is and the less the markings will match. As to your second point, simply touching something doesn't leave DNA evidence. On your third point, if you replace the metal that the serial number was stamped on you could do it, but that seems pretty impractical.
I just finished watching the latest episode of CSI:NY, where the younger techs are stymied at how to read the
serial number which has been filed off a murder weapon. Detective Mac Taylor demonstrates a method which
brings up the numbers so it can be traced to find the murderer. At least on this show they seem to go the extra
mile to get the little details right!
Actually, I think you might be misinterpreting that sentence. Michael making that distinction was supposed to be a clarification, but Gilroy's blase rejection of the difference just served to highlight the fact that the character simply didn't care. Besides, I don't think have the sociopathic Gilroy endorse that line of thinking serves as a real big plus for the equation of white supremacists with the right wing.
Sorry, I haven't seen the show, but from what you say I think that they have gotten it only half right. This tracing of guns doesn't solve crimes as I discussed in the piece.
I haven't owned a TV since 1977. Nothing there but crap, propaganda, and idiocy. Nice to know I'm still right about that . . .
Burn Notice = WIN. That is all.
Yeah I stopped caring about accuracy around the episode where he dressed as "El Diablo" and started snapping out explosions.
*Snap* Boom… El Diablo esta aqui amigo!
Was it just me or did anyone else see the Fonze putting on a life vest over his leather jacket by the water ski rack in that episode?
If that were the case, then Weston's failure to call out Gilroy on his asinine "tomato, tomato" comment makes Weston appear as if he's given a tacit endorsement of the thought-line that there's no difference between "right-wing" and "white supremacy." Weston too shrugs off the tomato comment.
I guess I'm a cynic. When it comes to Hollywood writers using the phrase "right-wing" – then I don't give them the benefit of the doubt that they may not be intentionally bashing the right -wing. When was the last time anything right-wing was given fair treatment by Hollywood? Anybody watching that episode who is not politically attuned will hear the words right wing and white supremacist used in conjuction with another and think: "Yep, makes sense." – And that was the intention of the writers. Associate the right with racism, say it enough times and it becomes truth.
Another problem with the show is Weston repeatedly stating that coercive interrogation doesn't work? Predictable Hollywood. They sucker-punched us with "24" and now "Burn Notice."
Yep, yep and double YEP!
Thank you Mr Lott!
Your work to set the record straight on guns and correct the utter fallacies in the media is absolutely invaluable to the defense of the 2nd amendment!
Anybody watching "Southland?" It seems to be getting good marks from real cops. A bit soapy, but it's not bad.
Hey…It's a TV show…Who cares..?.
Besides, it's one of the few decents shows on TV….Good, likable characters, esp. FIONA…Yowussa…..!!
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I have noticed more of this type of liberal inaccuracy this season, which is disappointing. The earlier reference to right-wing "separatists" bothered me, but I was more taken by the meme, between Sam and Westen, that "torture doesn't work – people will say anything to stop the pain."
Enhanced interrogation and even torture works well in extracting accurate information when handled by professionals. This is why real torture (of the electric shock, bamboo under fingernails type) is routine in many countries around the world. Interrogators know bits and pieces before they ask the first question, and they will check out any info gained through interrogation to see if it is accurate or not. Interrogation is a long process, and involves much more than causing pain one time to get information that is fake. In those countries where President Obama sends our prisoners for rendition, if the prisoner lies under torture it means more brutal torture in the future.
Ironically, Sam and Michael use enhanced interrogation techniques routinely that are unlawful and decried by liberals, including threats of death and faked executions. Virtually every time they question someone they use techniques outside the Army Field Manual that would get a US soldier or intelligence operative arrested because they cross the current line into "torture" – and then they say "torture doesn't work"!
What makes these memes more damaging or disappointing is that Michael and Sam are held out to be experts in fieldwork, with every episode giving "insights" into the "real" world of espionage.
As always, a big fan of John Lott, whom I reckon to be one of the few legitimate social scientists writing today – his first work on gun statistics yielded results contrary to his expectations but he ethically published what the data led him to conclude and reject his prior thesis.
Sam Axe says: “The cops are probably matching ballistics right now even without your gun.”
Hucbald responds: "BwAAAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAaaa!"
What kills me is – aside from the silencer on a revolver "thing" (A big percentage of a revolver's noise is generated by gas escaping between the cylinder and the barrel) – is that the silencer sound used in almost every TV show and movie is the same little whistle-thud that's been around since the 60's. The very same stock sound effect. It makes me laugh every single time.
