Television and Gun Accuracy Don’t Mix

Big Hollywood ^ | March 10, 2010 | John R. Lott Jr.

[JohnRLott]

Has “Burn Notice” gotten new writers? They used to have some very insightful comments about guns and crime (e.g., see the episode in season 2 entitled “Lesser Evil”). Yet, now one needs a scorecard to keep tracks of all the errors in some of the shows. Take some of the errors in the most recent show, “Partners in Crime,” posted on Hulu.

At 10:10 into the episode, Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell) explains to Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donovan) that an individual who they are checking up on in Florida, “Owns a gun, but it is registered.” The only problem is that Florida, where the show is said to be occurring, and the vast majority of the rest of the US, doesn’t have gun registration. Indeed, only four states require the registration of handguns and one state requires the registration of all long guns (several other states require the registration of so-called “assault weapons.” . . .

[dr_who]

I dunno. The way I see it, if the screen is large enough, it doesn’t matter if your aim is lousy.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Also two barrels that come off the same assembly line will initially very likely produce essentially the same markings on a bullet (it would be like taking molds of all new tire treads with the notion of keeping them on file to help solve crimes where tire tracks are available).

An excellent analogy. I'll remember that.

[exDemMom]

I dunno. The way I see it, if the screen is large enough, it doesn’t matter if your aim is lousy.

I'm pretty sure I could hit it from 50 yards away. I've hit those plastic targets at the range from even further..

[fr_freak]

Burn Notice seemed always to have a slightly ignorant leftist bent the way they always had the master spy guy proclaim that torture never works, that the guy getting tortured will always just tell you what you want to hear to stop the pain. OK, fine, but have these idiots ever considered that you don’t torture them and then let them go? You torture them and hold them to see if the info is valid? You think the guy being tortured will lie knowing that you’ll be twice as angry when you found out he lied? It always seemed like a leftist meme to me.

[DTogo]

“Owns a gun, but it is registered.”

If pop culture repeats it often enough, the uneducated masses will assume all guns should be registered when the legislation comes down the pike.

You don't want guns registered? But the registration fee is for the children... you hate children?

[ansel12]

I have a movie script of a movie that was made, although I don’t know if this scene stayed in it or not. The script has a detective and his partner get in a shootout with bad guys in a hospital emergency room, after his partner is shot dead the hero detective tapes his partners revolver and his automatic together so that he can fire both guns simultaneously, I saved the script for that piece of humor.

I got the script when I didn’t have TV and before I was on the internet, next time I come across it, I will note the title and strive to watch the movie on DVD to see how that scene is played out.

[OneWingedShark]

Interestingly put.

[Falcon28]

From the comment section of this article:

I stopped watching Burn Notice two weeks ago when we are served with this leftists nugget:

British guy Gilroy needs Michael Weston to steal a high powered rifle from a militia group. When they arrive near the militia camp, Weston asks “Who are these guys?” Gilroy responds, “Just a bunch of right-wing separatists.” To which Weston replies, “You mean white supremacists?” Gilroy, “Tomato, tomato.”

And, that’s when I turned the show off. Another left-wing suck punch. Another great show returns to the entertainment industry’s default position: cultural Marxism. Should I be surprised?

[dr_who]

Betcha you used to bullseye womp rats with T16 back home.

[Dexter Morgan]

I never made it through an episode. That guy has always been a wuss. Even my wife, who loves tv shows, made fun of it from the first time she saw it.

[lack-of-trust]

I tune in for Fiona.

[SkipW]

Forgive me please, but what you just said is absolutely wrong. Every barrel is different. They don’t produce the same markings on bullets. Where did you ever get that idea?

[VR-21]

I tune in for Fiona.

I like Fiona too, but she'll never be the gun chick that Emily Procter was (and I hated CSI Miami).

[element92]

many guns have interchangable barrels

[Gilbo_3]

noticed that on csi years ago...every gun crime was an exercise in searching the database and finding out that john D had whichever manufacturers barrel signature, in that calibre 'registered' in his name...

then simply drive to his house and pick him up and match the rounds...BBBWWWAAAHAHAHAH...

[Still Thinking]

You don't want guns registered? But the registration fee is for the children... you hate children?

Anybody pulls that "B-b-but it's fur the chilllllllllrun" crap on me, I just say "Any child so inferior he can only survive if the government is given sweeping new powers is of no use anyway. Why would I want to give up even the smallest scrap of liberty so I could live around more people like that? That would be like intentionally moving to a state with a lot of Democrats!"

[DTogo]

So, you’re saying that you hate children? ;^)

[sig226]

Many moons ago, I bought a reference book while I was working on writing fiction. The book was supposed to be a comprehensive guide to police procedures, laws, and other stuff that a writer might want to know in order to insert accurate details into his book.

But it wasn’t accurate; at least, it wasn’t accurate outside of Los Angeles, where the writer lived and worked. I knew this because I volunteered in emergency services and worked hand in hand with the local police. They didn’t follow the procedures in the book, or use the 10 codes from the book, or cite the statutes from the book when they arrested somebody. I read up on my state’s laws and they weren’t even close to the stuff in the book.

The book turned out to be a very narrow minded exercise in parochialism. Its author assumed that if the Los Angeles Police Department did things this way, then the police in the other 49 states must do things the same way. At no point did the author suggest that prospective crime writers go to the local university and read their state laws to see what they actually said. Neither did he suggest that writers go sit in a courtroom and watch a couple of trials to see what happens.

Nope. It happens thus . . . and because this incredibly ignorant book filled a lot of lazy authors’ heads with mush, most people have remarkably little knowledge of how things are done in their own states. Writer laziness is a remarkable force in nature.

[Jeff Chandler]

I don’t think a revolver would work if it was taped to another weapon. How could the cylinder turn?

There are several good books written expressly for writers so that they don’t write nonsense about guns.