Even in America, where we love our guns, most of us aren’t shooting things as part of our day-to-day routines. In fact, the majority of Americans know very little about guns – not to mention things like gun holsters, speed loaders, and, well, you name it! Hollywood writers realized this a long time ago and, being writers, used it as an excuse to never do any fact-checking ever again.
- Bullets can explode literally anything. In the movies, bullets and anything mildly flammable have a matter/anti-matter relationship, and if the good guy takes cover behind a car door? Well, he might as well be holed up in Fort Knox. Ironically, while guns are useless for exploding a gas tank, they’ll punch through a car door with ease.
- The gratuitous cocking of guns. The myth here: Movies treat the cocking of a gun like an exclamation point, as if to say they person holding the gun means business. That “click” is the sound of a hammer being cocked back, and movies seem to be saying, “This means the gun is ready to fire now, baby!” It doesn’t mean that, however. It doesn’t mean anything. The gun was already good to go.
- Bulletproof vests are basically like force fields, right? Wrong! In movies, body armor turns most guns from magical death-wands to hilariously overbuilt Airsoft rifles. The type of bulletproof vest you can actually conceal under your clothes provides exceptional protection against most handguns. However, when put up against an assault rifle it’s only slightly more effective than body paint.