Television and __________ accuracy don't mix. Our family doctor cannot abide "House", and I recall an episode of "Law and Order" where a suspect was said to be pumping his own gas in NJ. Those who know better will always grit their teeth, or turn it off and the rest will watch in blissful ignorance. That's how TV works.
OK, it is a minor point, but there is one movie gun thing that drives me nuts. Any time any gun is cocked in a movie it makes the chu-chung sound of a shotgun. Doesn't matter if it is a pistol, an uzi, a bolt action rifle, or a .50 cal it always the same chu-chung. I once saw a film where a woman cocked one of those tiny little lady guns femme fetalles use in noir films, and the audience was treated to a sound that could only be made by a shotgun the size of a cannon.
I know it spetty, but it always make me chuckle.
CSI Miami is famous for having most of the guns that come through the lab registered. My personal favorite if from CSI NY. I revolver was used in a murder and someon redrilled the barrel with a drill. The drill didnt reach all the way in the barrel and that was supposed to be enough to match it to the murder. What crap.
New writers for sure. More exposition, too much stating of the obvious. That old crispness is gone. The characters keep it alive but it ain't what it was.
NCIS did a similar thing this week. One agent talking to another about checking with the ATF and discovering a .45 handgun registered to the bad guy.
This whole article feels a little nit-picky. You really can't expect a television writer to be a legal expert, or up to date on little known forensic techniques. Especially on a show like Burn Notice that covers such a wide variety of topics. Nor can you expect extensive research to be done on every little throw away line. They have slightly over a week to write the script, it's not a lot of time.
Plus, two of your three points can easily be explained away. Sam was obviously spouting CSI nonsense in order to unnerve the perp. The subtext there was clear, nothing Sam said as the CSI guy made any sense. And while I highly doubt the writer of the episode knew that filed off serial numbers could still be read, it makes sense that Michael would lie about it. The whole purpose of that talk was to get the guy to use the gun.
I'm not even sure why this post was written, honestly. It's not like the writer was trying to make some sort of political point with any of that.
"Another problem with the show is Weston repeatedly stating that coercive interrogation doesn't work? Predictable Hollywood. They sucker-punched us with "24" and now "Burn Notice."
They only did that because they didn't want to film any hardcore torture scenes like 24. It was mentioned in a commentary that the writers felt like it didn't fit the show, and they're right. Michael solves problems through trickery, not brute force. Besides, torture wouldn't have worked in any of those situations anyway. Every time the subject came up, they were interrogating highly trained operatives in a short time span.
"I'll stick with Burn Notice till it throws what John Nolte calls the leftist sucker punch (the way Psych did recently — don't remember the name of the episode, but it was the one with that wrestler guy playing Juliet's brother)."
I don't know if you noticed, but most of Psych's episodes are takeoffs of various movie and television genres. A secret, shadowy government conspiracy is pretty much a staple of the military genre that the show was doing that week. Psych really isn't a show you can take remotely seriously.
That's funny my doctor loves House. He just ignores the inaccuracies and gets into the story.
They can run for minutes through machine-gun fire and never ever get a flesh wound, ever!
It is fiction and in fiction there is such a thing called Poetic License. Do I think you can make any sort of contraption you want out of a cell phone? No, but I suspend my disbelief because I am being entertained, not taught. If you want pin-point accuracy than you should only watch documentaries.
He seems to have been with them since the start of season 2, so I'm not sure what your point is – unless it's that he has a vaguely Muslim-sounding name, which is, in itself, meaningless.
Exactly. Burn Notice does a great job of making it seem like they are letting us in on tradecraft, but I think that at least 60% of it is either made up by the writers or cribbed from other TV shows and movies (the rest is common knowledge). The show is a mixture of The Equalizer and MacGyver with touches of Mission: Impossible and The A-Team, not a manual on urban covert operations.
Wow, that's a great idea. Come to a site where intelligent people watch television and movies, and post a throwaway comment that proves you did not watch the show you are commenting about. Or perhaps you were impaired in some way? If you've had too many beers to follow a show, take a hint and don't post about it.
In "El Diablo", one of the cleverest Burn Notice scripts I've seen, Michael Weston creates a kind of devil character. In order to convince hardened criminals and gang members that he is more scary than they are, he does an elaborate setup where when he snaps his fingers, Sam Axe and Fiona set off explosives that they've carefully placed for maximum effect. It was a delicious con and in the end when Weston walks way and his "devil" face relaxes into a grin, you just have to laugh. What a great episode!
