JP Marshall

My only experience with firearms has been with a Lee Enfield .303 and an FN C1A1 (plus a few assorted .22's) and even then only on a very firmly controlled range. I've never fired a pistol or shotgun. So I have a question for those who have (or for anyone who knows the answer):

If the situation is one where a gun would be necessary, does it not make sense to go into that situation ready? I guess there's two convenient ways to keep a gun safe but ready (the actual safety or by not carrying it cocked) but what's the most realistic?

I've see in TV and movies all over the place that the wielder is face to face with the bad guy, or threatening someone, gun at the ready yet only then do they cock it. Is this only done to reinforce to the audience that these are supposed to be real weapons and the sound just for emphasis, or is acceptable to go into a potentially dangerous situation not fully prepared?

Swamp Thing

I can only speak for semi-autos, but the few times I've ever thought I might have to use one, I've chambered a round immediately. I don't want to fool around with anything other than the trigger if, God forbid, I feel it necessary to use one of them.

I think that making noise by chambering a round is silly, but you could still do it simply by ejecting the round already chambered and replacing it with another. I don't see why, other than to build tension in a movie, though.

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rosearche

The UK police firearms officers will carry their weapons loaded and ready for use. With the revolver, and there aren't many forces still using them, there is no safety and the hammer could be cocked back requiring less pressure on the trigger to discharge the weapon. This used to be done back in the eighties but was stopped after a tragic accident involving a child hiding in a bed.
Most forces use the pistol, a Glock is the most common, and the Heckler and Koch. These involve pulling the slide back and releasing it to load a round ready for firing. Some forces will require the use of a safety, up to the point of iminent use and others will require the officer to keep his finger out of the trigger guard, such as the Metropolitan. Shotguns are the same with the weapon being 'racked' to put a cartridge into the breach ready for firing.
As Swamp Thing points out, doing this infront of someone would either mean that you were there without a loaded weapon, or you've such ejected a round for a new one, neither of which are done in real life but sound good on the TV.

Sam Winchester

You should generally avoid copying what the TV does, because usually it's a load of crap. For instance, no one shoots a gun with one hand. They don't point it at the sky, either. Most officers or soldiers adopt what is known as the 'Weaver Stance' when preparing to shoot (although, the isosceles stance is becoming a big thing now), and they invariably carry their weapons loaded but on SAFE. The gun is always pointed downwards. Cocking a gun is really only intended to scare the recipient. I don't think you should ever carry a gun cocked - too easy for an accidental discharge. Keep it loaded and the safety on.

In relation to shotguns, it depends on the type. My father had an old, side-by-side two-shot shotgun for years. You had to break the gun in half and insert your shells. There were two triggers - one for the left barrel and vice versa. When he was hunting, he always kept it loaded, with the safety on. Combat shotguns are different. You've got to pump the fore-end to chamber a round. The same rule applies - keep it loaded and on safe. Of course, if you want to go really gung-ho, you can use the Spaz shotgun, which is a seven-shot, rapid-fire shotgun, and costs over a thousand pounds.

Sam.

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Foxee

I think in movies cocking the gun at the last moment is for effect - a threatening sound so that viewers can tell themselves, "Oh NO! He has a gun and he's WILLING TO USE IT!" Not so different from when they show a horse in a movie they have the sound of neighing, even if anyone who knows horses at all can tell the animal is standing there quietly chewing grass.

Some carry 'cocked and locked':

Quote:

Cocked and locked. Chamber loaded, hammer cocked, thumb safety on. This requires you to snick the safety down before firing and snick it back up when you're finished, a test of manual dexterity that can be learned by any creature equipped with opposing thumbs and probably by a few equipped with paws or hooves instead.

Know what kind of gun (in general...revolver, semiauto, etc.) and know enough about how it operates that you won't write something stupid. You don't have to write 'gun porn' where you detail every tiny bit of info about the gun...just know whether it has a safety or not, how the firing mechanism works, etc. so that you can write the usage of it believably even if you never say what exact type of gun it is.

Consistent facts in your fiction writing really help the reader in their suspension if disbelief.

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Dan

When I was a military cop we carried our sidearms with a round chambered and the safety off, but never...never...with it cocked. That's a recipe for disaster. It's not too difficult to pull a trigger with the hammer down, but it's way too easy to accidentally fire with the hammer back.

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JP Marshall

Thanks, guys. I appreciate your replies - just what I was looking for.


Gun porn... that made me chuckle...

archer88iv

It's important to note that many police forces do NOT carry their weapons on "safe" because their weapons do not, in fact, have a safety. The Glock's only safety device is a funny little thing on the trigger that won't let you pull the trigger without putting your finger in the right place.

Also, consider that some weapons (the venerable 1911, for example) are single-action only (meaning that the trigger can only fire the weapon, not prepare the weapon to be fired by lifting the hammer/firing mechanism). These are the sorts of weapons more commonly carried "cocked and locked" (also known as "condition 1"), with the chamber loaded, the hammer back, and the safety on.

The only conceivable way for the weapon to discharge in this case would be for a force other than the hammer to strike or jar the firing mechanism in such a way as to cause the pin to strike the primer of the shell in the round and cause the primer to detonate. I have been unable to find any evidence that this has ever happened, but I suppose it's possible.

Left-handed shooters in WW2 are known to have carried the 1911 at "half cock" (there is a half-cock notch on the 1911's hammer, though I've no idea why) rather than in condition one because the 1911's manual safety is difficult to operate for a left-handed shooter and raising the hammer from half to full cock is not as loud as pulling the hammer from rest to full cock.

In my experience, the easiest way to make a gun realistic in written fiction is to know just *one* thing about a specific gun and drop it in as a fact so the reader has something to latch onto. Also, it helps if you aren't very specific about which gun you're using. Say "automatic" and then maybe mention that your character pulls out the magazine about an inch to check the ammo counter. Would be a perfectly viable detail for a Glock that has been recently fired, but not emptied.

...of course, that just makes the gun a bit more realistic. If your character knows shit about a Glock, that kind of behavior would be unacceptable. Making characters behave realistically around guns is much more difficult, unfortunately.

Any real shooter is going to be ready to fire when facing a situation like that. With a Glock or other double-action weapon, this probably means that they need only pull the trigger to fire at that point. With a single-action only weapon like a 1911, there's a chance (a very slight chance) that the safety might be on until they actually decide to take the shot, although bringing up a point like that would be of questionable value.

Anything that requires excessive movement in order to prepare the weapon to shoot is a definite nope. Racking the slide, pumping a shotgun, etc.--definitely not. A shooter will want to keep the sights lined up and on target.

Just don't talk about bullets throwing sparks and I'll be happy.

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-J