Monday, March 17, 2008

Lies, Damned Lies, and Hollywood...

Ambulance Driver has some questions for the gunnie community (side note: I like the idea of a gunnie community. Imagine the local neighborhood watch, for instance...)

I started to pound out a response in his post when I realized, hey, I've been suffering writer's block, here's a good chance to put up a decent post... So on with the questions!
In your view, what are the most common myths among the firearms community about "stopping power" (now there's a fuzzy term if ever I've heard one), penetration, velocity, caliber, bullet weight and construction, firearms accuracy and reliability? If there are other points of contention I haven't mentioned, by all means let me know.

Among the firearms community, I'd have to say that the most common myth is that one must carry a firearm whose caliber starts with "4" and ends in "5". Now, don't get me wrong; there's nothing wrong with the venerable .45 ACP or the .45 Long Colt or the .454 Casull. But some folks just plain don't like firing guns with that much oomph, some folks (like me) are cheap and want something less expensive to shoot, and yet others prefer a gun that's easy to conceal.

None of my carry guns are chambered in .45 ACP.

The smallest caliber I carry is .380 ACP, which is, in +P configuration, the smallest and least powerful caliber that I am comfortable using for self defense. It's marginal, to be sure, but the P3AT is "the gun to have when you don't have a gun" - it is so small, light, and concealable that it really can be taken anywhere (legal, of course, we here at MArooned do not condone the breaking of laws no matter how unConstitutional they may be...)
In your view, what are the most common myths among non-firearms enthusiasts about the same subjects? What are the biggest misconceptions among non-shooters about the destructive power of firearms?


This is an easy one. First off, let's consider the "Hollywood Effect":
  1. A handgun round (or rifle, or shotgun, for that matter) is powerful enough to knock someone down and toss them across a room.
  2. Your average person can hit a moving target at 100+ feet with a snub-nosed revolver.
  3. Firing a semi-automatic handgun as quickly as you can accomplishes something other than wasting ammo.
  4. Without insane amounts of practice, firing two guns at once (one in each hand) is a safe and smart practice.
  5. Depending on the character of the person shot, a handgun round is powerful enough to kill instantly (if the person shot is an expendable henchman) or weak enough to merely inconvenience (hero).
  6. Shotguns, presumably with buckshot, are capable of removing limbs.
  7. Shotguns, presumably with birdshot, are capable of turning people into hamburg.
  8. Submachine guns are controllable with little-to-no practice.
  9. (Just added) The "Lone Ranger" myth - that in the middle of a fierce gun battle, it will be possible for the good guy to merely shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand. Alternately considered the "couldn't they just shoot him in the leg" line of thinking.

From a non-Hollywood-influenced standpoint, I'd hazard that the general unfamiliarity with firearms, coupled with a genuine lack of knowledge of folks what has been shot, the vast majority of the general population knows about as much about the destructive power of firearms as I know about nuclear physics. There's also the raw unpredictability of the human body, what with the rounded areas of bones causing unpredictable ricochets, the effects of semi-fluid joints on penetration, etc. Sometimes a .45 slug will pass right through and cause minimal damage; sometimes a .22LR enters just right and kills immediately.

In any case, like the gentleman from the Box O' Truth is wont to say, rifles are rifles, and pistols are pistols. (Also known as the "Fistful of Dollars" Corollary: When a man with a .45 meets a man with a rifle, the man with a pistol is a dead man.) There's a reason the Armed Forces issue rifles to their combatants - there truly is no subsitute for raw power (the old truism from the muscle car wars of the late 1960s rings true here: There's no replacement for displacement). The more power behind the bullet, the faster the stop.

Aside from the obvious (the ability to put multiple rounds through a bad guy's left ventricle while under extreme stress), what do you feel are the most important determining factors in rendering someone quickly and decisively dead or incapacitated? I'm talking about the tools here, folks - the weapon and its projectiles - not the training and mindset of the shooter.

