Alan Korwin, visit his website GunLaws.com.
Misguided gun mythology is being foisted on the public and it is doing harm. Whether this is simply ignorant, deliberate, a plot, prejudice, acting out on stereotypes, a power grab — it doesn’t matter. What matters is it must stop. Pro-rights and anti-rights advocates just want to point fingers at each other. Children are dangerously misled. Lives are being lost needlessly. But wait — there’s hope — stupidity can be repaired.
People running Hollywood and TV are primary but not sole culprits. They’ll be first to cry First Amendment and insist, “We can do whatever we want!” and I’ll be first to agree. They are completely free to be idiots, and mislead and endanger the entire nation. They get to skate, scot-free, that’s our way. It’s just time to make it clear that’s what they’re doing.
The wild proliferation of guns and gun misuse portrayed on screens nationally gets acted out in public with dangerous mishandling, accidents and abysmally misinformed legislation. Violence proliferates in previously unimaginable ways, no longer confined to now commonplace theater and nighttime fiction. We even have gangsters who try to shoot sidearms sideways causing jams and adversely affecting aim (maybe that’s a good thing).
People who understand firearms — about 100 million of us — would find all that programming (right word) so much more credible and enjoyable if the gun parts were even slightly more realistic. The producers obviously don’t know better, if their products are any gauge. Think they’ll ever show a reloading bench? A what?
Korwin: Gun Training Good. Forced Training Bad.
Killer Elite. Right? Wrong! (Photo: IMDB)
It gives us shivers to watch cops constantly point their guns at suspects, witnesses, reporters, bystanders — each other — fingers on the triggers, with no apparent awareness of their surroundings, backstops — just the worst gun-handling techniques imaginable. It makes you wonder if the writers and directors ever actually handled a firearm. We know the answer, most haven’t. It’s evident. Ask a reporter, “Do you go to the range?” I do. It’s rhetorical. They don’t.
When a lieutenant holds a gun like a little girl (right word again), or cup-and-saucer style, or puts a thumb behind the slide of a pistol where the skin will be torn right off after the first shot, what a joke. No one makes that mistake twice. These folks are clueless.
OK, we get it, dramatic tension requires some liberties (poor word choice), even if it does increase stupidity. Bullets don’t spark, Stallone and every other super-rich macho manly Hollywood hypocrite hero can’t really outrun bullets, or hit everything with one shot… in real life, newcomers at a range are as rudely awakened as novices in court expecting Judge Judy.
Phony or fake, pick your word. Racking the slide in every scene — which makes a cool sight and sound — is as lame as a cooking show frying eggs with shells still on. It just empties your gun, making it worthless. Jump into a doorway so you’re silhouetted, framed for your enemy to see you clearly and fire? Who writes these things, Bizzaro? There’s a point here. The so-called “news” is no better, but it’s more dangerous.
Korwin: Disarm Annoying People – Enacted!
Reporters ask why a person needs this gun or that. After all these years they really don’t know? They didn’t go to school? They question amounts of ammo when a simple box of plinkers has 500, several friends at the range can burn a thousand by lunch. The shooting sports are the number two participant sport in the nation (ahead of golf), what sort of perspective can a person with such ignorant questions bring to the subject? To hear breathless talking heads — my colleagues — display such bias and ignorance is humiliating. They are so lucky they can’t have their licenses revoked.
Even with TV, video and Hollywood’s passion for promoting senseless mass slaughter day in and day out (shoot cops for points!), screaming it has no effect while the bodies mount around us as never before, we could teach. We have such a wonderful (but lost) opportunity to tell these same dangerously vile shoot-’em-ups and simultaneously inculcate the public in reasonable gun-handling techniques.
From statist cops-and-robbers stories, to portrayals of truly evil villains as a movie’s star — an immoral but recurrent Hollyvomit theme these days — these can provide a platform for, say, indexing your trigger finger on the frame, not resting it on the trigger. This does help limit accidents waiting to happen. Characters actually do the index-finger-thing sometimes, you’ve seen that. Does it hurt the show? Nah. But wait… there’s more!
