The Gun Thread

The parent company of EOTech has just agreed to pay the US government 25.6 million dollars over the reliability scandal.

A question for my short story.

I'm writing a story about a man who tries to commit a suicide but keeps failing until he finally gives up. His first choice is eating his gun. The basic idea I have is that he first fails because the pistol is jammed. When he tries it again after cleaning the gun, it's out of bullet. This causes him to try buy more bullets, only to fail because his firearm license expired.

Does any of that make sense?

EDIT: Also, he's from Northeastern America.

edited 30th Nov '15 3:07:35 PM by dRoy

Not really. If a gun jams, and you clear the jam, chances are the bullet will still be good. You can just re-insert it into the chamber and try again.

And in the US, you don't need any sort of license to buy ammo.

edited 30th Nov '15 3:29:38 PM by pwiegle

Ah, crud. Well, there goes that idea.

Could have him drop it and cause it to discharge(Reliably Unreliable Guns in full effect, of course), then when he goes to the store they're sold out of his caliber.

edited 30th Nov '15 3:35:44 PM by Joesolo

What are some pistols and caliber appropriate for that?

I don't think an accidental discharge would put his suicide plans on hold, because he almost certainly would have more than one bullet for his gun. They come in boxes of 20 to 50, you know.

You could have his gun break. I recall certain El Cheapo "Saturday Night Specials" (that's not a brand-name, by the way) whose firing pins would break ALL THE TIME. A new firing pin would cost the gunsmith 25 or 30 dollars. Add to that the shipping cost, markup, and labor to install it, and you might as well buy a whole new gun. So they were treated as disposable, and most gunsmiths wouldn't even bother to work on them.

If the gun shop is sold out of ammo for his gun, it would have to be a rare or obsolete caliber. Most common calibers are exactly that: common. Ian Fleming had James Bond carry a Walther PPK in .32 ACP because he could find ammo for it anywhere in the world. Same goes for 9mm, .38 Special, .22 LR, etc.

edited 30th Nov '15 4:09:24 PM by pwiegle

If the guy really wants to kill himself with a gun, there is no stopping. Even a High-Point can jam a couple of times but the third time will usually work.

What would be scaring enough was him placing the gun in the wrong position, like having the barrel touch the inside the cheek, or having him placed the barrel a bit too upwards and managing the bullet miss the critical parts of the brain or blow part of his face but not killing him.

Suicide failures with firearms happen even when the gun fires, hell one guy managed to blow his face off with a shotgun but still didn't die.

I dunno about that. My local gun stores and pawn shops have taken to putting banners out when they get .22LR back in stock.

Ammo shortages are real common down here in the South because everyone thinks Obama is gonna send the 101st down here to lock up all the Christians in a FEMA death camp.

I'm serious.

Yea I didn't type that out but I was assuming a throwaway line about a ammo rush on account of (insert shooting/new law/ general paranoia here).

And Sure, USUALLY you'd have a decent number of bullets around but if we're looking to set this up as a plot point then you could always say he just had the one left. I know cleaning out my uncles house after Sandy he only had like, 5 rounds left for one of his guns.

Damaging the gun seems a bit more realistic, but it's your story so do what you please.

edited 30th Nov '15 5:20:26 PM by Joesolo

@pw - So malfunctioning gun is a more plausible scenario, huh.

@Garcon - Well, another thing I learn about America. I wish it was something positive, though.

@Garcon: Funny, I never had any problems finding ammo. Then again, I don't rely on the local pawn shop or Walmart; there are lots of other sources just a mouse-click away. And if worse comes to worst, I can reload my own spent brass.

Lucky, where are you at?

Pennsylvania. Can't say I've noticed any desperate shortages of ammo around here lately. I've read about it in various publications, but it doesn't seem to have hit close to home.

Well no wonder, you're up north. Down here it's ridiculous.

Everyone is stockpiling ammo.

Obama's had seven years now to round up all the rednecks and put them in concentration camps, and so far nothing like that has happened. Call me naïve, but I think certain people are prone to overreacting.

I don't want to go into a discussion about politics, but as a Life member of the NRA I will say this for the gun-grabbers: they're good for business. Whenever an anti-gun politician gets elected, there's a consumer feeding frenzy over guns and ammo.

Pfffff. Alex Jones popularity with the FEMA deathcamps bombed on G.W. Bush terms and there were still ammo hoarding crazies back then, it doesn't really changed much with Obama in office.

I have a friend who's a conspiracy theorist. He's a nice guy, but when he starts going on about the "New World Order" and other assorted paranoia, I adopt the same tactics I used to employ when I'd visit my Alzheimer's-stricken grandmother in the nursing home: tune out the incoherent gibberish, maintain a placid expression, give noncommittal nods and shrugs, and mumble polite nothings.

I have an old acquaintance who is otherwise a good dad and respected professor...who is a 9/11 Truther. DX

So how about that local generic fire arm of region X?

Pwiegle: What are you thoughts on the Cheytac .408?

Mall ninja wet dream gun.

Never heard of it before, so I did a quick Google search.

Survey says... Meh.

I really don't see any need for yet another newfangled magic bullet. The numbers on the paper may give ballisticians a hard-on, but if you can't do the job with some caliber that's already out there, you can't do the job with ANY caliber. Skill and training is the key, and flashy equipment can't overcome a deficiency in that area.

edited 1st Dec '15 4:53:30 PM by pwiegle

But in a totally not faked test on Future Weapons it was able to hit a (static) mid-sized steel target at 2000 yards.

And here is where I say "wildcat and other calibers come and they go":

6.8 mm SPC was supposed to be "da shit" because it was "designed by special forces". The marketing department was "special", in that their school of marketing picks them up in a short bus...and it's no longer news.

6.5 Grendel, .50 Beowulf et al were the rage of the net and .50 Beowulf was featured on Future Weapons. Again, all sizzle and no steak.

All those large calibers and such? The US Army adopted .300 win-mag and still uses .50 BMG and Ronnie Barret's little toy has more users than all of those funky cartridges combined.

5.56mm, 7.62mm and .50 BMG will never die.

Pwiegle: More or less what I thought. Though putting some of that in trained hands definitely wouldn't hurt. I have to wonder what a professional sniper could do with things like Tracking Point and the Laser Guided Bullets.

I also recall for the .50 BMG there was a reworked match grade round that supposedly had a flatter trajectory overall wish I could find the info on it again.