Interesting text exchange with a newbie today.

[blume357]

Seems the guy who has no experience with firearms other than the other week when we went out to a friends range and shot a few handguns and rifle, I think his father just gave him an M1 Carbine and he was texting me and the guy who has the range today trying to figure out this 'M1'. His first question was "did he need to register it, he was told he didn't because of its age which is from the 1920's". This caused me to send him way too long a text reply..... it amazes me the ignorance of the average person.... just like a friend of my wife's last week who informed me that if a child is shot with an AR-15 you will have to use DNA to identify them.

 

[contender]

Blume,, we need to all remember,, none of us were born with any knowledge. We have to be taught. It's all about HOW we teach,, and even more,, about how well a student learns.
If a person is constantly fed incorrect information, (such as the way TV, the Media & so many others do,) it's what we can expect. But we as calm, somewhat intelligent gun owners can politely teach them what they THOUGHT they knew,, was wrong.

 

[blume357]

Yep, I find it quite interesting that on TV shows that I actually liked, such as NCIS, when ever they find a gun Abby would check to see who it was registered to.
Another slip was when Gibbs and one of his underlings visited a store owner in Virginia and were questioning him in his store about something and he had to justify having a gun on the property and said he had a permit for it..... I actually think most of it started with Jack Webb and Dragnet... Webb is seems from what I can gather from the old radio shows was anti gun.

 

[41Dude]

Yep, I find it quite interesting that on TV shows that I actually liked, such as NCIS, when ever they find a gun Abby would check to see who it was registered to.
Another slip was when Gibbs and one of his underlings visited a store owner in Virginia and were questioning him in his store about something and he had to justify having a gun on the property and said he had a permit for it..... I actually think most of it started with Jack Webb and Dragnet... Webb is seems from what I can gather from the old radio shows was anti gun.

It is a little irritating after all these years of NCIS when Gibbs is chasing a bad guy with his 1911 UN cocked. You would think the actors could absorb a little firearm knowledge.

 

[GunnyGene]

It is a little irritating after all these years of NCIS when Gibbs is chasing a bad guy with his 1911 UN cocked. You would think the actors could absorb a little firearm knowledge.

A little knowledge is right, with the exception of a few - Keanu Reeves for example. But generally all they know is which end of the prop gun to point at the other people on the set.

 

[contender]

Sadly,, TV has become the "teacher" to so many about so much. They show the same wrong stuff often enough to where people who have not had real life experiences with things believe that's the way it's supposed to be. Poor gun handling skills, bad driving, what happens when a person gets shot, wild animals that are like disney characters,
are but a few examples of what some believe is actual reality.

Even worse,, is when an actor decides to study & prepare for a role in a movie or TV show,, if they do actually have any real world gun skills, the directors or writers or whatever MAKE them do things that are not the way it should shown. But the little things that would make it more realistic w/o affecting the way it's portrayed on the screen should not be changed.

It's been that way for many, many decades. The very early movies showed a SA six-shooter that they never reloaded. Or the way they would "throw" the bullet by the way they fired the gun.
I don't think the movie & TV show directors or producers of the 30's, 40's & 50's were as anti-gun as they have become. But instead, did stuff not really caring if it was realistic. They went for the dramatic effect.
But in more modern times,, they became more anti-gun, AND the actors were not taught to do things in a realistic manner.

But nowadays we have people who have never had any real life exposure to firearms or animals in the wild, or whatever. And as such,, they believe the stuff they "learned" from TV.

We as actual gun owners & shooters,, or outdoorsmen, or whatever should take every opportunity to PROPERLY & politely instruct them in reality & hopefully convert them to a good, safe gun owner or someone who respects what a wild animal can do. (Of course,, this applies to anything,, not just guns or animals.)

 

[Hvymax]

It is a little irritating after all these years of NCIS when Gibbs is chasing a bad guy with his 1911 UN cocked. You would think the actors could absorb a little firearm knowledge.

Honestly if I chose to carry a 1911 it would be hammer down. I can thumb the hammer as easily as the safety when drawing. That's why God put your thumb there for crying out loud. I did grow up shooting SA revolvers though.

 

[mr surveyor]

hammer down over a live round ... in a 1911?


jd

 

[Kevin]

I know this thread is about new gun owner knowledge. But since ya'll are talking about shooting guns on tv. Here's a question for ya.

Has television always had bad gun handling techniques? That show "Gunsmoke" did they have proper gun handling? Or the old spaghetti westerns?

 

[Kevin]

Yep, I find it quite interesting that on TV shows that I actually liked, such as NCIS, when ever they find a gun Abby would check to see who it was registered to.
Another slip was when Gibbs and one of his underlings visited a store owner in Virginia and were questioning him in his store about something and he had to justify having a gun on the property and said he had a permit for it..... I actually think most of it started with Jack Webb and Dragnet... Webb is seems from what I can gather from the old radio shows was anti gun.

An M1 seems like quite a gun to be given to a new shooter. Did you tell him to sign up for the next class you teach?

 

[pisgah]

You mean there are ignorant people walking around who think what they see on TV is Gospel truth? Why, I am shocked, I tell you, shocked!

Next you'll be telling me that all politicians are liars...