Korwin: Obama Anti-Gun Lawlessness Reversed
When actors start practicing good muzzle control, and do that amazing ballet instead of the point-at-your-friends waltz they do now, people will pick up on this. Producers who do this will win audiences and accolade, overtly and subliminally, and create far more realistic, credible products. I can barely watch Spock and Kirk run insanely around with Phasers, look closely next time, sheesh.
Anti-gun-rights groups have dropped the worn out now unpopular “control” moniker, replacing it with “safety,” but no one is fooled. They don’t really know or do anything about firearms that would directly qualify as gun safety. That’s what their (gulp!) arch enemy NRA trainers do. Teach gun safety. Michael Bloomberg’s dark-money funded “safety” groups typically can’t even tell you what the gun-safety rules are.
Teach gun safety, abandon gun stupidity. PBS public media could do it. Nah, there’s little hope it will happen there, the stupidity is ingrained and tenacious.
Based on evidence, the political left likes gun stupidity, they promote it. But we know that, and we’re watching. It makes them look so, well, stupid. That can’t possibly be what they want, can it? Or does gun stupidity promote the left’s (read: Marxist/socialist) ultimate goal of gun confiscation…
They object loudly to voicing that goal of theirs out loud. So let’s ask the question. What guns does the left believe the public should be “allowed” to own? Or is that a stupid question? There are no stupid questions.
P.S. Use language with precision:
“Gunman” is sexist and gunophobic. It demeans and slurs both men and firearms needlessly. Use of this highly biased term compromises journalistic integrity and contributes to the distrust the public has for news media.
“Shooter” disguises the nature of evil and is a direct assault on decent people who exercise their fundamental civil rights. Millions of decent people at shooting ranges daily can be legitimately described by this term; lumping them in with a mass killer may be more inaccurate and prejudicial than referring to terrorists as Muslims.
“Mass murderer” is accurate, even before conviction when names are not specified, along with psychopath, killer, mass killer, spree killer, psychotic, villain, perpetrator and similar.
Recognize that sensationalizing images of mass murderers with special effects such as halos, colorizing, doubling or tripling, similar photo manipulation, zooming and panning, and ominous music or sound effects is inappropriate and decreases newsworthiness. Leaving images up during discussions is seen as perverse by audiences.
Running images of perpetrators long after events is yesterday’s news; featuring images of long-dead villains is perverse, causes harm, and serves little purpose other than to glorify evil and encourage copycats. The public knows this.
Audiences are repulsed by raising perpetrators to iconic status. It is often called “sick” behavior on the part of journalists and contributes to decreased respect and credibility for journalists among significant segments of the public.
“News” media turns death event into Guinness record hunt
The media is imitating its Hollywood cousins, excited about new records for killings! Looks, it’s a new record! Who will beat the new record?! Listen to them, they are excited! Hollywood leads the way — sets the all-time bloodthirsty killing sprees! Don’t worry folks — this has no effect on anything. They are positive.
Mr. Korwin you are preaching to the choir. Your article would be better served if it were published in the New York Times or Washington Post. Alas, we all know that will never happen.
Been saying that for years; for decades. Hollyweird is all about selling box office with sex, violence, violent sex.
Kids impressionable minds get fed garbage about sex and guns, gun handling, and shooting guns from Hollyweird, and it usually always ends in tragedy.
Sorry for the LONG post,, but worth the read:
The Journalists’ Guide to Guns (How Not to Look Like an Idiot When Writing About Firearms)
Journalists. Bless their hearts. As a rule of thumb, any time we read a news story about a subject or incident we already know a lot about, it turns out that about 25% (many times MORE) of what’s reported is simply wrong.
This is why knowledgeable gun owners distrust many news stories involving guns: because too many “journalists” display an ignorance of firearms that would be laughable if it weren’t so appalling. If they can’t get their facts straight about gun technology and shooting, then we don’t trust them on much else.
Here we go:
Lesson #1: They’re “Cartridges,” Not Bullets
Bullets are little lumps of lead. Inert, harmless little pieces of soft metal. They’re a component of ammunition, but they’re not ammunition.
