Dumb Gun Handling on TV

[blume357]

I've been bing watching the TV show White Collar and putting aside all the stupid story lines and everybody pointing guns at each other and then yelling for the other one to put the gun down... this one caught my eye and I just am having trouble with all the people on a set when they are filming things like this you would think someone could say something.

So, Neal our hero has slipped the bad guy body guard's gun out of his holster and has it and is now unloading it the absolutely wrong way and on top of that... if you look at the very end, after ejecting the one round... when he removes the magazine it is actually empty... So the body guard only carries one round in his magazine but that doesn't work either because the slide should have locked back on an empty magazine?

 

[Kevin]

My daughter and I watched White Collar. We both really liked it for entertainment purposes. I didn't get any training to become an FBI agent.

I don't remember this scene where Neil mishandled the gun. I remember as part of the plot line he didn't like guns but was actually an excellent marksman.

the series did actually have correct information about art on the series. I think it was the Raphael that was in question.

 

[mirglip]

The purpose of television is to promote bad ideas. They don't do it by accident.

 

[Cholo]

So the body guard only carries one round in his magazine but that doesn't work either because the slide should have locked back on an empty magazine?

He only carried one in the chamber, not the magazine. If it were one in the magazine he would have had to rack the slide twice.

 

[bobski]

more proof that actors are not expert gun handlers, who depend on professionals to ensure set safety.
and.....these same actors depend on script writers to get it right, knowing (we) will catch mistakes.

 

[davevabch]

What probably makes me cringe more than anything on TV is when some one will flip the cylinder of a revolver to close it. I do not think I have ever once seen any one do it correctly.

 

[thinckley]

Why is anyone watching anything fiction and looking for reality? Have you seen the latest Star Wars series, the Acolyte? The way they are swinging those lightsabers around is going to get someone killed! Don't forget the 20 round revolvers or the infinity magazines in most action movies.

Rambo with the M-60 should have been your first clue that entertainment does not have to have any bearing on reality.

Take it for what it is, escapism, a chance to turn your mind off of the days worries and relax.

 

[MaxMan]

I've been bing watching the TV show White Collar and putting aside all the stupid story lines and everybody pointing guns at each other and then yelling for the other one to put the gun down... this one caught my eye and I just am having trouble with all the people on a set when they are filming things like this you would think someone could say something.


View attachment 49413
So, Neal our hero has slipped the bad guy body guard's gun out of his holster and has it and is now unloading it the absolutely wrong way and on top of that... if you look at the very end, after ejecting the one round... when he removes the magazine it is actually empty... So the body guard only carries one round in his magazine but that doesn't work either because the slide should have locked back on an empty magazine?

Was the guard Barney Fife?

 

[blume357]

Yes, I know it's just TV and it is for our entertainment... it's just these little things related to gun handling that bother me. I have technically gone from being a student learning about proper and safe firearms handling to being an instructor and in the class I just recently did I made the comment that not only are all non gun owners totally ignorant of how to handle a firearm properly most gun owners don't have a clue either. I blame a lot of this on TV and the Movies.
Oh, and before y'all jump on me... I'm still a student.... learning and always will be.

 

[mirglip]

I figured out long ago that the more teevee I watched, the dumber I got. I decided that I had as much dumb as I needed so I just quit watching teevee.
Sanity is the absence of television.

 

[Dan in MI]

I'm going to counter the "it's entertainment" argument.

Yes, it's entertainment. If it's sci-fi, fantasy, etc then by all means suspend belief and go for it.

if it's set in the real world then some real world expectations should be met. Now they can be outlandish, as in a solo guy can take out 40 expert, former military, now bad guys, without a scratch just because he's "experter" or take a complete beat down and continue to perform like a 20 year old, but it's hard to take a 20 round revolver, or other scenario that is physically impossible. I get it that the bad guys all want to take their turn one at a time instead of just all 40 blaze, or swing, away at once. That's just macho pride. Can't have a totally unfair fight.

 

[pisgah]

When I was a kid seven decades ago, all cowboys had 100-shot Colt Peacemakers that never needed reloading. Now, we have regressed to single-shot semi-autos...

 

[vito]

I don't expect great accuracy in the movies or TV, but there has to be enough to allow "the willful suspension of belief". The last thing the producers want the audience to be thinking about is the reality that these are actors in a studio or elsewhere with cameras and microphones and that everything that you see is totally "make believe". Anything which forces that reality mind destroys the entire entertainment effect. You cannot maintain that "willful suspension of belief" if the Western you are watching has a commercial jet flying by in the background. So the more realistic seeming that the movie or show is, the easier it is for the viewer to allow themselves to be immersed in the story and to enjoy the entertainment itself. To most viewers, a character using a gun that would not even have existed at the time of the story means nothing to them. Nor does it bother the average viewer when you hear the sound of a slide being racked while the character is holding a revolver, or the sound of the round fired being less than a whisper because the revolver had a "silencer" on it. They aren't thinking about gun knowledgable viewers when they make these shows.

 

[thinckley]

For the record... my wife gets pissed whenever I point out mistakes in movies and tv shows. I try to ignore most of it. That particular clip, despite being completely implausible, "looked cool".

 

[blume357]

Yes, but it would have been much cooler if he had actually done it right, dropped the mag and then ejected the round. Of course since he was sitting there with two totally evil bad guys that just said they were going to kill him... A real evil body guard would have has a back up gun. .... the guy behind the desk probably had a gun at least in a drawer..... well, there could have been a more plausible reaction than unloading the pistol.

 

[Dan in MI]

Yes, but it would have been much cooler if he had actually done it right, dropped the mag and then ejected the round. Of course since he was sitting there with two totally evil bad guys that just said they were going to kill him... A real evil body guard would have has a back up gun. .... the guy behind the desk probably had a gun at least in a drawer..... well, there could have been a more plausible reaction than unloading the pistol.

I believe he has a hot gun. He emptied the chamber and refilled it. Then pulled the magazine.

 

[blume357]

I can't identify the pistol but most I'm familiar with are supposed to lock the slide back on an empty chamber and empty magazine and that one didn't and so I think you are right. Takes me a while to work these things through my brain. I guess we could speculate all day long why the body guard dude had one in the chamber and only one in the magazine.

 

[Durango Dave]

Also the old westerns had no gun safety. They'd always point the guns at each other.
Just one example: The Naked Spur. James Stuart's character comes across someone at the beginning of the movie. It's unknown if he's a good guy or bad so Stuart points a loaded SAA at him with the gun cocked and finger on the trigger. When Stuart realizes he might not be a bad guy he decocks the gun with one hand while still pointing it at the good guy.

 

[caryc]

The one that really got me was Jack Lords magic shoulder holster on Hawai Five O. What kept it on? Maybe they stapled it to his shoulder. I don't believe they even had Velcro back than. One classic mistake was when Lucas McCain was showing off his prowess with his rifle. He was able to shoot the points off that bar room bucks head without any damage to the wall behind it.

 

[thinckley]

magic shoulder holster

You haven't seen your wife carry a purse?