Can someone help out a writer who's clueless about guns?

Status
Not open for further replies.

jp68112

Member
Joined
Nov 5, 2014
Messages
14
Hello, I hope it's okay to post this thread in this section. The title of this says it all. I'm a writer and I would like to do some research about guns for my young adult novel. Trouble is, there's just so much information out there that I'm having trouble deciding where to even begin.

I think my first question is what type of guns should I research? The novel takes place in the future where overpopulation has destroyed society, so a population control organization is built. Basically this organization recruits officers to hunt down and take people into custody who are then put to death. My main character is a 17 year old girl who works for the organization. What kind of gun would she carry? What kinds of guns should I look into?

Also, obviously this question doesn't have a direct answer: but how well trained with a gun should she be? Allow me to explain: the officers aren't the ones to kill the people that they take in. They arrest the people, who are then taken to a place where they are killed by lethal injection. However, my characters are given guns for protection. My first thought was, of course she's well trained with a gun because she needs it. However, I just read an article about guns that says even though cops carry guns they are a bit clueless on how to use them (!!!!).

Anyway, to sum it up my two basic questions are what kind of guns would this organization give to my character and other officers who are in the 17-29 ish age group, and how well trained could I expect them to be? Is it true that thing I read about the cops?

Any help you can provide would be great. I've checked out some books, but I like hearing from direct sources. I really dislike research :banghead:, so thanks in advance for any info you can give.
 
Last edited:
I guess I would ask how FAR in the future do you have in mind? At some point you can make up some doo-dad ray gun, but in the next 50 years or so I don't see it happening. And even if it does....many people these days still swear by the 1911 platform, which has been around for over a century now. Heck, my daily carry gun is a revolver...a pretty state-of-the-art one, but the basic design has been around for well over a century.

The training part, I think I'll leave to members with LEO/military experience.
 
I guess I would ask how FAR in the future do you have in mind? At some point you can make up some doo-dad ray gun, but in the next 50 years or so I don't see it happening. And even if it does....many people these days still swear by the 1911 platform, which has been around for over a century now. Heck, my daily carry gun is a revolver...a pretty state-of-the-art one, but the basic design has been around for well over a century.

The training part, I think I'll leave to members with LEO/military experience.
Yes, I thought about that too, the fact that I could really just make up my own guns if I could. I'm in verrryyy early stages of drafting, about 5 chapters in and they'll probably all be different by the time I finish revisions. So I don't have much world building worked out. Short answer, not sure how far into the future this is. But since I'm clueless about guns to begin with, I'm going to say it's probably not a great idea to start trying to make up my own rules. For simplicity's sake to start, I'll say that in this world the gun technology is very similar to our own.
 
Stick with what you know, what's close to home. Arm them in a similar fashion to your local police. In social science fiction like you are describing the minute details of firearms are a footnote rather than a driving theme.

Pick up a copy of "small arms of the world" http://www.amazon.com/Small-Arms-World-Walter-Smith/dp/0880296011 or a similar book. (Many are available in the bargain book section of Barnes and Noble for under $20) And pick a country or region you story is set in and extrapolate from there.
 
From a firearms perspective, to provide a "futuristic" feel to things, you should envisage case less (no brass bit holding the gun powder or a primer to set it off) ammunition with small caliber (5 mm) bullets of a ceramic or at least non-lead makeup fired at very high velocities, say 3,000 fps for the sake of argument. Similar for both pistols and rifles but you can up rifle calipers to say 6.5 mm at 4500 fps. No brass ejection would allow for the more robust build that would allow for these velocities. Powder would be ignited electronically rather than via a hammer striking a primer. This would suit the next couple of hundred years, after which you might go for that sci-fi standby: the rail gun.

Tactics? You are essentially talking about the Gestapo. No great training required or likely offered to thugs of the State - but probably extensive, repetitive political indoctrination. Your heroine might b forced to kill several unarmed victims as a way of establishing herself in the collective guilt. That might start her awakening conscience and drive plot.
 
Probably the most prolific handguns today are the Tupperware 9mm pistols like the Glock.
Followed closely by all the various make and models of .38 Spl & .357 Magnum revolvers.

