Blanks are fired anytime a gun is used in a film. In fact, film weapons have the barrels necked down so they cannot fire a real round.

So the sound of shooting you hear while watching the film is normally an effect.

I have never fired a modern automatic weapon, but I have fired a Mauser machine pistol. This was about 50 years ago when I could still see what I was shooting at.

The first thing I figured out was that if the target was more than four feet away there was almost no way I was going to hit it. Think of holding a full sized jack-hammer with one hand and trying to carve a block of marble.

So then I used the add-on shoulder stock. Not much better, but now my shoulder and my wrist were sore.

I am sure that using both hands to hold the weapon would increase the accuracy, but that was not an option with the Mauser due to the fact I feared blowing my left hand off.

So I can see where if you were shooting from any distance at all it would be tough to have a tight grouping.

doesn't stop guns from accidentally killing actors now and then. like Brandon Lee.

Oh, my bad. I thought about the activity at 1:30AM.

The sound of gunfire in hollywood movies is phoney more often than not and often edited into the soundtrack. Do you think that the guy making this video on his IPad edited the sound? I would seriously doubt it. I have heard enough gunfire, both live and blank to know very well what blanks sound like.

Since you have fired an automatic weapon than you know that you never heard one in the video I am referring to, if of course you have seen the video that i am refering to. i expect there was a LOT of semi automatic fire. Semi automatic fire will not cause the effect you describe unless someone is such an incompetent shooter that they are just rapidly pulling the trigger hoping they hit something.

These are not people pulled at random off the street they are professionals who have practiced with their weapons. Some no doubt are better shots than others but in 100 rounds fired I contend that if they could actually see him and wanted to hit him they would have hit him numerous times.

Yup, a major consideration in a gun battle is the "pucker" factor. There aren't too many people brave/stupid enough to stick their face into a hail of lead.

I can promise you that most cops are NOT expert marksman. They go to the range And qualify because it is a requirement for their job. There are some of them that are Into shooting and because of their interest become great shots, but the percentage of them that fall in this category is no higher than a cross section of the shooting public.

In fact I expect that the average sport shooter is better than the average cop because they do it because they love it, not because they were required to do it.

My neighbor and hunting and fishing buddy when I lived in Arlington was a cop and on the swat team among other duties. The guy was a regular Annie Oakley with any firearm he picked up. He did training duty at the police range and said that it was amazing how many cops couldn't hit much of anything and talked about how many of them often struggled to stay qualified.

I doubt that's this is much different in any PD anywhere.

I've said it before in this thread, but I want to reiterate that I have all the respect on the world for the people that are willing to be police officers. That's not what this thread is about. It is about the fact that they are NOT the best marksmen that you will find.

I think the overwhelming motivation here by everyone involved with trying to bring down these two suspects was to capture them, not kill them.

Im going to reiterate the sillyness of your armchair quarterbacking theme of this thread. If they wanted to kill both of these guys, im sure the opportunity presented itself multiple times in the chase and initial gun battle, but thats now what they wanted. A dead man tells no tales.

You really don't have the slightest idea what their tactics and methods were, for all we know, they could have been firing into the dirt. I think is a bad call to make judgments on PD target ability based on this situation. After all, they wanted these guys alive.

Why don't we discuss a situation of poor aim when a PD force wanted someone DEAD instead?

Amen.

but have you ever heard blanks recorded on an iphone??;)

Not specifically, but I recognize other gunfire sounds okay, so I'm QUITE sure I could recognize a blank if it is fired.

You're not being real about the blanks. Maybe a LEO can chime in here and confirm or deny this. I would be highly surprised if any PD anywhere even has any blanks around for ANY purpose.

Everyone's a critic. What we really needed was a bunch of civilians with C&C permits. You can call a special phone number and a bunch of them will drive up to help you.

No, what we need is exactly what we had. They got the job done. I'm simply asking why all the rounds? Cops are trained to return fire when fired upon. We're they being fired upon? If not, they were violating policy. I would just like to know what the explanation is.