lol, yes…my favorite mental example of this is when they hide behind a car door as protection. They have obviously never been out in the desert and seen the bullet holes going through a car completely that some good old boys decided to shoot up just because. Cars, like waist-high railing walls, aren’t bulletproof, especially from high-powered rifles.
Plus, since Frank made everything to his scale, ‘waist-high’ might be even less cover for abnormally sized people who don’t fall into his ideal perspective…
About 20 years ago, there was a crappy Russian “blockbuster” called Personal [ID] Number, in which terrorists take over the Moscow Circus.
How are the bad guys beaten? Spetsnaz commandos rappel down from the catwalks firing their assault rifles one-handed on full auto. Each terrorist is hit square in the chest, but none of the captive spectators in the grandstands are harmed.
Re: hanging up the phone without saying goodbye: I heard it mentioned a couple times recently in the wake of Harry Reid’s death that he was one who did this IRL.
Well, if you are hiding behind an open car door they can see your legs, so they have a good idea where you are. But in general, you can see this all the time with people in cars crouching down while the car is riddled with automatic weapons fire and being unscathed, which, simply, isn’t going to happen unless you are just really lucky and all the shots miss you. Bullets go right through a car unless they are firing from ahead through the engine block.
The best example I can think of off the top of my head is in Hancock. Armed bank robbers are firing at a pinned-down policewoman with automatic weapons. She is crouching down behind the vehicle and it’s shielding her. Hancock walks up (being bulletproof and all), then picks her us…and uses the bottom of the car as a shield for the policewoman, while the bank robbers pour fire at it. And the policewoman is safe…saved by the bulletproof protection of the car!
Except she would be dead of course. Granted, this is a fantasy movie (Hancock is a superhero after all who is bulletproof and can fly and such), but still, I think it demonstrates what Hollywood THINKS a car offers wrt protection from firearms.
Silencers are quite the thing. It sure would be nice if they worked like on TV or movies. How did the trope ever get started, seeing as how “fft” silencers are as impossible as FTL travel?
Just watched a brand new FBI International and they used silenced rifles. Will this perversion of physics ever end?
There is a book, Time and Time Again, where a guy goes back in time to save the world from WW1. He has a Glock type 9mm. The author thinks that the modern 9mm is super powerful, able to easily go through one body and kill another. However, that 9mm is the same cartridge as in the Luger, a standard WW1 weapon. Now sure- it could but I wouldn’t count on it.
The author also thinks the French, etc didn’t want WW1, it was all Kaiser Bill. However, the French was giving Russia millions of gold francs to build military railroads to mobilize the Russian army vs Germany. Pretty much every one of the major Euro powers wanted WW1, and they all thought “the boys will be back by Christmas”. Idiots all.
Saw an early Kojak (Savalas, not Rhames) and Kojak remarked on the bad guy’s 9mm as a “cannon”. I was like, were they so sheltered in 1973 that they thought a 9mm was “something”?
Sure, a 9mm (fired from whatever) can go through a body and hit another. You are right, a modern Glock firing a standard 9mm round is going to be as effective as someone using a Luger or whatever from the period. I suppose it’s possible that the modern gunpowder is a bit more powerful, or maybe the round has more (or less) grains, or perhaps the Luger was firing ball ammo and the Glock had some sort of specialty ammo, but basically, they both are going to be very similar…and both can potentially penetrate a body at close range. Did a quick search on YouTube, and there is this video showing someone firing a 9mm round at a ballistics dummy at close range and it easily penetrated the dummy and went out the other side (I think if you fast forward to around 8:00 you can just watch that part if you are interested).
But don’t police cruisers have tempered, bullet-resistant window glass, specifically so they can be rolled down into the door, offering a bit more protection than a civilian car? I seem to recall reading or hearing that, maybe in a Tony Hillerman novel.
I believe that the pfft silencers actually do exist but theyre from guns that are SPECIFICALLY made for silenced shooting. For example the Welrod pistol or MP5 covert models had integral suppressors that were much more quiet than the ones you just mount on existing guns, and they were given 9mm ammo that was subsonic and specifically calibrated to work best with those guns.
Re the “ordinary objects are bulletproof” discussion: In The Phantom comic strip a few years back there was a memorable episode where The Phantom managed to avoid getting shot in a gangland shootout by hiding behind a full-sized mattress.
In “The Sarah Conner Chronicles” they played with that trope - the Connors hide behind couches, etc. in a firefight in their house, but we soon learn that the couches have been reinforced with Kevlar.
That is exactly how its been at every funeral I have been to including the fake grass covering the fresh dirt and hole. The workers are usually a discreet distance away. Nothing is done to lower the casket until everyone leaves. These funerals have all been in the Northeast and at Catholic cemeteries. I don’t know if that matters.
Not true at all. I haven’t heard of that as even an in-job urban legend.
Cars, like waist-high railing walls, aren’t bulletproof, especially from high-powered rifles.