"I know the guns are there, I signed the permits"

D

dakota.potts

New member
Watching the latest episode of the Walking Dead where the main characters are going through the city looking for guns. One of them was a police officer for the city before the apocalypse. After finding the police station raided of guns and ammo, he says he's got a line on a few other places "A couple bars on Main Street, a Liquor store...". Then the odd line "I know they were there, other people [implying raiders] don't. I signed the permits for them.

This exchange struck me as a little odd. It takes place in the state of Georgia where I don't believe there are any "permits" to own a weapon other than a concealed or open carry permit or something like NFA. But I have a hard time believing any of those apply to the shotgun or rifle behind the counter.

Of course, this show isn't known for firearm information accuracy, so maybe I just take it as a given. Just thought I'd share this because it really stood out to me.
 
Well, according to handgunlaw.us, since the CHP is done at the county level, perhaps this is what the character was referring to. Wasn't he a County Cop, rather than a city cop?

ETA- Further reading suggests that local LEOs do the fingerprinting, which may also be the means by which the character knew about gun permits.
 
I'm gonna go with it was a convenient plot device. Writers for TV shows and movies care little for facts if they interfere with their plot.
 
Yes, I remember the first episode he tells another cop to check the safety on his Glock and he responds by racking the slide and showing a clearly empty chamber to the camera. So I take it at face value anymore. There are state preemptions for county laws restricting firearms but according to Wikipedia there have been laws passed anyways so it could very well be at a lower level.
 
Rick is/was a Sheriff's Deputy, it is not out of the realm of possibility he would know who has the guns.

I think it was really entertaining and frankly realistic to see that all of the guns from the usual places(gun stores, police stations etc) are gone, long ago scavenged.
 
I love how they're always scrounging for ammo, or bitching about not having any, but none of the characters reloads. It's the same in the comics - they made it almost to issue #100 before anyone brought up the possibility of reloading.
 
Gaerek said:
I'm gonna go with it was a convenient plot device. Writers for TV shows and movies care little for facts if they interfere with their plot.
Click to expand...

Whoa?!

You mean that's not a documentary?

Drat! I've been strung along this whole time.

Drat! Drat! Drat!
 
Yes, I too am always surprised when fictional shows have fictional information. One would think that a show based on comic books and featuring zombies would not have such a transgression, but once in a while, the fact-based writers incur minor errors in their work. ;)
 
If I wanted realistic entertainment I'd go outside and walk around.

If you really want to nitpick, how is the black chick able to use that sword over and over without it ever dulling from chopping bone or getting corroded from all the blood?

Why is all the blood you see everywhere red even though the people died days,weeks, or months before? Blood turns brown and fades pretty quickly once exposed to air.

Where are these vehicles getting all this gasoline? I believe ethanol gasoline doesn't have an infinite shelf life.

etc
 
I don't watch the Walking Dead, as zombies are not really my thing.

I would point out, though, that Hollywood's tendency to get gun facts wrong may be a bigger deal than we like to admit. After all, it's fiction, it's entertainment, they get lots of things wrong, etc etc etc... (and trust me, as a pilot, I generally HATE movies with airplanes, as they get lots and lots of things wrong)

BUT here's the thing - the Hollywood assumption that all guns, all over the US, must require permits may very well be one of the factors that makes people think registration is no big deal. I mean, they're all registered on TV, right?

Look at this in another way... I was recently reading a John Sandford book from the Prey series. A hispanic character volunteers some information to the police, but when his information doesn't pan out the cop asks to see the guy's green card. I found this offensive. What if the guy were Puerto Rican, for example? (Puerto Ricans being American citizens, after all.) Could the cop tell the guy was not? Of course, if he has a Spanish accent he must be illegal, right?

That's patently offensive, even if it's a common TV entertainment cliche.

I see the gun registration and permit thing as similar.
 
Yes, it's Hollyweird. That's the nature of the business, create plot devices to move the story along.

As for questions NOT about firearms, they're off topic, and will only result in the thread being closed if they are pursued.
 
I love how they're always scrounging for ammo, or bitching about not having any, but none of the characters reloads. It's the same in the comics - they made it almost to issue #100 before anyone brought up the possibility of reloading.
Click to expand...

Reloading would only help so much. Giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they could cast their own bullets out of scavenged wheel weights or something of that nature, they'd still be constantly scrounging for powder, primers, and cases to replace the ones that are lost or worn out.

What surprises me is that Darrel is the only one smart enough to use a bow (or in his particular case a crossbow) as his primary weapon. Even if a sophisticated one like Darrel's couldn't be found, a simple bow and arrows could be fabricated with relative ease.
 
Mike - are we having a zombie thread starting?

Oh, NO -:eek:

I like the show. Now this would be a good argument for the old Medusa revolver that shot a zillion kinds of 38 ish, 9mm, rounds.
 
I often have moments in which I want to bash my head into something solid in regards to that show.

The M-4 missing a rear sight was a good one as well.

