Not long ago I wrote about the insanity and misconceptions perpetrated by the media and the motion picture industry. I was only able to touch on a tiny bit of the outlandish representations they hoist on the unsuspecting unknowing audiences. So, without further ado, here is a bit more of Hollywood’s insanity.
I know I mentioned this one before but didn’t get into it enough so here goes again cause it’s one of my favorites. In lots of movies, we have a scene where someone gets hit by a bullet fired from a handgun and is lifted clean off their feet and through a plate glass window, all by the force of that one bullet hitting them. Can this happen in real life?
Let’s try to recall some basic physics from Junior High School. Newton’s third law of motion states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” In that case, if there’s enough energy in a bullet fired from a man-portable weapon to send a person flying back 10 feet in the air, there should be an equal amount of recoil energy acting on the firearm. This would send the shooter and the firearm flying backward 10 feet, as well.
That wouldn’t look too good, would it? Unless it was the Three Stooges, of course. There are firearms that can deliver enough energy to knock a person off their feet (such as a cannonball), but those are usually mounted on a platform for a reason and are not man-portable. Basically, there is not enough kinetic energy to knock a person backward.
Sounds Galore!
This next one I always find irritating. It’s when you hear a sound when there should be no sound, such as a pistol/shotgun/revolver cocking, whether it needs to be or not. The scene is played out in almost every shoot ’em up movie.
Sometimes it goes like this. The hero has a bad guy covered with his pistol and the bad guy is refusing to answer questions. The hero then dramatically pulls back on the hammer to cock the gun (or racks the shotgun’s slide) to show the bad guy that he means business. The bad guy immediately spills his guts.
The other version has the dramatic clicking sound happening when a character walks into a room and something dramatic needs to happen to indicate that the protagonist is ready for action. It’s even funnier when you hear the hammer cocking sound when the actor is holding a firearm that has no hammer, like a striker-fired Glock. In real life, no one ever walks into a dangerous area without their firearm already loaded and ready to go at a moment’s notice. This is called Condition 1, which I am sure you are aware of.
In addition to cocking sounds that don’t belong, because it’s tactically stupid or the wrong type of firearm, we also get cocking noises out of firearms that are already cocked or don’t typically make such a noise in real life like an AR sounding like a Single Action Army. Another example is the sound of a hammer being cocked, when the character in question is holding a pistol but is not cocking the pistol, you only get the sound. Worse yet is the sound of the slide racking on a pump-action shotgun, when the character is holding a double-barrel shotgun.
Hits and Reloading
Another movie favorite is the scene where someone shoots 15 times without reloading, while holding a 6-shot revolver. Or the submachine gun that shoots for 30 seconds clearing a room when it only has 3 seconds worth of ammo. Priceless.
Oh! Oh! It’s only a flesh wound. In the movies, there seems to be a general idea that if someone gets shot in the arm, shoulder, or leg, the person will not bleed. They might limp around a bit but will survive in the end.
Likewise, there is the scene where a person will shoot someone in the leg to prevent them from running away and the person getting shot doesn’t fall. They just hobble off. Individuals getting shot in the shoulder make a full recovery after only a couple of days, but only if they are on the good guys’ side. Bad guys always have a much rougher time with flesh wounds and even die from them on occasion. There is no equality of flesh wounds in Hollywood.
In reality, there is no safe place where a person can be shot and be assured of not dying. There are some large arteries in the arms, shoulders, and legs that can cause a person to die from blood loss within minutes if punctured and not attended to quickly and correctly. The shoulder joint is also very hard to put back together if shattered by a bullet (unless you are the good guy).
Professionals don’t aim to intentionally wound someone because there is a chance that the shot could miss and hit an innocent person. They are trained to aim center mass so that there is a greater chance of hitting the target. No one in their right mind ever shoots to wound someone, you should always aim for center mass.
Here is another good one that you see a lot. “Put down your gun or the hostage dies.” This is a classic, almost prerequisite, scene in many movies. The hero crashes into a room with his gun out and finds the bad guy holding a gun pointed at the beautiful heroin’s head. The villain then tells anyone that will listen to throw their guns down and kick them toward him, or else she gets it.
The hero will do that as the dramatic music starts. Does anyone ever wonder why the villain doesn’t just shoot the hero and then the hostage, before making his escape? I’ll tell you why, Hollywood has a long tradition of trying to portray the morally correct thing to do, even though they don’t follow that rule in real life. Reality, however, requires police officers and military forces never to put down their guns in a hostage situation… Go figure.
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
How about how not to hold a gun to shoot it. In this image from the popular TV series The Walking Dead notice the character’s support hand. He’s holding a supposedly sharp knife while supporting his rifle at the same time. Not a good idea even if you are worried about stabbing zombies
Then, if you can get passed that, look at how he’s trying to look through the sights. It actually looks painful. Wait, did I say sights? I should have said “sight.” To top it off, the rifle appears to be missing the rear sight. Shotgunning an AR is a new one for me, but I guess during a zombie apocalypse, anything is possible. They really should direct the performers better. The sad truth is that most of the people who work in the industry no longer know anything about firearms.
Fun With Lasers
In a scene from, Captain America, The Winter Soldier we see agent Jasper Sitwell taking a phone call that informs him that he has just been targeted by a sniper and he looks down to see a red dot visible on his tie. To begin with, red lasers are not very visible in bright daylight so, this scene is another bit of movie magic that is effective but not possible in real life.
Lasers are quite useful to acquire targets quickly at short range, in low light conditions, because the user looks at the target and places the dot on it without having to align the weapon’s iron sights.
However, laser sights are not useful or used for long-range shooting due to the following reasons:
1. The primary goal of any shooter is to stay hidden. If you used a laser like the ones shown in the images, everyone would know where you are. They could just follow the laser beam back to the source.
2. Pointing out the dot would also allow the target to know that he or she is being targeted. In that case, they could take evasive action.
3. Laser light travels in a straight line, but bullets don’t. A laser sight completely ignores the effects of drop, deflection, etc. This is why riflemen have to make adjustments for elevation and windage.
4. The dot gets larger the farther it travels and though it appears as a dot to the shooter at 400 yards it covers many feet rather than fractions of an inch.
For these reasons, the scenes with snipers using lasers are highly questionable. They do look pretty cool on the screen though. I hope this helps to clear up some of what Hollywood does to stretch the bounds of reality when telling their stories, or just gives you a laugh and the encouragement to post a few Hollywood gun fallacies of your own.
What are your favorite Hollywood gun fallacies or movie scenes that the truth a little too much? Share your answers in the comment section.