Debunking Lies Movies Tell Us About Guns
Guns used in the movies are sometimes just as fictional as the characters that shoot them. Many times we see a person with a gun doing some amazing things, but can the weapon really do what is being portrayed? Sadly, a lot of what we see is a load of wishful thinking and special effects. One bullet just can't blow up a car nor do some of the things we see on this list. Find out more below:
Machine Guns Can Fire Forever
Hand-held machine guns shoot between 150-900 bullets per minute. However, the magazines that these machine guns have are typically only 30 rounds. If you do the math, that means (depending on the weapon) if you squeeze the trigger on one of these guns - in full auto mode - you only have enough ammo for about 3-10 seconds. That doesn't make any sense, does it? How can Arnold Schwarzenegger fight for up to thirty minutes without stop? How could he even carry that much ammo? For a half-hour fight scene, that would mean that he would need 450 clips of ammo! A clip might weigh 1.8 pounds, which would mean he was carrying around 810 pounds of ammo! It doesn't matter how strong Arnie is, there is no way he is carrying nearly a half a ton of ammo...
A Gun Blast Will Knock You Back
In the movies, we often see a person getting thrown through a window or over a balcony by a shotgun blast or even just one bullet. Bullets don't work that way. A bullet causes damage by penetration. That's it. It hits you, pushes and flattens everything in its path out of the way and then may exit the body if it still has momentum. It doesn't cause you to suddenly jump up and fly backwards (or forwards) from the impact. This was once proven on the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters. It is even proven in physics by Sir Isaac Newton in his Third Law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This means that if a person were to be shot with a bullet and knocked back 10 feet from the force of the shot, then the person shooting the gun would also be knocked back 10 feet from the gun going off. It doesn't happen that way.
Silencers Stop The Sound Of A Bullet
Silencers are a cool way to kill someone without the whole world being notified to what you just did, right? Wrong. What they do is soften the sound of the bullet leaving the chamber of the gun. There is still noise, but the popping noise is somewhat reduced. Remember, the bullet is still traveling faster than the speed of sound, which means that it creates a mini-sonic boom. The "noise suppressor", which is the proper term for this device, first patented in 1910, simply reduces the expansion of gasses by a series of baffles. The actual sound produced by a "silenced" weapon is similar to a car door being slammed shut - hardly the puff of air we see in the movies.
Single Bullet Wounds Are Usually Lethal
In the Westerns and action films, the hero with a pistol holding six bullets is typically going to kill six people. One bullet. One kill. However, in real life, this isn't the case. The only way to really kill someone with one shot is to hit the person in the neck, the brain, or the heart. You hit someone there, they are down for the count before they hit the ground. However, the rest of the body is pretty sturdy by comparison. A shot to the torso - or even the head - is typically not an instant kill shot and if the person can be evacuated and treated in a hospital in about an hour, they are most likely going to live. If the wound is in the arm or the leg - assuming it didn't sever a major artery, gives the person even more of a chance of survival. Note: Survival doesn't mean long-term disability. It just means you are going to live from your injury. Typically, if you are shot by a bullet, you will be in a lot of pain or even shock and that means you aren't fighting back. However, if you can get past those problems, it isn't unheard of for a wounded person to return fire. People survive due to quick thinking and expert medical care administered quickly.
You Need To Cock A Gun To Shoot It
This is a Hollywood effect that has been taken from the Old West. The sound of a pistol being cocked is a great auditory effect, but it isn't necessary - at least not in the last 150 years. Back in the old days, there were weapons that were single-action revolvers. This meant that you had to cock the pistol, aim, and shoot, then cock it again to fire. Guns today don't need to be cocked. When the bullet is chambered, it's ready to go. A pull of the trigger cocks the gun and fires it. When you hear that "click" go off in the movies for the gunman to let the victim know they mean business, they are actually "un-cocking" the gun (which is extremely dangerous since a round is already in the chamber) and adding an additional step to their mayhem. It sounds good on the silver screen, but is completely unnecessary.
