TV and Movie Cops and Guns

Same reason that actors can cock Glocks, continue to shoot on an empty mag, fire 346 rounds without reloading (unless it's convenient), and disassemble a Beretta 92 one-handed via some manner of ninja voodoo.

Might also be the same reasoning behind movie cops shooting fleeing suspects, last I knew that was a no-no.

It's showy, flashy, and exciting, especially considering that the a lot of the people who enjoy the movies are not really gun people.

Me? I try to ignore all these things and just enjoy the show or movie. If you're calling out everything that was done wrong after every movie shoot-out, it won't be long until no one wants to watch with you anymore:rolleyes:

Guns must be aimed in order to hit things, even at close range.
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What, you don't have any of those newfangled heat-seeking bullets?;)
 
deadcoyote said:
Another goofy issue is I can't count how many times cops pull there weapons out of holster then have to rack a round into the chamber. Where in the wrold are all of these crazy cops who don't carry their weapons with rounds in the chamber?
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This is the one that makes me nuts. It doesn't matter if it's a semiauto pistol, a shotgun, rifle . . . apparently, nobody in TV-Land ever carries anying (except maybe a revolver) with a round in the chamber. Cops gonna kick in a door? Always wait until you're right at the door to chamber a round. . . You know, because nothing bad could happen before then. :rolleyes:
 
I was catching up on the Walking Dead over the past week (don't worry, not going to turn this into a Zombie thread), and one of the episodes, might have been the first in Season 3, not a single gun had any recoil. It was very difficult for me to suspend my disbelief.
 
Did you ever see anyone in a movie or on television have an accident with a gun? Of course, that never happens in real life, either. Or how about this: the person shooting either runs out of ammo or it jams, which seems to happen a lot, too, and he just throws the gun away, not necessarily at the other guy. Only the bad guy does that!

As far as sound goes, most, but not all, of the audio in movies is added after the fact because of technical reasons. Mostly it is just voices that are recorded. It took a while before they got that worked out, too. But that's why car engines often don't sound right and why lots of other sounds are never heard.

Now and then you will learn something that is surprising. Elmer Keith once mentioned something about how movies give a false idea of the capabilities of guns, particularly handguns. He said something about how hits are made by someone off camera using a rifle. I didn't believe him. Well, he was sort of correct, though I have no idea how he came by his information. I saw a photo of such a thing being filmed. The scene was probably being filmed in the 1940s or 1950s.

The scene was a close up. The camera and the actor were just a yard or two apart. As I recall, the actor was down on the ground (this was a Western). The camera was screened or protected by something like plexiglass. A man with a rifle was shooting into the ground just a few feet away, presumably to create the effect of a bullet striking the ground. I don't recall where I saw the photo but it was a very surprising thing. I doubt it would have been in a B movie because they were made on the cheap and they wouldn't have gone to the trouble. These days, the effect would have been achieved in other ways, of course, and there's always the special effects that weren't even around 30 years ago. I must try to find that scene.

In older movies one does see empty cases being ejected from lever action rifles but these days you don't even see that.
 
I suspect a lot of these errors get added in by the sound editing crew after the fact. I’m not sure why a Director or Technical Advisor would not catch it, but maybe it’s just too far into the process to make a change.
 
"I suspect a lot of these errors get added in by the sound editing crew after the fact. I’m not sure why a Director or Technical Advisor would not catch it, but maybe it’s just too far into the process to make a change."

In response:

"Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action."
 
How many productions do you think have technical advisors?
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Well, I have no real idea, but don’t most studios have specific people to handle the various prop guns? I mean they don’t just go down to the local gun shop pick up a new handgun and a box of blanks. There has to be someone that knows at least a little bit about firearms. The problem is many of the sound effects are inserted later by an entirely different team, so it would seem that is where the problem occurs.
 