They will still be the dominant handgun designs 50 years in the future.
If there is still ammo being made for them by then.


In a destroyed society?
I would expect ammo production and lots of practice ammo would be pretty scarce.

So, I would say, very little practice, if any.
Not very skilled by modern gun fight standards, if at all.

She probably should carry her great-grandfather, the cops, old S&W Model 10 .38 Special revolver.

And only use it at belly rubbing / bad breath distance.
As a last resort.

BTW: You SURE somebody else didn't already write that book you are writing??

rc
 
A book that may give you a lot of helpful but very general background in one place: http://www.amazon.com/SAS-Ultimate-Guide-Combat-Military/dp/1849087644/

Not just on weapons, but on the mindset that goes into being the boots of a command structure.

As far as weapon-specific stuff...

1. Learn the terminology. Magazine vs. clip (not synonymous), pistol vs. revolver. Automatic vs. semi-automatic.
2. Learn the sequence of use for revolvers, autoloaders, and pump-action weapons. This is an area where TV has mis-educated people with a lot of chambering/racking/cocking that is purely for show.
4. Find out about what bullets actually do. They don't spark when they miss. Small-caliber bullets (think .22lr) will enter one side of a human head and then curve along the inside of the skull mucking up brain matter. Handgun rounds punch while seldom causing exit wounds, but the body goes into shock so quickly many people don't know they've been hit. (Others gather they've been hit and fall down because TV has taught them that's what they're supposed to.) High-power rifle bullets will blow the back side of a human out. High-velocity, low-mass, mid-power rifle bullets (5.56x45mm) slow so fast in human tissue they often fragment and pulp the surrounding tissue. BUT, while every round has its tendencies, no two gunshot wounds are guaranteed to be anything alike - at those speeds, anything can happen.
5. People who are taken out hydraulically (body shots) rather than having the computer wiped out (headshots) tend to die much more slowly and horrifically than TV has time to show us.
6. Learn about the physiological and physiological responses to be being in a gunfight for the first time.
7. Give shotguns a special look, because films are very, very misleading about what they'll do. This might help: http://www.frfrogspad.com/shotgun.htm

As for what she should carry...

If she's just executing people in prison camps, a handgun would be adequate (though that doesn't mean she wouldn't have a rifle). If she's out fighting armed enemies and/or hunting down unarmed fugitives, a long gun is much more likely. What sort of long gun would depend on situation and her organization's philosophy. Powerful "battle rifle" calibers (.308, .30-06) can be one-shot kill (or at least disable) affairs. But the ammo is heavy and the weapons less controllable (which equals more time needed training folks). So militaries have spent the time since WWII shifting to mid-power cartridges (5.56x45, 7.62x39). They take more hits to disable the target, but a wider range of people can hit with them with less training, and they can pack more ammo on their persons and in their vehicles. And then there's the whole shotgun thing: Typically fewer rounds, but some combatants don't want to use anything else for close-in work. (Many of our troops in Vietnam on through the '80s were told by their command structures that shotguns were banned by Geneva, but some elected to use them anyway, hiding them from officers when on base. It was foundless military rumor, by the way: Geneva banned no weapons; Hague did, but did not ban shotguns. Today our troops are issued them.)

Learn the different ways weapons can fail: Stovepipes, squibs (and the disastrous effects of putting another round down the barrel after a squib), double feeds, light strikes, etc. Learn what makes each failure likely, and determine how well your heroine is likely to be trained in preventing and rectifying them, given the world you're building.

What is the supply situation here? How is ammo availability? Is this organization producing new, advanced weaponry or are they scrounging the leftovers of a dead civilization (us)? The nature of the organization is also going to affect how much training they get - Are they expendable? Is this like the child soldier situation we have around the world today? (If so, read Ishmael Beah's "A Long Way Gone.") Or is this a force with discipline on par with Western military forces?

Re your question about police training: All LEO's are going to be trained in how their weapons work. Some LEO's are gun guys who train all the time and can shoot and move with the best of 'em. Others, though, are happy to get by with the minimum required weapons qualifications. Again, all of them know what switch does what on their weapons, but not all of them have the mindset to actually handle a gunfight. Different agencies have different training regimens to combat that - it varies widely in my observation. But even the best-trained may get in their first panic-inducing situation and discover their brains/bodies don't react as they expected; fight-or-flight is an amazing thing, and it can save your life or get you killed depending.
 
