Book cover showing gun shooting entire cartridge

[WhiteKnight]

I was organizing shelved books today at the local library where I volunteer, and I noticed, much to my chagrin, a 1911 on the cover of a book with a full cartridge (brass, bullet) exiting the muzzle of the gun.

I attempted to shrug this one off, and continued on organizing, if just a bit disjointed.

However, it wasn't five minutes later when I encountered ANOTHER book nearly identical to the first one. However this book pictured a revolver, yet still pictured a full catridge exiting the barrel.


Both books had at least a dozen checkout dates stamped on the back, so it's clear people are actually reading these things. Not to knock the books themselves, as the author may have had nothing at all to do with the cover design and became horrifed upon seeing the fallacy therein.

I know that the average populace probably couldn't tell .22LR from a .50BMG or a neck sizing die from a choke tube, and thus authors (and their editors and cover designers) don't have to have all the technical details down pat. However this just boggles my mind.

I do recall my earlier days before I had shot a firearm, and airguns made up all of my shooting experience. I truly did believe that guns fired the entire cartridge, and it came as a bit of a letdown when I realized the teeny-weeny bullet was the only thing actually coming out of the gun.

I guess some peoples' firearms knowledge is about on par with my own...when I was 7 years old.

We, as responsible well-informed and knowledgeable gun-owners, often lament the idiocy of various gun laws. Though with the common populace as illinformed as the readers of these books, how can we blame them?

Any comments?

 

[Standing Wolf]

We, as responsible well-informed and knowledgeable gun-owners, often lament the idiocy of various gun laws. Though with the common populace as illinformed as the readers of these books, how can we blame them?

There are non so blind, I've been told, as those who will not see.

 

[Sunray]

Hi. If it weren't for guys like you most libraries would be deep do-do. Do these books have the 'comic book' lines running from the muzzle to the cartridge? Sometimes a picture is just that. On the inside they usually explain the cover. It'll say what the pistol is and that the other part is its cartridge.
Sadly, most people don't know a case from a bullet. That's why you'll see guys, even on forums like this one, calling ammunition, bullets. It's as bad as all the 'clips' we hear about. We can only strive to teach and inform.

 

[P95Carry]

This is all part of the sheeple ''miseducation'' ..... keep telling them often enough that a cartridge is a bullet - and they'll keep thinking same. Tell them that ''guns kill people'' and they'll believe it - forgetting that the inanimate gun needs someone to pull the danged trigger!

Tell them that a ''military looking'' semi is an ''assault weapon'' and they'll believe it.

All part and parcel of the trend toward disinformation and misinformation ... all the better to steer folks away from truth and fact .... it hits at emotions thru ignorance .. one of our greater scourges.

 

[Mal H]

WhiteKnight - Do you recall the names of the books or the authors?

 

[carebear]

You see that all the time in mysterys/crime fiction.

It isn't ill intent, or some kind of conspiracy, it's just artist ignorance.

The author, until they get famous enough if then, has almost no control over the cover art or jacket blurbs.

I'd be more concerned (if I was one to worry about lazy fiction authors not doing proper research) about the tenor and content of the text itself. Not that some Madison Avenue lame-o doesn't know the difference between a bullet and a cartridge.

 

[carebear]

Oh, Mal,

You'll see it on some of the Spenser hard-bounds. The Stephanie Plum series. A lot of that genre.

It's real common. Again, moreso if you hang out in the mystery or "adventure" sections.

 

[misANTHrope]

I recall a book I read years ago, "Flight From Winter's Shadow" by Robin White, where a certain character was carrying what was initially referred to as an "ancient .45." Later it was referred to as "the old revolver." Read on, and there's a reference to checking to be sure the safety's on. Then there's a reference to checking the clip to see how many rounds were left. Hmm...

What really got me about this was that it was a novel written in sort of the Tom Clancy/Stephen Coonts style, where technical accuracy is generally given a lot of attention, and it's pretty much the case except for this particular pistol... It bugged the crap out of me reading it!!!

 

[gbelleh]

It's amazing how many people believe that the entire cartridge exits the muzzle. I've introduced many people to guns (most had never touched a real gun). Many of them didn't realize that the bullet separates from the case or that brass flies out of the side of the gun. Some didn't even know that the slide recoils back every time the gun is fired.

Pictures like these (which are common) help to cause this confusion.

 

[firearms_instructor]

I love it when MY guns do this...

'cuz then I can RE-USE the BULLETS! MWUAHAHAHA!

K, maybe it's past my bedtime now. However, I have seen WAY too much of this exact type of silliness in the movies.

I also get annoyed when watching the building lobby shootout scene in The Matrix, and you see Neo shooting two Czech Skorpion machinepistols, and then (due to an editing error, from what I've read) you see 5.56mm brass falling at his feet.

 

[Chipperman]

The Gyrojet come closest to the way a lot of people think a gun actually works.

The hammer drops, hitting the little silver disc. The disc is pierced, and forms a little hole from which the "explosion" is released , propelling the "bullet" forward.

 

[Justin]

You see, that's the difference between guns in books and guns in movies. In the book it looks scarier if there's a massive projectile being shot out of the weapon.

In a movie, it's better to show the brass artistically ejecting out of the gun and tinkling all over the ground.

 

[RobW]

These things happen because a lot of people are educated only by movies and TV.

 

[P95Carry]

people are educated only by movies and TV

Rob - did you really mean to use that word ''educated''??

 

[mete]

That reminds me of a paperback western - on the cover was a cowboy firing a cap and ball revolver with empty cases coming out of the gun !!

 

[Treylis]

I recall a book I read years ago, "Flight From Winter's Shadow" by Robin White, where a certain character was carrying what was initially referred to as an "ancient .45." Later it was referred to as "the old revolver." Read on, and there's a reference to checking to be sure the safety's on. Then there's a reference to checking the clip to see how many rounds were left. Hmm...

Stephen King has done the exact same thing, and I do mean exact, in The Tommyknockers. The old man's .45 (it's supposed to be a 1911, I'm pretty sure) has a cylinder at one point and a slide at another in addition to those things you already listed, save for no "old revolver".

 

[Treylis]

Oh, yes, and I remember seeing this one detective mystery novel cover where the trenchcoat-wearing dick hand a smoking 1911 in his hand... slide stop on the wrong side of the gun.

 

[Silent Bob]

I remember watching a goofy IQ-draining Hong Kong movie called The Heroic Trio that, in one scene, showed in slow motion, an entire cartridge being fired from a gun.

 

[Bruce in West Oz]

My favourite author (and I'm not prepared to take any ????? over this) is Stephen King. Generally, he researches well, and has an amazing ability to recreate locales and emotions.

But he's not real good at guns! Which is a shame. Apart from the incident already mentioned, he has had people picking up spent bullets to see the firing pin indent in the base, bouble barrel pump action shotguns, and a general mish-mash between revolver and semi-auto.

But, hey — he's still, IMHO, the greatest author the world has seen for the last quarter century of the millenium.

I didn't really understand where he came from (remember, I live in Western Australia), until, one Christmas, I stood outside, in Maine, in the snow, next to a woods, and just … looked and … listened ……_and suddenly, I understood. I felt it. Reason said it was just a few trees —— But I knew there was a … thing alive in there.

I was never so happy as then to race up the steps and grab my stubby of Samuel Adams … and look at the Christmas tree … and make damned sure the door was locked!!!!