I didn't get the impression that Simon was a spy. He may have been one in the past, but it was obvious that he'd gone off the reservation. The organization that Michael worked for wanted to crucify him because they thought he did all the stuff that Simon did. That tells me that none of the bus bombings, murdered middle-easterners, etc, were government sanctioned.
Damn. Straight.
Every time, Fiona or Sam was watching from a distance with a remote detonator. It wasn't jumping the shark. It was made of awesome.
I agree, Justin, that Psych is meant to be just pure fun. Did you catch last night's episode? I loved all the Hitchcock references. Gus and Shawn are a couple of goofs who play off each other perfectly, and Corbin Bernsen is perfect as Shawn's dad. I will cut this show some slack until the liberal slant becomes too irritating too watch.
It's Burn Notice for Pete's sake! The very premise of the show is preposterous! The show is campy and fun and definitely not to be taken as some kind of genuine exposition of How the World Works.
And CSI: Miami? The show belongs on the SyFy channel. Mythbusters could do an entire season on the "science" of such shows.
If you're watching tv action shows for the educational experience, you're always going to be sorely disappointed.
In the season 2 episode where they held a Russian Gangster in the shipping container to get information from him), they used interrogation techniques that the left regularly call "torture" when they are applied by our military and intelligence services (solitary confinement, restraints, uncomfortable and disorienting environments, death threats and mock executions), and made it clear that they are not torture. If that's how they are continuing in season 3, that's fine by me.
also on the list, tires ALWAYS squeal when cars pull out- even on gravel or dirt. and my favorite, nobody, but NOBODY, has screens on their windows in TV or movies, EVER.
That's true! And did you ever notice that guns with empty magazines always go "click" when you pull the trigger, no matter what kind of action they have? That's so we know the shooter's out of bullets. To reinforce the point, the shooter almost always "clicks" a half dozen times or so, then looks at his gun like there's something wrong with it. And the really dramatic shooter will actually throw the empty gun away.
My favorite cliche is the infinite resolution camera: you can blow up a frame as much as you like, and even if what you're trying to see was less than a pixel in the orignal image, you will still get a portrait quality image out the end, suitable for framing.
c'mon, how tough would it be to run gun-related scenes in scripts past somebody who knows a rifled bore from a hole in the ground? they could find a thousand guys, and a fair number of gals these days, who would do it for free just for fun. heck, i'd do it.
these niggling inaccuracies unnecessarily detract from the story & distract the audience.
I have a tiny remote-controlled duck. How far will that get me?
the worst i've seen was some years ago on CSI- Las Vegas. the team is trying to find a spent piece of brass in a junk-filled van. one of them holds the autoloading pistol up roughly where it was fired from, RACKS THE SLIDE BY HAND, and then follows the casing down to a little crevice where it's snuggled right next to the missing evidence. my wife & i laughed our butts off!
for those non-gun folk here: if you clamp a pistol in a machine rest (such as that used for accuracy testing) and fire a full clip, not one of those cases is going to land in the same place. holding it in your hand? not actually firing the gun- just working the action manually? in a vehicle interior? NFW.
I don't think Burn Notice tries to be accurate. It tries to create veracity. The characters are supposed to be deep covert special ops badasses, so they talk and act like experts in tradecraft. The things they say and do may be utter bullshit in the real world, but they say and do them with such casual confidence that we accept them as true – at least for the duration of the scene.
That's called…ACTING!!!!!
And no rear-view mirrors when filmed from the front (don't want to block the actor's faces).
funny you should mention "House" on this thread. Hugh Laurie wrote a humorous spy thriller some years ago titled "The Gun Seller". The story wasn't half bad, the writing respectable, and the guns & armament references were very accurate. Either he knows that stuff or had somebody go over it who did. I was impressed.
I also suspect he has a lot of input on his character on House, because the main protagonist in the book is the same crotch-rocket riding, sarcastic SOB with a warped sense of humor…
I HATE THAT! If you only have a blob to work with, blowing it up just gives you a bigger blob. Does Hollywood know how many Zsuzas are watching? Or do they care?
Anybody care to comment on "Criminal Minds?" How accurate is the depiction of "criminal profilng" on that show? Once again, I think it's the utter assurance with which the actors spew psychobabble at each other that makes you believe in what they say.