I think ImperatorGray had it about right, as far as cops go; Yeah, there ARE cops who can't hit the side of a barn from inside the barn; but there are also a LOT of cops who can consistently drive thumbtacks with their weapons at 15 yards. I think if I was doing what you are I would read a lot of the excellent gun magazines that are available at any super market.

I think I would also arm my characters with Glocks; I say that for reasons other than what many people frequenting this forum may be thinking; a novel such as you are describing will almost certainly be read by an awful lot of people who are every bit as lacking in gun knowledge as you are yourself; yet far more of these same people will be "familiar" with the name "Glock", than if (heaven forbid), you choose to arm your character with a "1911"! (Took me a full day to try to explain all of that to my "non-gun-imterested" wife! ) believe me.......regardless of what anyone on this gun forum may tell you........there are more people "out there" who will associate the word "Glock" with a weapon, than any other gun name you can come up with! And you're NOT trying to "educate" your readers; you're only attempting to use words and terms that will "appeal" to as many readers as possible.
 
I think it heavily depends on your character, her background, her personality and where the story might be taking her.
Some people view firearms as symbols of personality, different eras, taste in the creation process and culture/values/training passed down from those before them. Certain firearms also carry the story of Nations, Regimes, Political Parties and other unpleasant atrocities along with them. They also carry the very antithesis with them.

Was the girl's parents or grandparents firearm owners? Did they perhaps pass down her sidearm along with a bit of their morals? Did that very same firearm see the acts of oppression? Was it held in favor or opposition of them? Was it well taken care of or is it scarred from heavy use?

Is she allowed to choose her own carry piece? If not, does she bend that rule and it's overlooked? Or was she issued a standard firearm? Even that firearm can tell a small story about the people she works for.

You may not get a huge reaction from the non firearm crowd. But pair the firearm perfectly to the character and not only will you win huge points with the firearm community, it will show you really understand the character and it will show in other areas of the novel.


Or maybe I'm just over thinking the whole thing. ;)
Regardless, best of luck to you! :)
 
And to answer your training question.
Many nations already take men and women into their armed services at that age and train them very well. This is why several go into the LEO community.
Also several departments do very specialized training and tactics.

It wouldn't be far fetched at all to have your character be highly trained. We can obviously see the success that a strong, talented and semi trained woman can achieve in the Hunger Games novels and movies. I think it's a nice change to show women being more empowered, independent, and capable of anything a man is.
 
OP,

One last thing for now. I'm certain that if you gave your location and have any interest, that one (or several) of our fine members would love to take you out and have you familiarize yourself with many different makes and models of firearms.

There are many on this board who jump at the chance to educate anyone showing interest in anything firearm related. Should you have the chance I recommend you take someone up on their offer to go over the safety aspects and then fire a few for yourself. It may give you new insight and it only helps to better our cause.

Again, best of luck to you!
 
In an overpopulated world with tyrants so desperate as to kill off the excess, there will be no surplus of resources. If you are bad enough off to recruit the dregs of society - teenage girls - as armed enforcement agents, they will not be well armed or well trained.

I can visualize the character grumbling about the weight and bulk of the worn out US Army Beretta M9 she was issued.
I visualize "training" as about what you get in a state mandated CCW class; a day on the range, mostly lecture and dryfire, with a box (50) of expensive ammunition grudgingly consumed.

Most of her training will have been indoctrination in the necessity of eliminating burdensome population elements.
 
There are many on this board who jump at the chance to educate anyone showing interest in anything firearm related. Should you have the chance I recommend you take someone up on their offer to go over the safety aspects and then fire a few for yourself.

This. If you're comfortable posting your location, you may get a few offers.
 
8. Learn why fire discipline is important. If you know firearms only from TV and movies, you've likely been taught that they can fire many more bullets than they actually can.

Handguns typically range from five to sixteen shots depending on model. In a fight, you need to learn to count your shots and start getting edgy as you near the bottom of the box. If you're part of a decent supply chain, you'll be dropping mags before they're empty to get another full one in. If ammo and magazines are precious, you'll be sweating and doing your best to make each shot count even more.