What you journalists are almost always talking about when you mistakenly use the term “bullet” is “cartridge.”
Cartridges (or “rounds”) are little units of ammunition that go “bang” when they’re hit just right. The gunpowder burns, the bullet flies away, and the case stays behind with the gun.
Here are some correct(ed) usage examples:
“… a bill to limit magazine capacity to 10 bullets rounds…”
“…a bill to limit purchasers to no more than 50 bullets cartridges per day…”
“…bullets have been recovered as far as a mile from the rifle range…”
One classic example of how this issue can confuse the ignorant is the case when a neighbor objecting to a gun range nearby “salted” her home’s roof gutters with a few “bullets” to make it appear that they were unsafely escaping the disputed range. She foolishly had tossed live cartridges onto the roof to roll into the gutters, and the responding deputy Sheriff rolled his eyes, knowing the guns don’t expel live rounds of ammunition.
Michael Bloomberg’s well-funded anti-gun “Every Town for Gun Safety” group created a laughable propaganda image showing a rifle cartridge shooting out of the muzzle of a gun barrel.’
Anti-gun activists show their ignorance.
Lesson #2: They’re “Magazines,” Not Clips
When you journalists write about “clips” you’re always wrong. Always.
Magazines are containers that hold a bunch of cartridges, and are inserted into a gun to load it all at once, making reloading quick. Unless a gun looks like an old-time cowboy or a bird-hunter might use it, it probably has a magazine. A magazine itself is just a little sheet metal or plastic box with a spring inside (much like a Pez dispenser), and presents no danger of any kind. For pistols, they’re contained entirely in the grip, and for rifles, they usually stick out below the bottom, in front of the trigger.
A Candy Magazine?
If you’re curious, “clips” are archaic devices known only to gun enthusiasts, and are essentially never used by modern police or military, or by people who use guns for self-defense or sport. They’re used with old-style military rifles (like the WWII “Garand” they carried in Saving Private Ryan).
If you must know, clips are for loading rifles that don’t take magazines. They’re little strips of metal that hold a set of cartridges by their rear ends so they can be shoved into the rifle all at once. But they never come up in the news, so you can simply delete the word from your journalist dictionary. I can assure you that over all my years in the gun industry, I’ve never heard anyone use “clip” as slang for magazine. Maybe Hollywood gangsters and anti-gun reporters still do, but no one else does.
Incidentally, worrying about large magazines giving criminals firepower is pretty silly, because the whole point of magazines is how quick and easy it is to change them. I’ve seen live demos in which a shooter changed pistol magazines so fast it was a blur. And rifle magazines can be changed almost as fast with a little practice.
So, if you’re writing a story that involves magazines and are still confused, my advice to journalists is to drop by any gun shop and tell the guy behind the counter that you’re working on a story, and would like to see how magazines work. Trust me, you’ll learn all you need to know.
Lesson #3: Calibrating Your “Caliber”
This one confused me back when I started learning about guns. All you need to know is that caliber usually refers to the diameter of the bullet (and of the barrel of the gun that fires it).
There’s no clear rule, so don’t even bother trying to explain it. If a cop tells you the caliber of a gun used in a crime, just report it, and we’ll know what it means even if you don’t.
The cartridge designation will give you a good idea of the caliber, but can lead to confusion. 357 Magnum has a 0.357 inch diameter bullet. But so does a 38 Special. A kid’s 22 squirrel rifle has the same bullet diameter as the M16 military rifle but they’re otherwise different in almost every other respect.
Incidentally, there’s no such thing as a “high caliber” anything. Those are meaningless words used by anti-gun writers to make some gun sound fearsome. Same for “high power.” That M16 and the AR-15 fire the same round, but they’re anything but high powered. The cartridge they fire is considered borderline weak and inhumane for a thin skinned little deer, and is actually less powerful than just about every other cartridge used by ordinary hunters. Those 22 caliber bullets are much smaller caliber than 30 caliber (0.300 inch diameter) hunting bullets. They’re way smaller than the 50 caliber (half inch) bullets used in hotdog-sized cartridges that cost $5 a pop, and are used on those big belt fed machine guns on aircraft and by wealthy target shooters (who Dianne Feinstein worries are practicing to shoot through her armored limousine).
