Not like in the movies . . .

B

Blues_O_Malley

Inactive
Hi,
I just started to learn how to pull the trigger. I must say - I'm thrilled.

What occures to me is the fact that real shooting or gunfighting is not like it is shown in the movies at all.

Since I plan to write a thriller about some hard-boiled private eye, I wonder if someone might share his/hers experience with me.
Thanks a lot.
Blues
 
Depends on what you mean by "sharing their experience." If you mean what it's like to be in a firefight, or what it's like to actually shoot someone, I can't help you since, thank God, neither has happened to me. I can tell you the one time I had to draw down it felt pretty crappy - I hope it never happens again. As much as anything, I felt anger. Anger at the perp for having put me in such a situation. Anger that regardless how justified I'd have been in shooting, it was going to impact my life for possibly years to come. Anger at the sheer stupidity and uselessness of it all. Having to deal with the police, maybe spend a night in jail, hiring a lawyer, maybe even going to trial - all this went through my mind within 1-2 seconds. At the same time, I was incredibly relieved that I had at hand the means to defend me and mine. And I've never been more relieved than when the situation resolved itself with me able to put the gun down unfired. Did any of this manifest as doubt? No. I was a hairbreadth away from taking up slack on the trigger, and would have followed through without question - but to this day I'm glad I didn't have to.

------------------
"...and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
Luke 22:36
"An armed society is a polite society."
Robert Heinlein
"Power corrupts. Absolute power - is kinda cool!"
Fred Reed
 
I drew my gun on a dog once... :D

------------------
John/az
"When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!

See the Legacy of Gun Control film at: www.cphv.com
 
Blues

I guess it's like my Dad told me, 33 years ago when I started to learn to drive:

"Any fool can drive a car, that's easy. It's controlling the car that's the hard part."

Same with guns -- it's what's in front of that muzzle that's important -- be it a target, a clay, a duck, or -- God forbid -- another human being.

The only time I've ever (illegally under Western Australian law, I might add) picked up a firearm for fear from another human, the sight of the pump action shotgun in my hands was enough to send him running. I hope it stays that way for as long as I have left.

No, shooting is not like the movies at all.

Now, if your story can get that across to the great unwashed public at large -- great, you'll have done more for truth than Hollywood or television ever has.

Lotsa luck.

Bruce
 
My anecdote.

The one time I thought I was sailing into harm's way was just after I was married. My amigo and his girlfriend were overdue at our house for dinner. His girlfriend's ex had, within my hearing, threatened to kill my amigo a few weeks before. There's no answer at amigo's GF's apartment. What to do? I slid the only handgun I owned (Colt Det Sp) in a pocket and drove over there (approx 3-4 miles thru downtown. During the drive a strange phenomenon ocurred. Every sense becomes EXQUISITELY heightened. I could hear every valve in the ol' VW bug. I saw every vehicle, categorized it by make and model, condition, number of occupants, etc. I could feel the pebbling on the steering wheel, and stitching of the seat under my rump. All this occuring without any decision or effort on my part. Every filter in your brain that screens out the inconsequential is GONE. What a rush. Hope I never have that happen again tho'. I arrived at amigo's GF's apt, and listen at the door. I hear the distress, and the next thing I know (literally) I'm standing inside the apt, with the door jamb in splinters, in deserted apartment, with the TV on and tuned to a cop show. Boy, was I embarrassed!!! Amigo and GF show up at my house while I'm gone. They had taken in a movie that lasted longer than expected.
 
Never shot someone that I know about. But the few times I've drawn my weapon for me it was very calm and cold. No feeling-kind of like shooting at targets in combat practice. You do what's got to be done and not focus on anything but the situation at hand. But that's me. As you can see everyone is different. Some get the 'Oh No's' and some don't. I had to learn at an early age not to let things affect me otherwise I'd be a total loon by now. Ignore pain, ignore fear.

Next?

------------------
Satanta, the Whitebear
Sat's Realm: http://SatantasRealm.tripod.com/Entrypage/entrypage.html

My Disability petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/DisbHelp/petition.html
 
It is odd, the only thing I think about is the suspect's actions, all that is going on around me, front sight, do I have a clear shot, and where can I place it? It is almost a smooth, fluid movement, all in a matter of seconds. It is business, nothing personal.
 