 

[GunnyGene]

hammer down over a live round ... in a 1911?


jd

Depends on the series. Series 80 1911's (introduced by Colt in 1983 due to a law suit) incorporated a hammer/firing pin block to make them drop safe. Series 70, which I have several of, had no such feature so a user has to be a little more careful.

New owners usually won't know enough to be aware of the difference (both series are available) or even care until something bad happens.

 

[mr surveyor]

Depends on the series. Series 80 1911's (introduced by Colt in 1983 due to a law suit) incorporated a hammer/firing pin block to make them drop safe. Series 70, which I have several of, had no such feature so a user has to be a little more careful.

New owners usually won't know enough to be aware of the difference (both series are available) or even care until something bad happens.

no matter which series .... you still gotta' manually thumb the hammer down on a live round (hopefully without incidence). ... and when needed you have to thumb the hammer back (again, hopefully without incidence). The thumb safety is a lot faster and safer to handle ... and was designed for the exact reason in the first place.


jd

 

[GunnyGene]

no matter which series .... you still gotta' manually thumb the hammer down on a live round (hopefully without incidence). ... and when needed you have to thumb the hammer back (again, hopefully without incidence). The thumb safety is a lot faster and safer to handle ... and was designed for the exact reason in the first place.


jd

True. Still, it's important for new users to be fully aware of the functional aspects and trained on the gun (1911 or otherwise) they have. Many are not for a lengthy variety of reasons.

 

[Bob Wright]

An M1 seems like quite a gun to be given to a new shooter. Did you tell him to sign up for the next class you teach?

It was a M1 carbine.........a step abve a Ruger 10/22. 'Way different from the M1 Rifle!


Bob Wright

 

[DGW1949]

hammer down over a live round ... in a 1911?


jd

You do know that the (spring loaded)firing pin on a 1911 is shorter than the space that it occupies within the breach-block, eh?....In other words, when the hammer is "down", the firing pin does not touch the primer. It must be cocked or else the hammer can't "throw" the pin into the primer and therby cause the pistol to discharge....so no-cocky, no-shooty....And futher more, if ya take a close look at the original 1911 hammer, you'll see that it is both larger and different in shape than the more modern renditions. That is because, as designed by the late-great John Moses Browning, it was designed to be carried hammer down and that particular hammer shape was the most natural for both cocking AND "uncocking" WITH ONE HAND by mounted troops, whom by the way, had to use their other hand to control their horse. Yeah, there was still a lot of fighting done off horse back at the turn of the 19th-20th century....As to it's "half cock" position, that is not (and never was intended to be) a carrying position. Just as with Colt's half cock notch which had been provided on their SA Army Revolver of 1873, the notch is there on a 1911 solely to arrest the hammer fall should the operator's thumb slip off of the hammer while cocking the gun....Of course, none of the above applies to guns with worn or altered springs, or guns with out of spec replacement parts, or guns which have been subject to alterations by well-meaning but basically clueless "tinkerers"........Point to all this is yeah, it is quite safe to carry an as-issued 1911 with the hammer down on a loaded chamber. I myself, did it that way during the years I spent as a Texas lawman...and still carry a 1911-A1 that way today....Hope this helps to clear the matter up.

DGW

 

[Xrayist]

As for TV and movie gun handling, two things make me laugh out loud; the first is you see actors constantly racking the slide on semi auto pistols. If you keep count, on some of the shows, the magazine would be emptied just do to the number of times the slide was racked, the second is, and yes I know it is about safe gun handling, but when the bad guy, who maybe has just "killed" several people, detonated a bomb that "killed" hundreds and is holding a hostage at gun point......has his finger off the trigger...... The producers/directors must show their dedication to the sanctity of human life by making sure the "bad guy" doesn't accidently "kill" a single hostage after he/she has "killed" several dozen to several hundred others.......

 

[el caminero]

Yeah, webb's dragnet, even on radio, as well as perry mason's tragg-and-berger, always got the registered owner and address in astonishingkly short order, expecting every gun to be registered, and preached a lot of 'who shouldnt have a gun' stuff. Not so much from gun-savvy perry. Watched him swap the barrel on a colt's pocket .25, just to show them how wrong they could be in making theur usual absolute assumptions, for example.
Hawaii 5.0 was quite the anti-gun elitist show. Most of the guns seen on the 5.0 and magnum, were technically illegal, which was never mentioned.

 

[el caminero]

A little knowledge is right, with the exception of a few - Keanu Reeves for example. But generally all they know is which end of the prop gun to point at the other people on the set.

A lil knowledge...
One old radio show, and i think a ncis episide, have had automatic pistol rounds in blackpowder, a .38, and a 9, and the 9 went off just by rolling off the desk. As serious errors, they dont rate with "riding down cajon", an old radio show which needed a disclaimer that some of this is fiction. It started out with the driver pulling it into neutral at the top of the grade, and then finding the truck had "lost" its air, thus no brake pressure and the horn dident work, and it went downhill from there...

 

[Ale-8(1)]

Bottom line here is that there are a lotta folks out there who have no gun familiarity other than what the media -- and to a great deal, the internet -- has provided over the years. It's not a matter of "ignorance" so much as they simply have not been exposed to the truth . . . which we can provide good-naturedly.