Once someone picks up a gun in a movie things are about to get serious, or will at least get a bit unreal since the one thing that movies love to do is embellis what it’s like to handle, fire, or otherwise possess a gun. The only problem is that in real life a lot of what goes on isn’t bound to happen as it does in the movies since guns obey the laws of physics just as much has anything else and don’t suddenly acquire some new ability that the manufacturer forgot to mention. The fact is that in the movies, guns are seen as tools a lot of the time, which they are to be certain, but the manner in which they’re used is sometimes a bit irritating to gun enthusiasts and anyone that happens to know anything about their function and even their form. Those that know their weapons recognize what handguns are all about and usually end up laughing when they see them used in movies.
Here are a few things that the movies get wrong about handguns.
5. Throwing the gun away when it’s out of ammunition is smart. A gun is still useful when it’s empty.
This is pretty common, right? A gun runs out of ammunition and the person looks at it as though they can’t believe, or perhaps there’s a round in there and they need to inspect it after hearing it click a few times or seeing the slide lock. The trick here is that an empty gun is useless for shooting someone, but a lot of times the construction of said guns is usually pretty solid and if a person is able to get in close in the movies the term ‘pistol whip’ could easily make a comeback if writers would take the time to realize that using anything at your disposal is often wise. Plus, who’s to say that the character can’t find more ammunition in another scene?
4. Suppressors cancel out most of the noise. Not quite, there’s still a lot of noise.
To be fair, a suppressor does take some of the noise away, but it’s not a gentle ‘thwip’ as is heard in the movies, and a silencer for an automatic isn’t going to sound like rabbit paws thumping the ground, since a silencer can take away the sound made by the pressure wave created when the gun is fired. Apart from that there’s still the whine of the bullet if the target is close enough to hear it, the sound of the bullet hitting a target, and the sonic crack of the bullet since quite a few bullets can exceed the sound barrier when fired. A silencer is basically there to muffle the sound of the shot, nothing else.
3. Bullets can send a person flying. No bullet can fling a person across the room.
No bullet has enough force to send a person flying across the room, no matter how what the caliber is. Granted, there are guns that will make people fold like rag dolls since the impact and the damage done is bound to be so severe that a human body can’t withstand the sudden trauma and will fold immediately. A cannon or anti-tank or anti-aircraft weapon might have this capability, but the chances are that if these are fired at a human being that they’ll only fling a part of a person across the room, since the sheer force of such weapons would annihilate a human body upon impact.
2. You need to be up close and personal for a handgun. Not really, most handguns have a decent range to them.
This is particularly annoying when seeing it in the movies since the reason it’s put in is pretty easy to guess since heroes that fight up close or are taking on multiple opponents need to be given that moment to show that they’re just that awesome. But the range on a handgun can go from ten to three hundred feet pretty easily, meaning that a person doesn’t have to be standing right in front another human being to be entirely accurate. Aiming is still a good idea when trying to hit a target, but in the movies it’s kind of ridiculous to think that a person has to be within grabbing distance to threaten anyone with a gun.
1. Two guns are more dangerous than one. They’re more inaccurate than one, that’s for certain.
In the movies we tend to see expert shooters that can carry one gun per hand and be absolutely deadly. The problem with this is that most people are one-hand dominant and therefore aren’t that great at doing a lot of things with their off hand. What this means is that aiming with one gun can be challenging enough if a character is ‘running and gunning’ in a movie, but trying to do it with two is only going to be effective when it comes to making people duck and run for cover, since hitting anyone is going to rely more on luck than any kind of skill.
Firing a handgun isn’t that hard, but firing it accurately and correctly takes some training.
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