Blues,
The only time I was on the recieving end was one really stupid night when I was in college. I was out on a stupid prank- sneak across a golf course in the middle of the night and grab a flag. What I didn't know was that this was a common prank and the owners didn't take kindly to it. It is a long story and I can email it to you if you'd like but here's the shooting part:
I saw motion up by the caddy shack and ducked into the deep ditch right next to the dirt road along the back side of the golf course. My feet hit bottom just as I was blinded with high beams from the big 4x4 that had been parked there waiting for someone as dumb and tipsy as I to bumble along.
As I crouched in the ditch I heard a strange noise shrill by just over my head, quickly followed by a pop up the hill. The sequence repeated quickly. I had no idea what it had been. As I squatted there was the same odd sequence:
shrrrrrring pop
shrrrrrring pop
At that point, the urine-yellow haze of tequila burned away from my perception and I realized that I was at the wrong end of someone with a firearm and a strong dislike for trespassers. Since I was downrange and the bullet was supersonic and very close I heard the whistle of the bullet passing a moment before the crack of the shot.
My brain seemed to split into the emotional section and the logical section. The emotional section sat baffled, in awe of the fact that someone was actually shooting at me and that it was absolutely nothing like I had expected or seen on TV. The logical side of me brain slapped the emotional side once or twice and told me that I had been seen and the only sane thing to do would be to give myself up. I was alone a ditch between a golf course and a swamp, unarmed, miles from town, and tired. Resigned, I raised my hands and began to stand when zingzingpopzingpoppop!!! the guy cut loose at me.
The emotional section curled into a ball and commenced to mutter and drool while the rational brain section yelled to the muscles to squeeze lower into the ditch, get out of the headlights, and then break for the woods on the opposite side. As I was zig-zagging across the road into the brush the rational side kept making strange observations, calm and collected. I guess you can't get but so scared. The bullets continued zipping past from waist level up to right over my head. A strange fancy took me that if I were to stretch out my hand I could have caught one of them as it passed, like a little invisible bug. I could also hear the rounds crackling through the brush after they passed me.
The guy must have run out of ammo right before I hit the trees because he stopped shooting. I am pretty sure he had some sort of 9mm pstol with a 13 or 15 round magazine. In the dark and boxer-besmirching excitement he could have been using a .22 revolver for all I know, or a 155mm howitzer. That was not an experience I would care to repeat.

------------------
Those who use arms well cultivate the Way and keep the rules.Thus they can govern in such a way as to prevail over the corrupt- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
 
I don't have any personal experience either. Here's some advice though. IF you really want to get it right, go where there's some shooting. Columbia is something like a 3 hour plane ride from LAX. Can't imagine its too expensive and the shooting shouldn't be too hard to find.

After all, you wouldn't have written a very good sex scene as a virgin, would you have?
 
At all costs, read Masaad Ayoob's account of the Miami86 FBI shooting.

Failing that, John Ross's account in "Unintended Consequences" is pretty good...it's a distillation of several sources, and contains good details on several others. But Ayoob captured the mental workings of a wounded FBI agent firing a revolver one-handed against a pair of seriously dangerous lunatics who'd just wounded or killed several other agents. Basically, under the extreme stress, this one agent focused down into a "machine" capable of doing nothing other than reloading, advancing on the target, doing sight alignment and trigger pull. Someone else walking up had to stop him from endlessly clicking the dry gun after it was all over. His hearing was shot, just before his "final charge" one of the crooks had unloaded on him from close range, missing...the agent literally never noticed, he was too busy reloading. He had tunnel vision, his sense of time perception was radically skewed.

But he won. Understanding his brain under those circumstances will take you a long way towards being able to write some really edgy stuff.

These effects are by no means universal. Under certain surprise ambush circumstances, people can get seriously, radically confused, and can panic. Fatally so. See also Ross's account of the first moments of the BATF's raid on Waco...not the final burning, the initial assault weeks earlier.

The sense of "time compression" and "tunnel vision" I can personally attest to, once in a combat situation, albiet with no guns involved. I've never drawn, threatened with or fired a gun in anger, I've never had to use deadly force. I've backed street assailants down with knives twice. Most of my comments above is based on "book learning", versus experience.

Based on reading and my sole serious combat incident, I'll say this: the guy that survives quickly spots the danger he's in, and goes into an "overdrive" state of heightened concentration and speed, with time compression "mental effects" going on. He'll then react quickly and decisively to counter the threat, taking the baddies totally by surprise and "mentally disarming them" before weapons use or other force is even a factor.

Even if you make a tactical error in your "sudden response", it *probably* won't matter because of what you've done to the opponent's mental state. But do try not to screw up :). In my case I charged four murderous loonies and shoved them off a downed victim while failing to note their claw hammers being used as weapons. Big screwup...but they were too surprised to think about clobbering me, since I got the hell back the moment the victim the was clear :). Physically, they could have...mentally, nope, not in the 2 seconds tops I spent in close range.

An energetic mistake "right now" can still win over a slow reaction...but note my use of words like "can" :D.

Jim
 
I believe Masaad writes a regular article in a gun magazine, but at the moment the particular magazine escapes me.. Combat Handguns maybe? He writes excellent articles by what I have read. However, we're gonna have to leave this one up to someone who knows what the heck they're talkin' about. :D

------------------
God, Guns and Guts made this country a great country!

oberkommando sez:
"We lost the first and third and now they are after the Second!(no pun intended)"
 
Email FUD, you'll get all kinda weird stuff, that guy is a walking danger zone.

Sorry cant help,only problem I had was drawing down my 1911 on would be thief trying to get into my garage. Turned out to be old high school buddy of my dads who was drunk off his arse, was probably looking for a chair to sit on to finish his beer. He sobered a little seeing that 45 though. Came back a few months later trying similar antics but K-9 unit got him (in the backside) that time, he hasnt been back since.
 
Jim, that's very true what you wrote. In the USMC I learned that in a combat situation, decisiveness was the best attribute a leader could have. In any given situation, whoever makes the first decision, and acts on it, usually comes out with the upper hand even if it is the WRONG decision. It is much easier to redirect momentum then it is to build it.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that this applies to nearly everything else in life - most people spend a LOT of time waffling, trying to make their minds up, afraid of making the wrong choice. So afraid, by the time they make one, they're too late. Decisiveness.
 
O'Malley, the first thing I tell my students is to watch every crime- and gun-related movie and TV show they can get... then do the exact opposite of what they see. ;)

Mas' column appears in American Handgunner, under "The Ayoob Files."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top