Lessons #4-11: Random Thoughts You Need to Know About Guns
#4. Guns aren’t required to be “registered” in most jurisdictions. Please don’t write that a gun was “unregistered” if there is no law requiring it to be. To those of us who know (there are lots of us) an “unregistered gun” sounds as absurd as an “unregistered baseball bat.”
#5. No self-respecting gun owner uses the phrase “packing heat.” It’s called “carrying”, whether concealed or open. “Packing heat” is old-time gangster slang with biased connotations. Avoid it unless you’re writing an anti-gun op-ed or a bad detective novel.
#6. Machine guns are legal (under federal law, and in most states). To buy one, a person must pay a $200 tax, undergo a background check, and wait maybe a year or more for the paperwork to process. But only a limited number of specially registered ones may be bought and sold by people. These are all older than 1986 and there are so few that what should cost $1000 new in a free market costs $10,000 or more. (There’s something like 1 legal machine gun per 1000 adult American males). That means that they’re only for wealthy collectors like Steven Spielberg, which explains why they aren’t used in crimes. Ever.
#7. Silencers are legal in most states. They’re properly called “suppressors” and we also use the slang term “can.” “Silencer” is OK to write, but it bothers a few gun geeks because they don’t make a gun literally silent (maybe as annoyingly loud as an air nailer – not the “phffft” or “ptew” of Hollywood movies). In Hollywood, only bad guys use them. In reality, it’s only good guys who passed a background check and paid a $200 tax just to make their guns a little easier on everyone’s ears.
#8. Sinister gun collections. When you’re reporting on some backwoods kook who was raided by a SWAT team, remember that all those guns and ammo you’re breathlessly reporting on are probably perfectly legal. The cops know that, but they know you’ll ignorantly imply that there’s something illegal about all the guns and ammo they’ve laid out on the table for you to photograph for the evening news. It’s actually quite normal for upstanding gun enthusiasts and hunters to own dozens of firearms (or to wish they did). It deceives your readers and amuses gun enthusiasts when we read that “the arsenal included over 1000 rounds of ammunition.” That’s because when we spend a weekend taking a shooting course, or just out having fun shooting at targets, we can easily shoot 1000 rounds (no it’s not a cheap hobby). 5000 rounds might sounds like a lot, but that much 22 ammo can easily be hand carried in a shoe box by a strong boy.
Also, a personal gun and ammo collection isn’t an “arsenal” unless you’re trying to demonize the owner, and strike fear in the hearts of your readers. It’s an “ample collection,” and for most gun owners, never ample enough.
#9. Ammunition in a burning building is no danger to firefighters. When the powder burns, the case just pops off the bullet. Firefighters with heavy suits and eye protection are in no danger. An excellent online video by SAAMI (one of my clients, and the organization that sets technical standards for ammunition) titled “Sporting Ammunition and the Fire Fighter” shows how surprisingly safe ammunition is in a fire and subject to other extreme stresses (and it’s cool to watch truckloads of ammo get shot up and burn up!)
#10. An “assault rifle” is a military rifle that can shoot full auto.
“Semi-automatic” means that a single shot is fired for each trigger pull, and the gun automatically loads the next round. Most pistols carried by police officers are semi-automatic.
An “assault weapon” is a term made up by people trying to ban semiautomatic rifles, by falsely implying that they’re full-auto assault rifles.
“Modern Sporting Rifle” is the industry standard term for the popular AR-15 and similar rifles with a military appearance. I prefer “Sport Utility Rifle.”
#11. The NRA isn’t the “gun industry lobby.” They may have millions of individual members whose interests they represent when lobbying lawmakers and pursuing civil rights lawsuits. But the real “gun lobby” is the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) that represents all the gun companies (I’m their trademark attorney, too). The NSSF has the mission: “To promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports.” They also publish an excellent booket that not only educates journalists, but is a goldmine for gun enthusiasts looking to sharpen their firearms knowledge.