Well, without shot placement and the willing to use the gun, you're left with pretty much large caliber and, uh, putting cyanide on the slugs. *g* Really, though, the most significant thing is shot placement - the old saw about "A hit with a .22 beats a miss with a .44" ringing particularly true here. You need a gun that will go "bang" every time you pull the trigger. You need enough ammo to get the job done (capacity). And you need a bullet that creates a sufficiently large wound channel to cause massive shock and trauma before the bad guy has the chance to do to you what you just done to him...

And I hope I never, ever have to find out if my choice of firearm is sufficient.

That is all.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love how, in movies and TV, a .38 Special will cause someone to go flying backwards with a spray of blood that would make earlier versions of Peter Jackson blush.

The other thing that might surprise people is the expense of ammunition. The crap ain't cheap. My soon to arrive 6.8 SPC is a dollar a round for factory ammo.

To go "rat-a-tat-tat" is $10 right there.

Then, everyone just drops their magazines and grabs another. Most people I know don't carry extra mags (I know I don't).

Finally, one of my favorite semi-quotes is one where a lady asked a man with a gun on his hip if he was expecting trouble. His response was "No mam, if I was expecting trouble I'd have brought my rifle".

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. How 'bout that one where your hero is shot with some henchman's hand-cannon only to later have the bullet removed painfully from just under his skin with a pair of tweezers and some gauze.

"Ow! Oooh! I'm sore ..."

Anonymous said...

Your average person can hit a moving target at 100+ feet with a snub-nosed revolver.

100+ feet?

Hell, I do that at 100+ YARDS.

Lefty.

With one eye closed.

In a crosswind.

BobG said...

Another one is hip shooting. All good guys are crack shots with snubbies shooting from the hip.
All shotguns and non-bolt action rifles are more accurate shot from the hip. The stock is merely cosmetic.
Also concerning shotguns; a sawed-off shotgun fired with one hand has little or no kick, but will knock the victim across the room.

Anonymous said...

The one Hollywood Effect that always annoys me:

The endless clip of ammo effect.

Just keep spraying shots with that M16 or Glock - they have special bottomless clips. I need to get myself one.

SpeakerTweaker said...

"Gun Community." I'd like to be on the homeowner's association of a community like that.

I'm sure glad to see someone actually come out and say that .40 or greater is required for defense. I regularly use the .22 vs. .44 adage. It's da troof.

And a big +1 on the last line. I try to point that out anytime I'm having a conversation about guns with anyone who ain't gun-folk. God-willing, the only thing I need to check the effectiveness of a selected caliber on is a bowling pin.



tweaker

James R. Rummel said...

Speakertweaker said....

And a big +1 on the last line.

The last line is "That is all". I suppose ST is trying to let you know that this little essay was too long for him, Jay.

But I thought it was a pretty good post.

James

AlanDP said...

You forgot:

The impact energy of any given bullet is directly proportional to the righteous anger of the shooter.

Jay G said...

James,

I think tweaker meant the "I hope I never, ever have to find out" line. Just a hunch. ;)

Thanks for the link, BTW.

Alan,

Good point. There's also the "jamming the gun at the intended victim makes the bullets come out faster" bit, too...

El Duderino said...

My pet peeve, on this topic anyway, is that Lalaland movies have no understanding of what bullets will and won't go through. Almost always people hide behind things that would do little or nothing to protect them, car doors, helicopters, other people, fences. Then there are movies like Heat where .223 bullets create ragged, fist size holes in the sheet metal of cop cars.
What's worse is when the hero throws a knife into bad guy and the bad guy falls over silently, grasping the handle of the knife. In my experience, a person will scream bloody murder when stabbed and run around like a chicken with it's head cut off, or so I contend anyway.

Anonymous said...

My biggest pet peeve with Hollywood guns is that in the movies and tv everyone runs around all day long with their fingers on the triggers.