Actually, they haven't really used that one for about 15 years. They've replaced it with something just as bad: the magic 'enhancement' computer program, that makes the fuzzy, pixelated blob that you should get into a razor-sharp image. I like it when they successfully 'enhance' somebody's face, even though the pixels in the 'original' image were bigger than the suspect's nose! How can you 'enhance' details that weren't in the image to start with?
If people don't like the way the show is changing then send them an e-mail and tell them. If enough of us let them know we want it non PC then they will cave to pressure.
The best "torture" scene is where Maddie gets in on it. Mike and Fi are fighting or something, and the bad guy is cuffed in Maddie's garage, after not giving anything up. Maddie walks in, lights a cigarrette. "Can't even hear myself think in there. You want one? It's not like you'll have to worry about lung cancer or anything. Once they've decided they're not going to get any information, they usually end it pretty quick."
He sings like a jaybird after that. Priceless!
Well I don't watch burn notice so I really don't care, I liked the Unit, they were pretty good in the rifle department. Gee's it was the only tv show having guys shoot people with Blaser R-93 LS's, I shoot a blaser myself. One of the greatest rifles you can buy.
Nope, not meaningless. Totally pertinent.
The Simon character wasn't a CIA spy, he was one of Management's freelancers who handled bombing and arson and so dangerous that eventually even Management (that great Hollywood fiction of the nationless spy agency) put him on ice. And that right wing militant group wasn't minutemen or tea partiers, they were generic neo nazi white supremecists who unfortunately do exist and are technicly considered on the right of the political spectrum (the whole spectrum concept is such a gross oversimplification that it causes more trouble than its worth).
I love it when a plan comes together
Maybe the escaped goat got it and the this sick "So -Sci – O – ty". Or maybe it was the codeine overdose Sam.
My biggest issue with the many obvious (to me, anyway), technical and time-line glitches, is the disharmony it causes within my family.
Example; Me: "Hey, he's out of ammo, his slide is locked", or "He lost his hubcap in that last chase, when did he go back and get it?"
Family: "C'mon, Dad, it's just a stupid show! Can't you just enjoy it like normal people?"
Jeez, you'd think they would respect and admire my keen eye, expertise, and attention to detail. Bunch 'a brain dead ….
Yeah, i just love them repeatedly clicking an empty Government .45…..
(Note to non-shooters- when the M1911 Colt (like many, many other semis) runs out of ammo, the slide locks back, making it pretty damn obvious you're dry. And since it's a single-action, you can't dry-snap the thing without manually cocking it.)
The one that drives me nuts is when they make the sound of a hammer being cocked back and then they show the guy using a Glock. Or when a revolver gets pulled out you hear the gun being cocked and yet the hammer is down when shown from the side view.
To really hear the first one, watch the scene in The Matrix when the cops enter the room with Trinity just before she kills them all. This is not the only movie to do this either.
Dunno. But keep in mind that unless the round being fired is subsonic, then the bullet itself creates a traveling sonic boom – the "crack"- no matter what's stuck on the barrel. Special Operators use low-velocity ammo with silencers for that reason.
Snipers sometimes use silenced rifles but for a very different reason- you obviously can't 'silence' a high-velocity bullet, but at least masking the propellant/gas noise at the source makes it difficult to locate the shooter's location by sound.
i've read that is the one thing that really annoys real cops & crime labs- that any crappy photo can be magically and infinitely enlarged & refined.
or even experienced cops or SWAT team members drawing their weapons and ALWAYS needing to rack the slide to chamber a round- as if they're never carried ready to rock. gotta have that extra little bit of action…
Freelancer76 is absolutely correct on the serial number issue. It's actually pretty easy, but no point in going into specifics here.
it depends a lot on the cartridge and size & type of silencer. anything from a quiet, dull 'pfft' from a sub-sonic .22 rimfire rifle with a big silencer, to a pretty big, but kinder, gentler 'BOOM' from a big caliber pistol with minimal silencing. like Hucbald said, they're actually all different.
A silencer doesn't actually silence the sound of the shot, it distorts it so that you can't tell the direction it came from and it disguises it so that it sounds less like a gun shot. I've had the honor of shooting a silenced H&K MP5 and while it is quiet enough to not need hearing protection it still does make noise. More of a muffled pop and the sound of the action operating. If you ever get the chance I suggest you go for it.
