7 ms·
Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition
- nephihaha 4mo agoGeoffrey Boothroyd wrote some letters to Ian Fleming about James Bond's armoury, which Fleming took on board. Fleming incorporated a Boothroyd character into the books who was later merged with Q.
- bombcar 4mo agoBond using a “top secret compact rifle” that I recognized as an AR-7 was greatly disappointing to me, especially I had just finished discovering how crappy a gun that thing is.
- defrost 4mo ago(28th June 2021) .. and I didn't find a Mistakes: Long Gun Edition.
- 542458 4mo agoI'm not a deep-in-the-weeds expert, but if I had to put together an "obvious long rifle mistakes in fiction" article, it’d probably be: * People pumping shotguns after every round, or unnecessarily cycling the bolt after every round * Wrong action type for the gun * Wrong shotgun ammo for the context * Wrong safety type for the gun (most long guns have safeties, but they are operated in a variety of ways) * Magazine vs clip vs chamber vs tube * Shotgun impacts launching people across rooms, or unrealistic recoil (both too high and too low) for the weapon type
- RayeEvtuch 4mo agoMany long guns are not semi-auto and have to have their action cycled after each round. that's super common.
- defrost 4mo agoHow about accounting for Coriolis "force" in addition to drop and wind when shooting ULR 5,000 yards? Have you seen that in a film? Is it actually a thing, can you ignore it?
- 542458 4mo agoSurprisingly, Coriolis at extreme ranges (like 5000 feet) can be relevant enough to be corrected for, but how much and in what direction depends which way you're shooting and where on the planet you are. There's a fun calculator here: https://codingace.net/physics/coriolis_effect_shooting.html https://codingace.net/physics/coriolis_effect_shooting.html
- defrost 4mo agoIt's ignored in practice when firing long guns at 5,000 yards. The minuscule effect is overwhelmingly dominated by everything else. Heavier, longer range shells from naval guns, yes - rifles, no. * Opinion of a ULR shooter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP7IKshdiiY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP7IKshdiiY * Range Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owwTz7Z0OE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owwTz7Z0OE
- JKCalhoun 4mo ago(And what planet you're on.)
- waltwalther 4mo agoGenerally, all long guns that are not auto/semi-auto must be cycled after every shot in order to chamber another round. This includes pump-action, bolt-action, and lever-action rifles/shotguns. There are exceptions, such as revolver rifles. There are also instances when semi-auto pistols might need to be cycled after every round.
- calyth2018 4mo agoBuckshot spread is another common mistake in fiction, e.g. when it's close you still need to aim
- unpopularopp 4mo ago[flagged]
- short_sells_poo 4mo agoThere are plenty of countries aside the US where citizens can and do own guns. E.g. gun control is strict in most of Europe compared to the US, but it's entirely attainable to most people without a criminal record to own firearms.
- skinfaxi 4mo agoNot handguns though right? I think you need a justifiable need in most of Europe like being in a hunting club.
- bombcar 4mo agoAlso amusing is I see way more rifles especially in Europe than I ever do in the USA; Paris and other metros really seem to like having soldiers walking around armed. Here we just have cops with sidearms and one or two cowboys open carrying.
- boesboes 4mo agoyes, but nobody gives a fuck. Perhaps the commenter shouldn't have said: only gun nuts care.
- EdwardDiego 4mo agoYes, but typically not handguns, the prevalence of them in the US is unusual compared to other Western countries.
- short_sells_poo 4mo agoIt's important to make a distinction between ownership and carry permits. Ownership permits allow you to own and store firearms in your home in a secure place, and take them (unloaded) to a shooting range. Carry permits allow you to carry loaded firearms in public. Carry permits tend to be heavily restricted, but I believe handguns are not. The UK is an exception in that gun control is significantly more onerous than any other European country and more or less bans civilian handgun ownership completely. E.g. in Switzerland, it's trivial to get a handgun. Not any more difficult than buying a double barrelled shotgun or an AR-15 style rifle. On the other hand it's very difficult to get a license that allows you to carry loaded firearms. The regular firearm permit allows you to transport unloaded guns from your home to the shooting range and back. There are a lot of shooting clubs in former eastern bloc countries as well, and both long guns and handguns are popular for sport shooting.