So, that’s about all a journalist who’s seeking to report the facts clearly and accurately needs to know about guns. However, if they’re looking to “change the world” like a bunch of “community
Thank you for the article and especially your observation about the word “shooter”. I have been waging a one man war to ask people to stop using this word to describe a “gunman”. Sadly even those in the gun community or pro-gun media improperly use this term.
Korwin – You are a good researcher, You should take all the statistics about gun deaths, point out that
suicide do not count as a violent shooting death, but a personal choice [30% of all gun deaths are suicides]
And then publish an accounting of how many NRA members were involved in these shootings – That should
be published on the front page of every publication!
I grew up with Hollywood Westerns in the 50’s and 60’s on TV. Grew to know when learning how to handle guns that it was all fictionalized, but usually there was a moral to the story that good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns and good would win over evil. The problem today is that parents don’t teach morals today. Children aren’t born with a conscience. They should be taught what’s right and wrong. Don’t let the media teach your children. Spend time and teach and love them.
I appreciate what you’re doing, Mr, Korwin. I really do. ‘Problem is your thought processes are about three generations too late. You know. . . .the generations that learned to read and comprehend. . .unfettered by
indoctrination. The ones who understood that freedom has a price. . .and paid it.
The only place I find ‘journalistic integrity’ today is in the Bible. It wasn’t that way some decades ago. So, optimism isn’t my strong suite when it comes to humanity. That said, the biggest problem today in ANY developed country is illiteracy: laziness and an inability to think critically or objectively. It apparently hasn’t been taught anywhere for a long, long time. And, it’s gotten worse. The only thing I can think of to remedy this in the United States is to bring back conscription, i.e. ‘the draft’. Make it mandatory for able-bodied people over the age of 18 to serve two years in some branch of the Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security. (Chas Hall’s post above lends credibility to this suggestion).
This is one of the more idiotic screeds I have ever read Hollywood and the media are the cause of the present controversy regarding the possession and use of firearms? Really? Did Hollywood or the media create the scenarios when those who never should have been allowed access to firearms of any kind, use them to kill a large number of their fellow citizens? Did the media create the incidents in which improperly secured firearms lead to the death of innocents who happened to be in the vicinity? It is one thing to suggest that Hollywood tends to promote improper gun handling activities, but in all honesty, they have always done that. An entertainment production is not designed to be an instructional video, an to imply it should be is ridiculous. What should be happening is that organizations such as the NRA should be demanding that gun owners and users should be properly trained in their care and use, and not going out of their way to demand that the only thing a gun owner should possess is a pulse..
Another anti gun lefty hiding in the weeds. Go away buddy
+1 to this.
(From a Hollywood actor and producer who trains a couple times a year at ITTS with active duty LAPD Metro cops to make sure all guns are handled safely and properly on sets- and if they’re handled improperly, it’s by choice, not by ignorance.)
So the nra should be demanding law abiding gun (owners) and law breaking criminals (users) proper firearm training?
Your a phucking idiot for saying that.
Now I’ll ask you to please leave.
“What should be happening is that organizations such as the NRA should be demanding that gun owners and users should be properly trained in their care and use, and not going out of their way to demand that the only thing a gun owner should possess is a pulse.”
Actually they already do that and they also advocate for the protection of the rights of law-abiding, responsible firearm owners from the very people who want individual rights abolished. If you bothered to research just the NRA, you’d find the truth instead of the made-up facts and misinformation that is spread by liberals or repeated by the credulous incapable and unproductive apparatchiks. I am not a NRA member either.
Laws have zero effect on criminals and the mentally ill, but have a huge affect on law-abiding citizens. The liberals end state is a disarmed America void of individual rights. Liberals hate the Constitution and abhor individual rights. They will seize any instance of a violent crime where a firearm was used to call for more “gun control.” Government does not grant rights, it protects them.
So if law has zero effect on criminals and the mentally ill, how is more “gun control” going to solve that problem and not infringe the rights of law-abiding citizens?