Rifles are the same way, with typical capacities ranging up to 30 rounds. Those go by quickly, especially in a military, full-auto configuration. Assault rifles and SMG's are not the death-machine bullet-hoses many writers would have you believe - they have only a few seconds of fire, the exact number depending of cyclic rate.

Machine guns may have a lot more rounds ready to go, but they are designed to be stationary. You don't see SEAL's running around firing M60's from the hip in real life. And they overheat quickly. Which is why they are often issued in pairs so that their operators can "talk" to each other: One fires a burst, then while his barrel cools, the other fires a burst, etc. And why many a machine gun is put in place at an FOB with a second barrel, so its gunner can swap the barrels out after he's destroyed the first one through use.
 
9. Learn the practical accuracy of whatever weapons you give her. Please don't have your character fast-draw a handgun and down an enemy with one shot across a parking lot, for instance.

Remember that a weapon is only as accurate as its user is calm, and most people have a survival instinct that works against calm in a combat situation until they turn into "that scary guy" who "looks like he enjoys killing" to the supposedly polite society that gave him a day job making corpses in the first place.
 
The trick is to find a few books that tend to cover the topic well. This can be difficult since there are many topics and all of them are large. I recommend you focus upon police tactics and gear since the character will be part of "the system". However, the info may be sparse since that stuff is typically not advertised.

**UPDATE**: I recall seeing a book at the library called "Police investigations for writers" or similar.
Police Procedure & Investigation: A Guide for Writers (Howdunit)

This may be helpful: http://www.military-sf.com/. It has some links on firefights and so forth.

Also, get on policeone.com and start reading.


Overall, your research into this topic could teach you quite a bit about tactics and self-defense.

Mas Ayoob's The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery should be very helpful.

Guns, Bullets, And Gunfights: Lessons And Tales From A Modern-Day Gunfighter will give you some additional depth.

Boston's Gun Bible may be a decent start for an overview of many topics, though it's a bit dated. You could use that as a source for figuring out what any resistance fighters may be using.

There are many DVD's available. Clint Smith/Thunder Ranch, Magpul Dynamics, and all sorts of stuff comes from Panteo Productions.

Panteo: http://panteao.com/product-category/training-videos/

If you want to learn about carbine, Pat Rogers has a good video from them. I was watching "Basic Carbine" the other day at my local gun shop. "Make Ready - Patrol Rifle" may be appropriate.

Ayoob has his Deadly Force FAQ and "Ayoob on Carry".
 
Last edited:
I really dislike research

...that might change after a trip to a shooting range!

Find an instructor in your area, and get shooting. An afternoon at the range will educate you a lot more than this thread will. Something along the lines of a picture being worth a thousand words... an experience is exponentially higher.
 
Probably the most prolific handguns today are the Tupperware 9mm pistols like the Glock.
Followed closely by all the various make and models of .38 Spl & .357 Magnum revolvers.

They will still be the dominant handgun designs 50 years in the future.
If there is still ammo being made for them by then.


In a destroyed society?
I would expect ammo production and lots of practice ammo would be pretty scarce.

So, I would say, very little practice, if any.
Not very skilled by modern gun fight standards, if at all.

She probably should carry her great-grandfather, the cops, old S&W Model 10 .38 Special revolver.

And only use it at belly rubbing / bad breath distance.
As a last resort.

BTW: You SURE somebody else didn't already write that book you are writing??

rc
Interesting point. Like I said, the world building isn't really established very much at all yet, so I'm glad that someone pointed this out. I'm not sure how scarce supplies are. Since this organization has been around for a while by the time the book starts, overpopulation is now manageable, but it is not "solved", if that makes sense. So I'd have to think about that.

And yeah, somebody has probably already written this book...but that's every story that's ever been written pretty much. Every story is either inspired by a different one, and this can be either a conscious or unconscious move on the writer's part, or it's inspired by history. Example: Game of Thrones=War of the Roses. Divergent=The Hunger Games=Battle Royale...you get my point.
 
