Writing Tips

fifty seven - guns in real life

As a kid who grew up in the south, I was raised around guns. They are a small part of my childhood, and will be a bigger part as I slip into adulthood. I've shot guns before, so I know a little about what it's like, and as a person who knows their stuff about them, here's some info for you guys that don't know. But listen, you don't have to be a gun expert to write about guns. In most cases, you're actually better off being as non-specific as possible. Getting into a lot of details about models and actions and calibers is a definite way to put most of your readers to sleep. When details matter, though, it's important to get them right.

First off, guns in real life don't have that little flash you see on TV when the trigger is pulled, just sayin'.

Unless a character has a death wish, there is never a reason to look down the barrel of a firearm. Ever.

A clip is a device used to load a magazine, and a magazine is a device or holding area where ammunition is fed into the chamber of a firearm. A magazine holds cartridges in reserve inside the firearm, where they wait to be loaded for firing. Some magazines are built into the firearms themselves. Others are detachable. A clip holds cartridges together for insertion into a magazine. Taking the extra step to put the cartridges into the clip can be necessary depending on the firearm's design. However, most firearms don't require a clip outside of a few older models.

A semi-automatic firearm will shoot one time with each pull of the trigger. This is a key difference compared to fully automatic firearms, which can fire multiple times with a single pull of the trigger. Confusing one for the other is a major trip - up area when writing, especially when citing "automatic" firearms without deciding on the type. Pick one and stick to it.

If you write a gunfight, you need to know the capacity of the gun or its magazine, and then keep track of how many rounds have been fired (and where they went). Does your character carry additional mags? If not, your character is limited to the ammunition already in the gun.

Most handguns, when they run out of ammunition, don't go "click, click, click" when the trigger is pulled. Many revolvers do this, but most semiautomatic pistols don't. In most cases, when a semiautomatic handgun runs out, its slide locks open. Pulling the trigger will do nothing.

Anyone who's ever bought a gun knows they're not cheap. You don't throw your empty gun at the bad guy when you're out of ammo. That's ridiculous.

A manual safety is a mechanism built into a gun that, when switched to safe, makes the gun incapable of firing. Some guns have them and some don't. One guaranteed way to make a lot of your readers roll their eyes is to write about a character unholstering a Glock and clicking off the safety. Glocks don't have manual safeties. Most revolvers don't, either. Most modern handguns (including Glocks) do have multiple integrated passive safety mechanisms to help prevent accidental discharges. These include hammer blocks, firing pin blocks, grip safeties and trigger safeties. This type of safety can't be switched on or off, so if you mention a character flicking a safety, make sure the gun you've put in his or her hands actually has one.

You know the scene where the bad guy appears and the cop racks his slide or pumps the action of his shotgun in dramatic fashion? Yeah, that's stupid. Just about anyone legally carrying a gun will have "one in the pipe"—a round already chambered. This is especially the case if the person is a law enforcement officer. Working the action with a round in the chamber just ejects a perfectly good cartridge onto the ground. Hollywood does this all the time because it looks and sounds dramatic. But it's not realistic.

Guns are LOUD, especially in enclosed spaces. If your character fires a gun without hearing protection, he or she won't be hearing anything but a nasty ringing sound for half an hour or so. At the very least, your characters won't be whispering to each other just moments later, because they won't be able to hear the whispers. Unless your characters are used to hearing gunshots all the time, they're not gonna hear each other.

When you draw the gun, you accept responsibility for someone dying. That mindset shift makes a difference. Most people who don't use guns, don't tend to think about the violent side of them. It's more a dangerous toy treated with respect in a special environment. If you're a cop or in the army, that violence is much more in your awareness, but regular civilians coming up on a gun usually don't think about that stuff.