@William Gore, ignorance is bliss, have you ever taken firearm training? In my state of Illinois, it is required to take 16 hours of classes, written and physical training, state and federal background checks, along with passing the required NRA range test for a concealed carry license.
Research reality before you speak.
The media is the 4th branch of the govt.
Hollywood and its ‘opinion leaders’ are the 5th.
No change will happen unless the CONSUMER wants it.
Thank you Mr. Korwin for another well thought out article. I’ve seen it many times in teaching Hunters education. Their are some people that should not be around guns, they just don’t have the common sense for it, especially now days when it is not so common!
a simple question. maybe I am niave, maybe I don’t know much,I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I have questions. For instance why can’t we treat guns like cars/driving? When people buy a car, they must, by law , get it registered, go through driving school, get insurance , renew the registration process(new tabs) yearly, and every few years get retested– no one complains(save maybe the long lines,etc) but there is compliance. I think some people who own guns might even surrender their weapons if this process were to be enacted, and those that choose to operate outside the law, pay an automatic, stiff sentence for non licensed possession. Free the marijuana criminals, and start enforcing stiff sentences for crimes committed with guns. We lose sight of the facts of gun possesion-lots of us are getting killed , maybe this will help fewer getting killed…
It’s simple, The 2nd amendment is a right, a license is a privilege. You have a right to protect yourself, your family, and your Country from all threats foreign and domestic (this includes a hostile government who would make your rights a privilege, and issues to the privileged few). Automobiles are driven all the time by unlicensed folks who don’t care about the law. Lastly, registration, provides a list of those, that if circumstances arose, created a militia to resit a tyrannical government, and easily be rounded up for prison camps… Thats what socialism does..
Amen
I say the automobile corallary is BS and basically supportive of the stances on gun ownership, in that, no matter how safe the car, no matter how many laws there are for driving on our highways and no matter how we register our cars and how often we test for our drivers licenses, 33,000 people a year still die in “auto violence.” No one will volunteer to surrender their car because they are vehicles of convenience. Also, the media and Hollywood does not create the controversy of gun (people) violence in this country however no one does more to perpetuate, foment and profit from it.
You have answers alright. The “gun laws” we have now often don’t get enforced. Fraudulent responses on background checks rarely get prosecuted to the extent they should. Cities with the highest murder rates are this nation’s cities with the most restrictive gun laws. The reasons given are that criminals are getting guns from neighboring states or cities yet the violent crime reported in these places is not camparible. How can that possibly happen?
When we the people get crime fighting advice from the former VP stating “all we need to do is to shoot a double barrel shotgun into the air and the bad guy will run away”, we are in a bad way. Any responsible gun owner knows the wrecklessness of this statement. Most politicians proclaim to be experts in all matters, ecspecially gun control, because they were elected to represent thier constituents. The real problem with this is the general masses are ignorant to thier statements and believe whatever is fed to them.
Chas, You may or may not be a basketball fan but let’s say you were. If you watched a basketball movie about Michael Jordan and the players were running down the court holding the ball and never dribbling, just carrying and passing you would think that is not very realistic and have enough fairly quickly. When there is a crime drama on and the main character is the first one to break down the door where there is a SWAT team right behind them, gun owners feel the same way. When an FBI agent on TV racks the slide before they get ready to storm into an unsavory situation a building suspense is created by chambering a round. Well in real life that happens when they put the gun in the holster in the morning.
If we treated guns like cars and driving we would be asking for there to be car control. Look at the number of traffic fatalities in this country vs death by firearm yet cars are useful to many more of us Americans even though they are used in crime everyday. I am retired from a federal law enforcement agency where I was a firearms instructor, an NRA instructor, life-time firearm enthusiast, and competition shooter. Myself and many, many others have shot thousands of rounds and probably hundreds of guns and still have never used a firearm in an unlawful manner. I have crossed paths with worst of humanity in my day but registering or banning firearms is not the correct answer even though it’s your answer.
Chas, hope you had a good Thanksgiving and you have a Merry Christams or whatever you may celebrate.