- bebe9494i4 4mo ago[flagged]
- qwertytyyuu 4mo agoBut like don't going around shooting dogs people ask your child not to pet
- adjejmxbdjdn 4mo agoDogs kill about 30-50 people in the U.S. every year. Intimate partner gun violence alone leads to about 700 women being killed every year. So by your logic, if you’re a woman and your partner has a gun, and is walking towards you and you can’t clearly tell that they don’t have a gun on them, “they just want to give you a kiss before leaving home” isn’t an argument. They’re vermin that can kill you and you’re absolutely allowed to play it safe, defend yourself and shoot them.
- vova_hn2 4mo ago[dead]
- dn3500 4mo agoI'm not a handgun expert at all but I've caught a few of these, like the guy who racked the slide on his revolver. The author who really impressed me, although not with his handgun knowledge, was Tom Clancy. I was in the anti-submarine warfare business in the 1970s and some of what he wrote in Red October I only knew from classified sources.
- bombcar 4mo agoDidn’t he piece rumors and made intelligent guesses so well that the government freaked out wondering where the leak was?
- lukan 4mo agoPossible he had a real source?
- djeastm 4mo agoPossibly, but I can't imagine a writer taking that kind of chance at the height of the Cold War just for verisimilitude.
- lukan 4mo agoI mean, the way I imagine it is he chatted with one ore more guys and after a while he got bits here and there he was technically not supposed to have, not enough of its own, but with imagination enough to get the rough picture of how it worked and got very close. But I don't think conscious braking of classified information happened. More carelessness I guess.
- bombcar 4mo agoThat's what I've heard - intelligent research, combined with unclassified facts gleaned from conversations at coffeeshops and bars, led to a pretty accurate picture.
- 4mo ago
- ghusto 4mo agoJesus. Is this what _we_ sound like when talking about IT?
- bombcar 4mo agoYes, it’s the flip side of Gell Mann Amnesia - nerding out!
- nottorp 4mo agoProbably. But I think sometimes we're more justified than the gun nuts. Take for example the movie series favorite "we'll track him through his GPS".
- skinfaxi 4mo agoMore justified for what?
- wizzwizz4 4mo agoIT mistakes are frequently glaring plot-holes that render entire sections of the story impossible. Gun mistakes are generally a choreography problem, a weapon that's possible but just hasn't been manufactured, or someone learning information about the gun's state via the wrong channel (where such an information channel does exist). Sure, sometimes a bullet impact throwing someone off a cliff is plot-relevant, but I couldn't name a single example. On the other hand, I can think of several examples where (supposedly) state-of-the-art encryption is cracked digit by digit, or where a radio receiver is tracked from a distance where the receiving pattern would be orders of magnitude below the noise floor (most often from orbital satellites), or where a device is remotely "hacked" that is not even plausibly connected to a network (less common, now that everything is IoT, although it's really prevalent in works set in the late 90s / early 00s).
- nottorp 3mo agoSo... you cannot track anyone through their GPS because GPS is receive only. You can "hack" their phone and get the location data from there, but I think the "we'll track them through their GPS" crap predates smartphones.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- kriro 4mo agoI guess my pet peeve of "firing an arrow" is also a gun mistake of sorts. It can be found in many fantasy books. A bow is not a gun, there's no gunpowder involved. If a commander orders his archers to "fire" what should they do, set their bows on fire?
- alias_neo 4mo agoWhat's the correct term? Loose? I'm sure I've heard that before. I know nothing about arrows except to identify the pointy end.
- cenamus 4mo agoShoot?
