Essay - Gun Goofs

I think it was iconography of the James Bond films that started the fetish for pistol pointing in much popular art to the point that this has since become a visual cliché. This influence can also be seen in the “gun fu” films of John Woo (The Killer, Hard-Boiled) that also inspired Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs).  

And, of course, every other copycat Bollywood production then had to feature the male protagonists brandishing handguns in dramatically stylized poses that would make any serious competitive pistol shooter laugh. The stance most favored by soldiers and law enforcement professionals using pistols is the Weaver position. This involves using both hands, with one hand supporting the hand holding the pistol from underneath, and the arms rigidly held out at shoulder level so that the pistol sights are aligned with the shooting eye.  

The self-conscious facial expressions of  heroic determination that most actors adopt is another giveaway. The out-of-body concentration and focus you see on the faces of crack shots as they take aim at distant targets is just not there. There’s also the way the pupils of the eyes dilate as one looks at distant objects.

My now-retired father used to be a serving officer in the Indian Navy and underwent basic firearms training at the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadakvasla. Like most of the cadets there, he was at best a mediocre shot and no marksman. Shooting revolvers and self-loading pistols was especially hard for him as he had small hands, thin wrists and forearms.

My father was often assigned duty as a naval courier ferrying classified documents to various commands.  He was issued a rail warrant allowing him free travel to various port cities and a .38 Webley revolver with ammunition for this purpose. He used to travel dressed in civilian clothes, with the unloaded Webley carefully concealed in his luggage.

The reason, he explained to us, was that he feared that this weapon, far from protecting him, would only serve to attract criminals willing to visit violence on him in order to steal it!  There might have been something to my father’s contention that anonymity was better protection than the old Webley, for his many courier assignments passed off without incident.

As children, we were not allowed to handle this fascinating, though ancient, British-era weapon. My father, on the other hand, regarded the Webley as a potentially lethal burden that he was obliged to take along as per regulations. As he pointed out, it was just symbolic anyway, the Indian Navy not having seen fit to provide him with training facilities to regularly update his pistol qualifications. Ironically enough, during the course of his naval career, he had fired off the much more powerful main guns of many a warship and even surface-to-air missiles, but had never handled a pistol since graduating from NDA.

Unlike rifles, where the recoil is distributed along the stock and you can rest the barrel on sandbags or use a bipod stand, the full weight of a pistol rests on the hands and wrists. This makes them less easy to control, especially in stressful situations where other people are shooting at you. The short barrel of most pistols and revolvers also ensures that accuracy is usually no more than nine metres out.

That’s why most modern armies have phased out handguns for use by the infantry, even as personal side arms for officers. These are now most likely to be used only by the military police working as bodyguards or in an undercover role and special forces as backup weapons in close-quarter combat within built-up urban areas.

An uncle of mine passed out of the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehra Dun, where he learned to use an indigenous variant of the venerable Sten gun of World War 2. This had better ergonomics than the original; such as a pistol grip and a perforated sleeve around the barrel that made it easier to hold when firing it. But this 9 x 19mm submachine gun still had the horizontal magazine that stuck out sideways. This positioning threw the gun out of balance and was also the cause of most stoppages and the gun jamming in mid-action. 

One thing IMA cadets were taught was NOT to hold the magazine while firing this weapon. Doing so would shake the magazine out of position in its housing and disrupt the feed of cartridges into the chamber. This basic technique seems to have escaped the makers of Bollywood “actioners” that show actors holding Sten guns by their magazines.

Another thing Bollywood gets wrong is the surprising ease with which characters in its films become expert pistol marksmen with little or no prior training and practice on a firing range. Using handguns with any degree of proficiency is not as easy as it looks. Apart from extensive training and practice, this requires a rare combination of phenomenal eyesight, great hand/eye coordination, muscle and breath control.

When the late Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister, the report of a gun firing was often heard at his official residence. These were traced to the weapons of his security detail. These frequent accidental discharges were explained away as being caused by the guards “not being well-versed with their weapons”.

A bronze medal winning champion in the pistol event had a rigorous regimen that involved specialist weight training to strengthen his upper body muscles, especially the arms, wrists and hands. He also practiced yoga to improve his breath control, focus and concentration. And all this was before he even set foot in a pistol range to practice shooting!  

As my uncle, the retired Lieutenant-Colonel put it, guns are the basic tools of a soldier’s and policeman’s trade; it’s better to leave them to trained professionals who know how to use them – safely (we hope).