LeMat 1861 courtesy imfdb.orgDid you notice the revolver Bruce Willis was carrying near the end of 12 Monkeys when he gets shot in the airport, and wonder what kind it was? Or did your buddy bet you a beer over what full-auto gun Walter’s carrying when he bails out of the Dude’s car during the ransom drop in The Big Lebowski? Given the anti-gun zeitgeist, the LA Times has noticed our friend, Chris Serrano, main man behind the best source of info on guns featured in movies, TV and video games, the Internet Movie Firearms Data Base. The good news: According to the Times piece, the “cacophonous national debate about violence in entertainment” hasn’t hurt their traffic any. “The firearms are a tool used in the telling of a story,” Serrano said. “It’s the modern version of a samurai sword. It’s part of the art. I don’t feel there’s a glorification of firearms.” And even if there were, would that be so bad?

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31 COMMENTS

  2. Guns in media and movies: good thing.

    Actual firearms in the hands of non-government entities: very bad thing.

    Hope you enjoyed this trip into the convoluted space that is the liberal mind. Please watch your step as you exit the vehicle.

  3. “[Gun are] useful and profitable when it suits our bank accounts,” Serrano continued. “But when we finally get our way, guns will exist only in movies, the military, and our beloved paramilitary police!”

    Also… those links don’t seem to work, at least when I tried them.

    • Seconded.

      As a rule I don’t do black powder. But the LeMate is one BP weapon that I am very interested in getting.

      • I have a replica LeMat which may well be that one in the picture, but it’s such an awful gun that I don’t shoot it very often.

        1. The rammer hits the top of the bullet almost as soon as you pull it away from the barrel, making it very hard to apply decent pressure with anything other than a very awkward arm-twisting hold. My Colt and Remington rammers are much better, not making contact until a 45 degree angle so you can get plenty of easy pressure.

        2. The tip of the hammer pushes forward and down to hit the shotgun percussion cap, and is so close and such a bad angle that it usually takes 2-3 strkes before it fires.

        3. The rammer doesn’t stay locked when you fire, at least most of them time. Pretty disconcerting to have it flopping around.

        But on the good side, it’s heavy, feels very natural, especially with that spur trigger guard, good solid aimer, easy to take apart for cleaning (but omg 10 nipples!), and has 9 .44 shots, and the shot gun is fun … I think it spread 18 inches at 6 feet.

        And I did have one funny experience … with percussion cap revolvers, you add a glob of grease on top of each loaded chamber to prevent flash fire from shooting all at once. I did not think about the shotgun flash firing, but by gum it did, WHAM, kicked it back enough for the hammer to gouge out a piece of meat. Ever since, I have always fired the shotgun first.

        There’s also some very naughty about loading a shotgun with double-ought to within an inch or two of the muzzle.

  5. They didn’t list “Come and See” yet unfortunately. Somehow a few P17 (14?) Enfields slipped into the Eastern Front. It’s not as if the USSR didn’t have access to captured K98s. What gives?

    • Lend lease. British and American tanks, trucks, aircraft and arms made it to Russia. Maybe the film company got them out of a warehouse and just used what came out that day?

      • Excellent point! IIRC a few years ago CTD was selling Thompson parts kits from Russia. One came with every Sherman. It was still shocking to see “Germans” in Belorussia with Enfields.

        • The German troops in “Come and See” are portrayed as an einsatz-gruppen unit. A complicated mesh of personnel from the Armed and General SS, combat police, etc. would volunteer to hunt down partisans and ethnically cleanse the rearward areas in these units. Some SS divisions were sent from front to front throughout the war and they captured all the foreign/aid package weapons and ammunition they could get. Being rearward troops they didn’t get much of the new kit sent to the front lines, so captured foreign weapons were commonly issued. They also had to procure weapons by their own unorthodox means due to major political rivalries between the SS and Heer (Army).

          With regards to the film it’s incredibly underrated and I’m glad I own a copy. I recommend it to anyone who wants to take a look at WWII history sans Hollywood’s sometimes cheesy heroic varnish.

  6. I fscking love IMFDB. It is Wikipedia for gun geeks, and more than one conversation with my kids has started or ended with us looking up stuff on IMFDB.

    I’m still slightly amazed that the creators haven’t gotten an infringement warning from the owners of IMDB. Sometimes people can actually get along in a reasonable fashion.

    • If it’s any consolation, you can read through all of IMFDB in a week of evenings.

      Or so I understand. From a “friend”. Because I have my priorities straight.

      • I can’t count the times I’ve doubled over laughing at what passed for a firearm in the old James Bond games I played as a kid on the Nintendo 64. IMFDB is easily one of the most underrated websites on the internet. Not to mention, you get to see a plethora of unsafe and/or just plain retarded ways the all-knowing “Hollywood Elite” handle firearms in their films.

        • I’m still a gamer, and these days things have swung to the other extreme: I regularly see guns in Borderlands 2, for example, which do not exist in the real world but look totally plausible. Some of these make me want them to exist, such as the SMG with twin barrels and dual magazines mounted at a 60-degree angle to each other.

          Also the magazine-fed rocket launchers. Oh my, yes, those too.

      • I have literally lost four consecutive hours in one afternoon on TV Tropes. One of those things where suddenly you realize you had to use the restroom two hours ago, but have been blocking it out, and now you’re not sure you’re going to make it the 20 feet to the throne.

        • I do not go to TV Tropes on my own. I click a link there, read an article, and leave. Period.

          I have lost entire nights on Wikipedia and TV Tropes. I have to enforce limits. Part of pretending to be a responsible adult. :p

  8. Love that site, which reminds me, haven’t contributed to that site in a while. Should go look around for some dvds.

  9. I LOVE the IMFDB, but the level of detail reaches hilarious levels of granularity: “Notice how as Stallone is ambushed in the jungle, Rebel Fighter #17 has a Norinco AKM, while in the next shot, that same enemy soldier now has a Polytech AK with a slightly different looking muzzlebrake. As further confirmation, there’s an extra trunnion rivet in the receiver, visible for half a second, as the man falls mortally wounded into the leafy undergrowth.”

      • Yeah, I got the tone slightly wrong. I have nothing but admiration for the site itself, and the immense knowledge the contributors bring to it. Let’s call it a weird combination of amazement and amusement.
        Although I was being a bit satirical, no sooner did I make that post, then I saw this on the page for Taken:
        http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Taken#Mossberg_590

        Yup. The end screw on a magazine tube was the deciding factor to identify the make and model of the shotgun. And I chuckled pretty hard when I saw that, but even as I laughed, I really have to give them props for having that committment and eagle eye for spotting detail.

  13. One of my constant windows when playing online. And it has proven to be a safe haven from all of the ridiculous crap the media and every asshole with a blog has been throwing our way.
    I dunno dudes, I’m getting tired.

  14. I like this website been using it since around the first season of the walking while trying to figure out what type of weapon someone was carrying in the show, good info there.

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