Way Cool Gun Fanboy Site of the Year: imfdb.org

Okay, TTAG (so far) doesn’t hand out awards, plaques, trophies, or even coupons for 50¢ your next visit to KrispyKreme for distinctions like our semi-regular series “Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day.” We may have to change all that, after a buddy of mine sent me what has to be the coolest friggin’ website for gun fanboys EVAH. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Internet Movie Firearms Data Base – www.imfdb.org.

Remember those Bolla Cella wine commercials of a few years ago, where they talked about winemaker Aldo Cella? “He is not pretty,” the voiceover guy intoned. Yet ALL the babes and eye candy fawned all over him. That is close to the reaction you’ll see if you are into guns and movies (guilty as charged, your Honor), and visit imfdb.com.

Here is the website I’ve been wondering about, wondering as in “why in the HELL doesn’t this kind of resource exist?” One that would tell me exactly what kinds of guns are in a given movie. How were they used? Modified? Abused? What’s real and what’s fantasy? (Hey Jared…ever seen what Hollywood thinks about your pansy-assed 33 round mags? THEY’VE got magazines that never need reloading!)

This site may have all the visual charm of the Drudge Report, but for hard-core data on films and firearms, this site is all that and a side o’ fries. And it’s not just text either. Movie stills, frame grabs – this site done got the goods, homey. And not only do they cover movie firearms, in depth, they also cover the tech specs on the firearms themselves. My first visit, and I felt like I was a kid again, on my first visit to Toys ‘R’ Us. I mean, talk about a one-stop shop for getting all my burning questions answered. Waaaay cool.

I’d been imagining a site like this for some time. As a matter of fact, in my pre-TTAG days, I contacted the folks that do the TV shows affiliated with Guns n’ Ammo magazine, specifically to suggest that a weekly movie review slanted towards what firearms are used, and how they are used, would be of great interest to their viewers. Nothing ever came of that call, at least as far as I can tell. Pity.

If you were to ask me about how I enjoy movies, you’d see a clear and distinct division between the time that I was largely clueless about guns, and the time that began learning about them. Call it “B.E. and A.E.” (Before Enlightenment and After Enlightenment.) Before my education began, I had some inkling that movies regularly exaggerated the number of rounds that could be fired without reloading, the accuracy of a gun at a long distance, and the effects of guns in the wild (acoustics, ear protection, et cetera). But I had that “willing suspension of disbelief” thing going on, and it just didn’t matter to me. After my education began, I was filled with questions – is that a Springfield XD? Where do you find a 50-round magazine that fits within the grip for a 1911? (Or my fave:) How can you shoot a bullet and force it to make a 360º trajectory (in the movie WANTED.) Thanks to imfdb.com, now I know.

I can’t tell you much about the people behind the site. From my initial poking around, they’re not really putting themselves out front as to who they are. But let me tell you this. They are performing an invaluable service to firearms fanboys everywhere. And if movies and guns are your thing, you really wanna check this site out. Now, who do we contact about giving them an award?