- JKCalhoun 4mo agoRelease?
- doikor 4mo agoIt is very tiring to hold back the shot in a position like that. In real life you just wouldn’t do that. And in general your archers know their range and will/should start shooting as soon as they have a target in range without any orders. The volley fire thing is from black powder musket/rifle days. Basically volleys were used so you can actually seen what you are shooting at (aim) and manuever (hard to move while reloading. Easier if everyone reloads at the same time). Most armies still had small groups sharpshooters/snipers running around the field and taking shots freely.
- alias_neo 4mo ago> It is very tiring to hold back the shot in a position like that. In real life you just wouldn’t do that That makes a lot of sense, and is kind of obvious when you think about it. They'd just be wasting energy. I suppose the way we see it portrayed in film (for some reason it's always LoTR that comes to mind), is for dramatic effect, with scores of arrows flying through the sky at once. But I was always mildly irritated (though without knowing why) by the fact that despite so many arrows flying, the vast majority would miss any target.
- n6242 4mo agoOne mistake in non-fiction blog posts: not including a label or title for the pictures.
- doikor 4mo agoOne thing I have noticed messed up in a lot of fiction (written/tv/movies/etc) is how loud guns actually are. Scenes of multiple people without any hearing protection emptying their guns that doesn't have any kind of supressors/silencer multiple times in a closed space (usually a single room) and then just casually chatting with each 5 seconds later. In general the sounds of guns are very bad in most movies/tv shows (Heat from 1995 comes closest for me).
- rayiner 4mo agoI wonder if part of this is also failing to consider the acoustic effect of loud sounds in enclosed spaces. Guns don’t sound nearly as loud if you only shoot outside.
- calyth2018 4mo agoGuns are still not hearing-safe outside. And if you're indoors, you probably should double up on the hearing protection (foam plugs with over the ear protection on top) This one is not that surprising in mass media - there's no way the good guys and bad guys are going to take a pause and actually put on PPE before the shoot out.
- nickpeterson 4mo agoMichael Mann movies tend to get this right, Heat and collateral have really decent gun sounds. Turns out they are very loud. Edit: just noticed you mentioned heat already, I need more coffee…
- thrill 4mo agoJust watch "that scene" from Heat again - it's like a double espresso.
- m463 4mo agoThe only time movies try for sound accuracy is with flashbangs.
- stasomatic 3mo ago
- kevdoran 4mo agoKinda like when the hacker character in movies does... just about anything
- waltwalther 4mo ago...enhance...enhance...
- ourmandave 4mo agoThe first complaint is "heard the snick of the revolvers safety." I assume a lot of writers get their misinformation from Hollywood sound effects and the countless other gun related liberties. Like the terminator asking for a phased plasma rifle in a 40W range. Everyone knows those weren't available until 1997.
- Simulacra 4mo agoI'm sure it exists, but we need this for movies. Of all the things I wish the movie industry would do, removing the sound of racking a slide or pulling back a hammer...on an automatic.. is top of my list of things that need to absolutely go.
- RJSquirel 4mo agoThis. Every movie shotgun uses the sound of a Remington 870 racking. Every camera uses the sound of a Nikon MD11/12 winding. I'm sure there are more.
- jdkwxnkwxnsk 4mo agoPlease, these are more often than not just creative choices, sure they may be inaccurate but accuracy is seldom the point a director is trying to make when taking creative liberties like this. If every movie was as close to reality as possible they wouldn’t be classified as entertainment.