To add to this I love when the guys are in a gun fight and they keep shooting even when the slide on their guns are locked back indicating that they are empty. I've seen this in numerous movies and TV shows. I almost get whiplash rolling my eyes when that happens.
Another one that gets me is when guns change in a movie. In the recent movie The Taking of Pelam 123, Washington's character is handed a Walther PPK to use if he gets the opportunity. When he does pull the gun out it is a totally different gun and model. Looked more like a lady smith in the scene where he has to shoot it.
It's called fact checking and it helps make the characters appear more knowledgeable and believable. With the money they waist on so many items in TV and movies they could afford a few people to fact check things like this for their shows.
Yeah, unfortunately I didn't pull that episode up on the ole TIVO until after I posted. Looks like "Burn Notice" is off the list now too. Which is sad, Bruce Campbell is great. As for what JM Graham said, that may be true but realistically drug runners would've had the fire power he was looking for, not a bunch of rednecks.
The fact that an evil American corporation was poisoning the people of S. America was a bit over the top too. Especially when Tony Almedia turns to Marxist rebels for help.
Another one I love (most heinously in Die Hard 2) is shooting blanks (that
is, the script says they're blanks) from automatic weapons without blank
adapters.
Maybe, but after getting bombarded by everything else, I don't need my comedies preaching to me about "Don't ask, Don't tell".
"Serial numbers can be effectively obliterated if you know how." Sorry to rain on your parade, NOT possible. Can we say molecular density? This statement was "true" up until about 1995. Yes it is EXPENSIVE and most police departments can't afford to have the latest equipment, but uncle sam definitely has the cash. So if it makes you feel better, file off those numbers. But know that unless the fire arm NEVER had a number, it can and will be determined. Sorry.
Perhaps my favorite "love to hate" thing about guns is how, on a single or double action weapon, they only cock it at some point well into the confrontation (this is also annoying with a shotgun or semi-auto when they jack a shell in or pull the slide). These later times are even more troublesome than simply cocking the weapon – until you have the round chambered, you have a metal club. The idea that some professional would chamber a round after facing down an armed opponent is priceless! But I guess it makes good theater… Fi does this a lot in the show.
I got the vibe that Sam & Mike were messing with the guy to make him panic. as long as it doesn't go into L&O PC preaching I'm cool with them.
Can't speak to the guns and rifles on TV. But, as a computer geek and linux and unix fan (very familiar with all windowz and mac varieties also), I always cringe at the computer depictions in movies and TV. But some are better than others. Liked the early '24' computer dialogue– the shop obviously used Unix and shots of computer screens in action even looked good, showing the command shell. Cloie spoke some decent sysadmin now and then. OK, the 3-D pullouts of buildings and heat signatures of terrorists on screen in real time were crazy far fetched.
That's not as bad as TV News and guns. They always get everything wrong.
I just remembered this from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk
Dead on comedy.
You just reminded me: a pump-action sound on a double-barrel. I even heard this used in Army of Darnkess (shame on you, Ash).
Question, srhoades… (I asked the same one to another poster a few months ago)
When a show swerves left, do you instantly take it off the DVR? I only ask because, while a movie is singular, a TV show is like 22 mini-movies in one year and one left-leaning episode doesn't necessarily indicate a trend (I said this about NCIS as well).
Just curious. I mean, a TV show would almost have to go out of its way to be as predictable and preachy as Law and Order.
Just asking.
the accuracy thing is why I didn't watch gun-related movies with my dad with out a pre-screening agreement that he would keep the griping to himself!
unfortunately my USMC brother won't give the same deal, so no NCIS with him around!!!
cuz I don't care! shallow, I know, but true… gimme good characters and a semblance of reality and I'm A-OK.
that was great, thanks!
how much money have you got to lose on that bet?
you're right. the more accurate term is 'suppressor', not silencer.
No there has to be a pattern. "Burn Notice" got the antenna up last season when a woman wanted Michael to waterboard a guy that had kidnapped her son and he said, "Torture never works. They'll tell you anything to get you to stop." The mighty Bruce will keep me coming back but I am weary.
That and I've been in love with Gabrielle Anwar since "Scent of a Woman".
Interesting info all.
Or a Glock. Pretty hard to do with no hammer at all…
Yeah, on TV cocking your weapon is a way of saying "NOW I mean business." But you're right – either they went into action without a round in the chamber or they just wasted one by ejecting it. Silly…but it looks so *cool*!
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