Lee Child done ticked me off

Isn't Jack Reacher a professional investigator who would necessarily have the legal knowledge to know that isn't true at all? I wish it were true, though.

I'd like to know where this fictional America exists -- maybe I could take an extended vacation.

Fictional characters live in a fictional universe.

The problem I see is that readers with no contact with reality other than fictional stories -- Jack Reacher novels, campaign rhetoric, mainstream news -- may believe the fiction and vote for gun laws based on fictions like that.

@ OP

AGREED and that is why I stopped reading that idiot who pretends to be a know it all about guns and gun laws.

He is NOT an authority ,except in his NOT so humble opinion.

I was a fan until I saw criminal,illegal and just plain dumb statements.

When I read the first Jack Reacher novel I could barely put it down. I was seventy pages in before i knew it. I got the second one. It started great but before you know it, a bad guy shows up pointing a Glock at our hero with the safety off. Now, I don't expect authors to be gun experts, but a little basic research into how a specific type of firearm operates isn't too much to ask for. I once read a book called "Neanderthal" where the hero was known to occasionally carry a .327 magnum which another character referred to as being a powerful round. This book was published before the introduction of the .327 Federal Magnum. Again, a little basic research. I'm not a car guy, but if I wrote a book and the heroine was driving a particular model of automobile, if it was germane to the plot, I would at least try to get the engine displacement correct.

One of his books, the finale of the entire story is predicated on the belief that a Beretta 92 stored with loaded magazines for many years will fail to chamber the second round and jam, because it will have the magazine springs weakened and failed due to long storage fully loaded.

Lee Child is a British author who knows nothing real life about guns, shooting, cars, military or police procedure, or anything else, but he can write.

If I were a typical action-thriller novel writer:

Chapter 7

Rod Long sprang into action! He fired his fully automatic .50 caliber M1 rifle from the hip, blasting his assailants into clouds of red mist as the high capacity thousand round magazine counted down to empty. He thanked God that his grandfather brought the rifle home after World War One, where he won the Medal of Honor by killing an entire company of Japanese Nazis during the Battle of Gettysburg.

The rifle clicked empty. All his enemies were now rendered into pools of chunky gore on the floor of the warehouse. Suddenly a British-made T-72 Abrams tank crashed through the wall. Its .500mm atomic rocket cannon swiveled in his direction and fired. Rod leaped out of the way as the flaming projectile of death shrieked past him, missing by mere inches. It struck a dilapidated 1972 Ford Nova which had a 740 cubic inch engine with 4 barrel fuel-injectors. The extremely valuable muscle car exploded with fury. Thank goodness the it wasn't hit with a depleted uranium projectile, or the warehouse would have gone up in a mushroom cloud!

Rod found cover behind a large wooden crate. Inside the crate he found an AK 15 Assault rifle with the shoulder-thing that goes up for extra deadliness. It had a full clip of armor piercing hollowpoint bullets. He took aim at the tank and fired. The burst of green-tipped hollowpoints penetrated the highly advanced and heavily armored tank end for end like an 88-magnum shoots through schools. The tank burst into flames, smoke billowing out of the gun barrel and hatches as the odor of the burning crew filled the warehouse with the delicious odor of roasting pork.

Rod ran for the door. As he exited the warehouse he found Lana Chestington tied to a lamppost. He quickly untied her and they both leaped onto his Harley Davidson Vespa and rode of into the sunrise.

That was hilarious, MatherinKerbouchard!

No good ever comes of a lie, and the episode recounted in the OP clearly is. It appeals to the ignorant reader's sense of derring-do, and undergirds the anti-gun fears, which would be no problem if people did not tend to take out of fictional narratives real lessons they believe. For example, a Beretta .25 or a Walther .32 is a good weapon. Must be true! James Bond had those.

Let's count up the felonies. Two guns straw purchased (no Second Amendment defense there) in violation of the NFA (Two more) and... suborning four felonies, conspiracy to commit varied felonies, and could we maybe tag on a money laundering charge for paying cash?

This is not mere harmless bloviation on the part of a bad writer. This is pandering to prejudice, in a time when we Yanks are struggling to retain what is left of a natural right.