I believe there is a point in which the willing suspension of disbelief has to give way and the glaring technical errors prevent an actuall enjoyment of the show/book/movie.

The Walking Dead is getting there. Stephen King books have already crossed that as have David Baladacci.

Heck, on a somewhat related note, I was reading "Debt of Honor" again and noticed that the great Tom Clancy called the Sig P-220 a 9mm and made mention of an Air Force corporal and the USS United States, a Nimitz class carrier.

So even the supposed master gets it wrong occassionally. I want a good gun read, I read Stephen Hunter. That man appreciates the .38 Super.
 
Heck, on a somewhat related note, I was reading "Debt of Honor" again and noticed that the great Tom Clancy called the Sig P-220 a 9mm and made mention of an Air Force corporal and the USS United States, a Nimitz class carrier.

So even the supposed master gets it wrong occassionally.
Click to expand...

Pretty much all media is screwed up in one manner or another - it's just that very few people are expert enough in enough areas to catch all of it.

For all of his expertise in military/government affairs, and his generally good track record for accuracy in those areas, Clancy once gave one of his characters a male calico cat. While they *do* exist, they're rare enough that if one shows up in a book without some reference to their rarity, it's probably because the author doesn't know any better.
 
If Clancy had made USS United States a Ticonderoga class cruiser, that would obviously be wrong - all those ships are named for battles in which USS forces fought. Examples: USS Shiloh, USS Bunker Hill, USS Antietam, USS Vincennes.

Los Angeles class fast attack submarines are named for US cities; Ohio class SSBN and SSGN conversion submarines are named for US states, so USS United States should obviously not be one of those.

The thing about the Nimitz class is that the naming convention has become convoluted. Though the nine existing ships are named for people, there is no real pattern to the class naming convention.

Nimitz was an admiral, of course, so we might expect the ships of the class to be named for admirals.

Eisenhower was both a President and a flag officer, so we might expect the class to be named for flag officers, as opposed to just admirals.

But Carl Vinson was a Congressman from Georgia, so the pattern starts getting strange.

Teddy Roosevelt, another President, so now we have two Presidents, two flag officers, and a Congressman?

Abraham Lincoln, President and former Congressman...

George Washington, President and General... four presidents, three flag officers, two Congressmen... starts sounding like a weird riff on Twelve Days of Christmas.

John C Stennis was a Senator from Mississippi, so we have our "one" Senator to add to the riff.

Last we had Harry S Truman, President, and Ronald Reagan, President... so we end up with a class of nine ships, that could be seen as represented by six presidents, three flag officers, two Congressmen, and a Senator.

It's possible a USS United States would be a follow-on... and the odds are it would be something large. The first USS United States was the first wooden ship the US Navy had that was larger than a frigate, IE a real ship of the line, so Clancy's faux pas there may not have been as huge as it might have seemed.

As far as the SIG P220, I don't know if the new ones are made in 9mm, or only in .45, but I remember drooling over Gun Digest annuals when I was a teenager, and the P220 used to be available in .45acp, .38 Super, and 9mm, so Clancy would not have been wrong if it had been an older gun.

But the USAF Corporal thing is just plain lazy inattention to detail.
 
I didn't really question whether the Sheriff has to sign permits in Georgia, I don't live there and could ignore whether that was accurate or not. I'll assume it's ok for entertainment purposes. However, it bugged me a little that Morgan collapsed like a sack of bricks when Carl shot him in the lower abdomen and he had a vest on. And was then out cold for what, a couple hours? Then wakes up and is just fine with just a bruise on his belly. Riiiiight.

As mentioned before, it's a show about zombies. I can take stuff like that with a grain of salt. Maybe even a couple grains. It's fake, after all.
 
Well, according to Wikipedia, the JSDF uses the Minebea pistol in 9mm, which is a licensed built copy of the P-220. And it gets funny because the articles get somewhat circular in saying that the JSDF SOF guys use a P-220 in .45 but the article links to the main ground forces article stating that they use the licensed built Minebea in 9mm, which I guess technically could be construded as a 9mm P-220. However, the fellows that Clancy was referrenng to were the 1st Airborne Brigade, that falls under the purview of the JSDF SOF. So, go figure.

In an unrelated note, a P-220 in Super .38 would be pretty neat.

In regards to the carriers, I always thought the the proposed USS United States became the USS Harry S. Truman, resulting in the second killing of a USS United States by Harry Truman, atleast that what's our NSI told us in NJROTC when someone asked why a National Guard captain had a carrier named after him.
 
I also particularly like Rick freehanding the Colt Python and getting headshots while running. And the fact that the guns don't even move or the bolts don't cycle when firing.

I'd like to see them have to clear a double-feed malfunction or a failure to eject or something every once in a while in the middle of the show. It would add something to it and do away with the suspension of disbelief when the gun just happens to jam when someone needs it (usually involving the gun just making a clicking noise).

By the way, what were their makeshift suppressors made out of?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top