My son works in the motion picture industry. There are a few companies that rent out guns and equipment to the movie business. Only the very largest studios have much in the way of their own props anymore. But being qualified to tell people how to handle small arms is not quite a technical advisor.

Many films do have technical advisors, of course, but I suspect that the advice given is of an overall nature--and sometimes ignored. Gun handling is probably a small detail in a film, though I'd have to say it was often featured in the Westerns of the 1950s and some of the TV Westerns of that period. I believe actors sometimes received fast draw instruction, because that was sort of the thing at that time, but I wouldn't go so far as to claim it was historically accurate.

The movie "He walked by night," from 1948, was about the police trying to track down a killer in Los Angeles. There was a technical advisor on the set named Marty Wynn, who was or had been an LA police detective. One of the actors in the movie was Jack Webb, who in addition to being married to Julie London, went on to bigger things in television. Wynn supposedly suggested to Webb that a TV show based on real life stories from the police department (only changing the names to protect the innocent!) and that's where the idea for Dragnet came from.

I don't suppose too many war movies had technical advisors who were privates or riflemen during the war.
 
Kojak carried a (one) S&W model 49 bodyguard. Always pulled it from his overcoat pocket. I never saw him wear a holster in any episode. Stavros carried an M&P 2", Crocker carried a Chief special.
 
Bump from way back I know but really the question is the same

Watched second episode of The Rookie because Hey I like Nathan fillion

A perp uses a sbs,we even clearly see him load it, and yet you get to hear him pump it ROFL,

It is like they dont proofwatch it!
 
In having the right licenses (Canada don't you know) even though my full-time profession was as a Firearms Instructor, had me delivering the odd weapon to movie sets.

One was a lever action rifle, Cowboy Movie. Not to be fired, just held, then slipped into a scabbard, on a horse. No problem. Done headed home.

I observed another scene. Tough looking bad guy, menace some people in a saloon, weapon, 45 single action revolver. Hammer down!
At 6 am I had a call come back! The actor was refusing to change that take? He liked the way he looked in it! He was English, as I am. I showed him the hammer back, hammer down... Would not go off, with hammer down.

He redid the scene. Worth a few dollars for yours truly.
 
Two circumstances which puzzle me...

Actually, the first circumstance amazes me more than puzzles me. In the TV series 'Cannon' starring the late William Conrad, the character Frank Cannon could shoot a two inch Chief Special revolver better than I could a rifle. I've come to attribute that to a good script writer. Never have found one, still looking.

The puzzling circumstance is this. In the first five or so minutes off a movie, the protagonist cannot place a bullet on the villain - or the inside of a closed structure - for neither love nor money. In the final scene or two, the protagonist can hit a running evil-doer at 300 yards or meters (depending on location) shooting with the 'weak' hand with a pistol made of plastic scraps, a discarded section of galvanized pipe and peanut butter. After being wounded with a Medieval Morning Star.

Wow! Just wow!
 
For me it is not just the weapons, it is the procedures, the nomenclature, the names, etc.

From the uncocked single action that they manage to shoot with a trigger pull to the change in handgun from one scene to another, to how a procedure is performed, and one that always irked me (but appears to be less used) is when they call a CIA officer an "agent."

But as I get older I get more mellow and understand it is hollyweed getting it wrong as they usually do.
 
Brit said:
I observed another scene. Tough looking bad guy, menace some people in a saloon, weapon, 45 single action revolver. Hammer down!
At 6 am I had a call come back! The actor was refusing to change that take? He liked the way he looked in it! He was English, as I am. I showed him the hammer back, hammer down... Would not go off, with hammer down.
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Most of the original Lone Ranger episodes are now available on Youtube. I've watched miost of them, and I was astonished to see that -- most times -- when the Lone Ranger draws and holds a bad guy at gun point, not only is the hammer not cocked, he holds the gun with the web of his hand high up behind the hammer so he's not even set up TO cock it.

But when I was six years old I didn't notice such things.
 
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