- gabriel666smith 4mo agoHonestly maybe my favourite part of being an author is being able to get briefly and deeply obsessed with any topic I choose - it's a rare privilege. Beginning and then almost immediately dropping niche hobbies (eg flight simulators, poker, guns in the linked post) is transformed from something a spouse or partner might see as an undesirable and potentially annoying personality trait, into: "this is research, darling, it's my job", which is probably significantly more annoying. It is easy to make mistakes with a verb one might not think to question like "cocked". Of course, ideally, you'd question every word used, so that the % of readers who understand its full associated meaning don't have their immersion in a story suddenly & painfully torn away. To be less glib, I find that when speaking about a topic from a character's perspective - in dialogue or narration - a relatively important part of empathising with their point-of-view is understanding the physical and linguistic structure of their world. Sometimes I find there's no way to do this without putting hundreds of hours into understanding the tools they would use or the way they would live. Write what you know!
- darksaints 4mo agoOne of the things about fiction is that it gets almost everything wrong. It isn’t just guns. It’s professions like spies and snipers, cars, boats, planes, programming/hacking, radios, technology, etc. And those are just the areas that I personally know they get wrong, because I know more than the average person in those areas. Some people judge fiction way too harshly for inconsequential but inaccurate details which only serve for narrative structure. There are actually tons of authors who get all of these details right, but you almost never read their books because if they can get them published at all, nobody reads them, because they absolutely suck. An author that gets these details right and is actually a good storyteller is extremely rare. It’s basically a list consisting of Tom Clancy and John Le Carre. It’s just a pet peeve. At some point you have to let it go, or you’ll end up wasting your time writing blog posts begging authors (who largely don’t care) to talk to you so they won’t get inconsequential details wrong.
- geerlingguy 4mo agoA modern author who's fairly good in this regard is Andy Weir; the main thing is you have to do a ton of research while writing and have trusted sources (I think Clancy had many) to rely on when mulling over the details. The tough thing is, once you get "above average" in terms of accuracy, those of us who like to be a little more pedantic will grade on a curve!
- JKCalhoun 4mo agoSo hand-wavy is the correct answer.
- thrill 4mo agoWhen a certain now famous (in those circles) narrator was first getting started he mentioned on his FB page he wanted help with pronunciation of certain military terminology. I offered to help, knowing people in many fields plus my own. And ... my goodness, the absolute poor quality of some the writing he sent me. One author would use the full terminology for every firearm every time he looked at it, picked it up, loaded it, holstered it, drew it, released the safety, fired it, cleaned it, thought about while in the shower, whatever. You got tired of reading about the "Heckler & Koch HK45 Compact Tactical (HK45CT) MK-24 Mod-0" fully spelled out three times a page. And then the author with his own specialty started writing about my field ... oh so badly. So, knowledge of weapons doesn't translate in knowledge of writing (or vice versa). My only criteria any longer is just don't say "clip" unless your character has scored himself a Mauser C96 or similar and we're good.
- bestouff 4mo agoYou know how to recognize an American movie ? There's a gun on the poster.
- CrociDB 4mo agoWhat if they're not mistakes at all, just creative choices?
- jdkwxnkwxnsk 4mo agoThen most people on this comment section would have to find something else to preach and declare absolute knowledge about. Ah wait, that’s just every comment section around here.
- stevage 4mo agoSomehow this almost inspired me to write some fiction just for the sole purpose of including some real howlers of this kind, that the average reader wouldn't notice. I wonder how many you could squeeze into one scene.
- caboteria 4mo agoI'm surprised that no-one has mentioned the "magic unlimited magazine" yet, especially with fully-automatic weapons. It's distracting to watch the hero shoot and shoot and shoot and never reload. Big props to the John Wick franchise for making reloading* a first-class part of their gun-fu choreography. * ...and badass one-handed press checks that no-one should ever do IRL.
- OptionOfT 4mo agoTo add to this: * Finger on the trigger. Very dangerous. Pulp Fiction showed the consequences * Using ball ammo I actually dislike the pistols without manual safety. CCW people always say: but the Glock/P365/P320/VP9/... have an internal safety, a trigger safety and a drop safety. But these safeties are not additive. If your trigger safety fails, the gun will go off. Same with the drop safety. At least with a manual safety those are additional. It's not that because your car has an airbag that you stop wearing your seatbelt right?