Guns Part One – Revolvers

One of these days, I will write a post about errors writers make writing about guns. This day is not that day.

Or maybe it is…

I was reading an NCIS fic yesterday, one of many in which Tony leaves NCIS. (This is one of my favorite types of NCIS stories to read; I’ve even thought about doing something similar to SASundance’s “There’s Always Tom Morrow” series, though instead of Gibbs & Co. suffering actual consequences for stupid things they do in the series, mine would be something like “Fifty Ways to Leave NCIS” and write episode tags where Tony justifiably leaves NCIS due to how he’s treated. But I digress.)

The details of the story I read yesterday aren’t relevant, except that at one point Tony, having left his service weapon at NCIS when he left, draws a revolver on an intruder in his residence. Yes, the writer specifically said revolver, and the confrontation opened in the intruder’s POV hearing the cocking of a weapon. (I’m not going to look up the actual wording; thon may have said gun. The point remains the same.)

So far, so good.

Then, several lines of dialogue later, Tony pulls the hammer back. (Again, the specific wording may be different; the action remains the same.)

And I groaned. Out loud. My dog looked at me funny.

I get it. I really do – a weapon cocking is a great way to ramp up the tension , and it makes a nice beat for dialogue.

However – and this is a huge, neon pink blinking however, once the hammer of a revolver is cocked it remains cocked until the gun is fired or whoever’s holding it gently(!) releases the hammer and returns it to its “resting” position.

(Yes, there are a very few circumstances with certain (old, no longer manufactured) makes of revolvers in which dropping the gun can cause the hammer to fall and the weapon to fire, but the manufacturers figured out what allowed that to happen and fixed it.)

Further, there are two types of revolvers – single action and double action. Single action revolvers require the hammer to be cocked before every shot, including the first. Double action revolvers can be fired without cocking the hammer – all you have to do is pull the trigger.

Most modern revolvers are double action, meaning Tony didn’t need to cock the hammer…but again, cocking the hammer is a nice pacing beat, so I generally don’t have a problem with anyone cocking a revolver.

Once.

Or once before every shot, for certain historical weapons. (Ever watched a western where the cowboy pulls the hammer back with the edge of his opposite hand? It’s called fanning and, again, modern revolvers don’t require it.)

Reading things like that is very frustrating to me – five minutes with thon’s favorite search engine, and the writer would’ve known.

(Heck, waaaaay back in either Complementary Angles or Supplementary Angles (the first two fanfics I ever published online, both set in the Snyder X-Men universe), I wrote a scene in which Jean Grey telekinetically removes adamantium from Lady Deathstrike’s body. I’m not a doctor, but a few minutes with a search engine and a basic diagram of the human body, and I ended up getting compliments for my “medical knowledge.”)

It’s not my intention to pick on this writer specifically; even the pros make similar mistakes – often in TV, where the sound of the hammer cocking is edited in. The worst offender that I can think of right now is from Leverage, “The Last Dam Job,” season 4, episode 18. In the climactic confrontation, Nate Ford waves a revolver around (and gun enthusiasts everywhere collectively winced) and the sound of the hammer cocking (along with the very distinctive rolling of the cylinder) happens at least five times. I love the show, but damn – that was a difficult scene to watch.

Writing fanfiction is a hobby

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, something we do for fun.

Even so, don’t we owe it to our readers to make each story…okay, I was going to write “the best we can,” but that puts way too much pressure on the writer and the story because it sniffs around the edges of perfectionism, and nothing is ever perfect.

How about: don’t we owe it to our readers to look up the things that can be easily looked up and get them right?

Not everyone’s a gun enthusiast, and thanks to laws, location, or available funds, not everyone can pop down to the range, rent a couple of guns for an hour and fire a few rounds.

But everyone who’s publishing fanfiction online can spend a few minutes with a search engine or YouTube (or both, not necessarily in that order) and look up things like basic firearm operations. Or, in my case, how a doctor would access the chest cavity of someone whose skeleton has been laced or replaced with adamantium.

Those few minutes add depth, richness, and realism to our stories that comes closer to the source material we honor by writing our stories in the first place. Isn’t that worthy goal?

WRITING UPDATE: I’m five pages in to the sequel to Ad Astra per Magicae. My favorite line so far (at least, my favorite line that isn’t a spoiler): “The other reason I don’t like stargates and portkeys and apparating,” Harry offered out of the blue, “is that I do my best thinking when I’m flying.”