You may not have the answers but you certainly have the anti gun crowd’s questions down pat. The drivers license-gun license comparison is an old anti gun “reasonable” solution. Positing this so called solution and stating “I think some people who own guns might even surrender their weapons if this process were to be enacted” is ridiculous. Ostensibly, you’re an anti-gunner with nothing better to do.
Chas: You are naive. It’s good to know that about yourself. You’re young. And, there’s no fault in being young and naive. It’ll be painful but if you learn to keep your ears open and when to keep your mouth shut, you’ll open doors that might remain closed for more forward and self-righteous personalities. You’re still willing to learn. You’re looking for answers to senseless killings. Your character is developing good traits. So, when you make statements like, “We lose sight of the facts of gun possesion-lots of us are getting killed. . .” you’ll need to accept correction. Just like Butch Davis pointed out the difference between a ‘right’ and a ‘privilege’. Take that information to heart. You’ll need it later.
We don’t lose sight of these killings, Chas. Every time some crazy idiot uses a gun to kill someone else people are moved and we do remember. The media is successful at exploiting death by gun fire and keeping it in the public conscience. But, Hollywood fantasy does its best to make us insensitive to it. Those who think critically and objectively recognize this difference . . . as well as the hypocrisy of gun control advocates who finance or act in movies that show lies about gun use & killing and who project an unrealistic picture of what happens when people get shot. Gun violence is used as an emotional wedge in movies to manipulate an audience.
I appreciate your willingness to learn, Chas. Just be careful not to buy into lies from ignorant news media personalities, talk shows and people who make their living acting, singing and dancing. THINK past their words and look for their knowledge and intentions. You’ll find that their convictions are based mostly on emotion. . .an absence of knowledge and logic with the intention of manipulation. Good luck to you.
If government regulates something it is controlling it by a law it created. Firearm ownership is a protected right, but that right has been chiseled away with schemes and laws, especially by certain states, in order to control firearms and infringe the rights of law-abiding citizens. Again, laws have zero effect on criminals and mentally ill, but a huge affect on law-abiding citizens. BTW, the car analogy is bad. Plenty of drivers violate that “privilege, despite knowing it is criminal offense:” DUI/DWI/DWAI, diving on revoked or suspended license, vehicular homicide or manslaughter, no insurance, expired registration, no registration, expired or stolen tags, a slew of moving/stationary violations, habitual traffic offender, etc.
Do your own research and stop listening to “gun control” made-up facts, faux statistics, and misinformation. I suggest you start with the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting publications and you might look up Crime Prevention Research Center on the Web, good or bad, they tend to debunk the left’s “gun control” made-up facts, faux statistics, and misinformation.
Majority, if not all, law-abiding, responsible firearm owners know the Federal and their state’s laws on firearms. WE are not the problem.
WHat guns can we own? ALL Arms are, ‘…..Necessary to the Security of a Free State…..”. For if the Militia is necessary, then the Arms with which they would use to defend their communities, States and Nation are Necessary, too.
Honestly, I don’t want Hollyweird showing reloading benches. They’ll just show Travis Bickel using one in the remake of Taxi Driver. Hollywood spends millions on “movie armorers” and “technical advisors” who either aren’t worth it or aren’t listened to by actors, directors and producers. The consolation in all this is that no one in cinema will pay attention to this article, either, so it won’t occur to them to show a completely unsympathetic character using guns in an entirely correct way.
People cannot be counted on to learn gun safety skills from a film. They learn it by classroom and range instruction with plenty of chances to handle a weapon, first unloaded, before an instructor who’ll tell them how they are doing it wrong.
Let’s not leave out those Youtube stars that are among our own ranks. The pro second amendment individuals that seem hell-bent upon making everyone believe that all gun owners are retarded, inbred cousin-f**kers.
I have to agree with you on some in the you tube crowd. Is it really necessary to wear a shooting vest and gloves like you just finished a scene in “The Terminator” movie. Competition shooters may have a need for a vest but some of these you tubers are outright embarrassing to the responsible gun owner.