And to answer your training question.
Many nations already take men and women into their armed services at that age and train them very well. This is why several go into the LEO community.
Also several departments do very specialized training and tactics.

It wouldn't be far fetched at all to have your character be highly trained. We can obviously see the success that a strong, talented and semi trained woman can achieve in the Hunger Games novels and movies. I think it's a nice change to show women being more empowered, independent, and capable of anything a man is.
Someone else mentioned that a teenage girl would only be recruited if they are "that bad off". I also think that it's not implausible to recruit young people.

Besides that, young adult novels have to be about, well, young adults, aka teenagers. I agree with you. Books are pretty much the only place where I can find an abundance of interesting/capable female protagonists and it's really nice to see books like The Hunger Games, which is actually one of my favorite series, out there. Realistically, there are very many if any teenagers like Katniss out there, but there also aren't any adults like Batman either, so I kind of think that's not really an issue. In young adult, there isn't really a concern about whether or not a 17 year old, male or female, is "capable". The point is that the genre is for teenagers (though many many adults also read ya), and teenagers enjoy reading about people they identify with.
 
Anyway, thank you all for the information! This is more than I was even expecting to get in less than a day. Obviously, there is no one answer to either of my questions...did I mention I hate novel research? Yeah, this is why. So I'm just going to have to take your advice and see where it goes. Anyone else who has something to contribute please do so. :)
 
Learn to love research, it is kind of a necessity for being a writer.

When you're Steven King or Lee Child, you can just totally make crap up and continue to sell books. I am guessing you are not Lee Child, if for no other reason than because he doesn't care what idiotic things he makes up about guns.

Writing science fiction essentially gives you carte blanche on guns. Who can tell you what kind of gun is going to be used in your young adult dystopia set 100 years from now? Nobody, really.

So your best bet is to start learning more general information. Learn to tell apart a revolver from a semiautomatic, a clip from a magazine, a bullet from a cartridge. If you do use a specific modern firearm, don't talk about "flipping the safety off on her Glock," a gun which does not have a manual safety (although they can be customized by a gunsmith to add a manual safety, this requires significant modification to the gun, and is a very rare modification).

Learn to sift through what is opinion and what is fact. Some writers clearly attempt to do research, but get sidelined by gun partisans. By which I mean, their character will repeat some legend or trope to which some in the firearms community hold fervently despite its dubious accuracy, i.e. .38 Special or 9mm are utterly ineffective, or .45 ACP will kill anyone no matter where you hit them, or that a .50 BMG will cause someone to explode, etc.
 
Learn to love research, it is kind of a necessity for being a writer.

When you're Steven King or Lee Child, you can just totally make crap up and continue to sell books. I am guessing you are not Lee Child, if for no other reason than because he doesn't care what idiotic things he makes up about guns.

Writing science fiction essentially gives you carte blanche on guns. Who can tell you what kind of gun is going to be used in your young adult dystopia set 100 years from now? Nobody, really.

So your best bet is to start learning more general information. Learn to tell apart a revolver from a semiautomatic, a clip from a magazine, a bullet from a cartridge. If you do use a specific modern firearm, don't talk about "flipping the safety off on her Glock," a gun which does not have a manual safety (although they can be customized by a gunsmith to add a manual safety, this requires significant modification to the gun, and is a very rare modification).

Learn to sift through what is opinion and what is fact. Some writers clearly attempt to do research, but get sidelined by gun partisans. By which I mean, their character will repeat some legend or trope to which some in the firearms community hold fervently despite its dubious accuracy, i.e. .38 Special or 9mm are utterly ineffective, or .45 ACP will kill anyone no matter where you hit them, or that a .50 BMG will cause someone to explode, etc.
Yes, research is a necessary evil. I love to learn, you have to love that to be a writer because you're writing about your observations of the world around you. But research always feels like something that is stopping me from doing the fun part, the writing. Because right now all I want to do is write this story while the spark is still in me, but I can't because I don't know about guns. Still, I'm just going to write the story first (maybe just the chapters that don't involve much gun use), and then research because I don't want that enthusiasm to go away without having written anything. Right now I'm in the "oh my god I HAVE to write this story" phase, but that doesn't last forever. I can write during the "I'm not excited about this anymore" phase, but I have to write while it still feels fresh and exciting, even if it means butchering gun scenes along the way.

This gun thing does make me nervous. I have a completed ya fantasy and I made up a magic system. That's the best because you can't get it wrong so long as you don't break your own rules, but they're rules you get to make up. I did a ton of medieval research though. Us writers google the strangest things...
 
It's the future. Smith, Colt, Ruger, Glock, are all dead. Weapons are now made by Apple ("iRay" and "Poison Apple" are the most popular models), and Google ("GoogLead").
 
It's the future, you're a writer, make it up...

To hell with spending your time on contemporary research - give her something on the edge of development now or go whole hog SciFi.

Energy based, sonic, RF, microwave... whatever. No one can poke too many holes in if you don't provide too much unstable supporting information.

Concentrate on the effect you want and build on that.

Tissue damage/trauma
Incapacitation pursuant to collection
Physical pain for control/suppression

So much more.

What do you want to do? What effect best services the play of events? Create your weapon system to support the desired effect/results.
 
Don't really worry too much about the guns. Books that get all wrapped up in technicalities of gun and gear minutia are actually a total drag. We gun geeks say we love to hear three pages of nuts and bolts and specs every time a character reaches for a gun, but that usually acts as a ball and chain -- dragging the pacing and interest to a standstill. (Often in an attempt to add filler to a sparse plot. :uhoh:) Say enough to make things realistic, but not another sentence more.

(For your purposes you could probably say the character is issued a next-generation Glock, or generic pistol even, and call it good. No need for a lot of detail.)

A few simple guidelines will work:

1) Guns aren't magical and aren't any kind of "easy win" or total game-changer. They can be intimidating, but in terms of pure effectiveness the LESS effective you make your characters in their use, the more realistic the action will be. In very stressful situations people shoot a little and miss a lot.

1a) Guns run out of ammo. Not just "I need to reload" but also, "I had two spare magazines with me and that's all the ammo I will have for this adventure..." Even a US Marine's combat load of rifle ammo wouldn't get a lot of character's through a day's worth of fictional gunplay. Cops and armed citizens MIGHT have 50 rounds on them (3 Glock magazines) and probably a fair bit less.

2) Guns are very effective on the odd chance the character connects with someone. Even a "minor" hit is a really big deal and probably takes the wounded individual out of the action if not immediately, then soon. Not necessarily lethal, given medical attention, but very traumatic. If you go to Youtube and other video sites you can see real footage from wars and police shoot-outs and you'll find that the results of gunshots are not much like what you see on TV. Not splashy drama. Usually just a sad crumple and collapse. Humans aren't very heroic, generally, when shot.

3) Gun fights tend to happen up close. And they look a lot more like FIGHTS (with a gun) than "GUNfights" in the spaghetti western sense of the word. Look on youtube for a person named "SouthNarc" and his "Shivworks" ECQB videos. That's (practice for) real life on the street gun fighting.

4) Gun fights tend to be BRIEF. Extended firefights happen with squads and plattons out in war zones. Gunfights in society tend to be 3-second affairs which see maybe 5-10 shots fired by all sides, and someone down or fled before you have a chance to say, "what happened?!?"

There are notable exceptions, but they're pretty rare. The most common exception would be the police stand-off situation where someone (usually mistakenly) starts shooting and there is a chain reaction of multiple responders sympathetically firing lots of shots at an unclear target. This is how we get the situations that put a bullet-riddled car on the evening news. :(

5) Most people who carry guns as part of their job aren't really all that expert in their use. Not an indictment of those public servants, just fact. Civilian shooting enthusiasts generally get a LOT more practice (and even these days, avail themselves of a lot better training) than the great majority of uniformed gun carriers.

6) They also aren't hardened killers. Just like your average armed citizen, a cop or soldier who unexpectedly finds him/herself having to draw and fire at (and perhaps kill) another person tends to find it a VERY unpleasant experience, attended by shakes, needing to sit down on the curb, and often a bit of vomiting. Hardened combat soldiers or others who've lived through multiple lethal force encounters won't experience this (as much) which is part of why they're often referred to as "blooded" troops.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top