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bullets go inside metal pen casing with shortened functional portion at the tip that you put aside when the "pen" sets it off.and pick up after. Hollywood already figured this one out back in 1993.

Yeah in XXX it was a camcorder.
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/XXX#...

It was "Blue Thunder" that made me think of the oatmeal box, but I suspect they've been used more than once - it's a commonly used item for crafts.

Painted Nerf guns seem to be popular now; some of them look pretty cool.
 

Unfortunately because there was no on-site FAC because [...]

Because whatever. War is war and shit really does happen. The primary responsibility of Forward Air Controller (FAC) is, actually, assuring friendlies aren't accidentally hit from the air. The reporters are there at their own risk. No one wanted to kill journalists, but it happens.

It is not specific to air-borne assaults — when our tanks entered Baghdad, two reporters were killed by a tank shell. No FAC involved — a camera does look like a grenade-launcher. Do not carry one on somebody else's battlefield.

tell the difference between an AK-47 and a TV camera

I'd say, the camera — a shoulder-held one — looks just like a grenade-launcher from even 50 meters. Heck, a weapon can be, and has been — both in fiction and real life — hidden inside a camera so well, you can't tell while holding the device in your hands. Our enemies do not hesitate to masquerade as reporters and use ambulances for military purposes — no amount of camera-resolution can help against that.

That screwup was then made worse by the Pentagon's default reaction to such screws which is to cover them up.

Would their non-covering it up have helped resurrect the victims? No. So, then, exactly how did the cover-up make it worse? Bad publicity? Great — should we, perhaps, blame the leaker, who made the video-recording public for that publicity?

Either way, the very fact, that we are ashamed of it having happened, that we tried to cover it up — all of that makes our society better than our enemies'. The enemies, who deliberately go after civilians and publicize their deaths as part of "glorious" struggle.

During development, this pistol was called the Walther PPK after its real-world counterpart. The name was presumably changed for legal reasons.

See: http://goldeneye.wikia.com/wik...

and: http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Walt...

he walked with a toy blaster that does not look like any gun nor weapon employed on this planet.

Are you sure? It looks a lot like a Sterling L2A3 to me.

This doesn't happen to be the ZF-1 does it?

You're looking for the Annihilator 2000.

If I was to get a firearm, I would have that problem as I lived in California. The South African Neostead Shotgun is unavailable in the U.S. and illegal in California.

Donating to politicians to tie their product to freedom

Little need when such a right was explicitly codified in 1791.

Making sure use of their product is featured in movies

Big difference between smoking & guns in movies... While you rarely see explicit branding of either (it is easier to discern what sort of firearm is on screen with the help of sites like http://www.imfdb.org.../ smoking is rarely a necessary tool of the story... while without firearms there would be very few police, crime, action or military movies.

While there has no doubt been advertising which has, I'd be curious to know how many young people 'got into firearms' because they were even remotely influenced by some tv or movie program... vs those who had the tradition passed down to them my an older relative who wished to pass down the past time of hunting or target shooting. Even in the Cub and Boy Scouts... firearms are an optional component of it.

As far as my older guns... I mentioned it for three reasons:

1. Like the previous line... I'd actually not intended to post it (as the previous line was not completed :( ).

2. Unlike almost any other consumer product... firearms hold their value and functionality pretty well over the years provided they are stored properly. While it is not uncommon to buy a new deer rifle and use it 2-3 weekends a year for 50+ years (this year will be year 9 with mine)... the same cannot be said for purchasers of almost anything else. As a result... there is a massive secondary market for used firearms of all ages and types... and even if successful advertising were getting people to buy the latest and greatest items (granted the new buying is happening, but again, I'm not convinced it is done because of any explicit efforts on the part of the gun makers)... the shear amount of options in the secondary market makes it difficult to get folks to buy new. "I could buy new... or I could save $XXX and get this used but well cared for unit of the previous model" one would say... and possibly not even require the pointless hoop jumping of a 4473 and background check.

Heck... I go to one of the evil 'gun shows' every month or two... and a good 75%+ of the firearms for sale there are used and are purchased either because A) someone is trying to save a buck on something a little older, or B) someone is into collecting certain items that they may not have been alive or able to purchase when new (if it was even available to consumers then)... which is most of what I do, and that relates to #3:

3. When people like the President or others campaign against "weapons designed for the theater of war"... I have to laugh (and cry a bit)... because inside my safe I have quite a few "weapons designed for the theater of war" that were actually built exclusively for and carried by different foreign militaries... unlike the AR-15 which is simply a consumerized (and thus less fun) version of the M-16.

To a person like me (and most people who own more than a few firearms)... advertising firearms is a pretty big waste of time as I already know what I'm looking for (mostly old things)... and when looking for something new (to me or new from the factory), do the research ahead of time to choose well.

    Ya, traffic sniffing will find all kinds of amazing things.

    Honestly, I'm not that paranoid, I just like saying it.

    My Google history (they'd never keep that, right?) is a cornucopia of information searches on people, places, drugs, sex, rock and roll, weapons, terrorist activities and histories, and (of course) programming stuff. :)

    I was talking to my girlfriend while watching TV one night. We go off on wild tangents.

    One show had a domestic (US) terrorist using Semtex. I could have sworn it was manufactured in Europe, and never found production uses in the US. I was wrong.

    The next show had the POTUS as a character (fictional POTUS). They were having a meeting in the oval office, which seemed to drag on for hours. So our tangent left me wondering, "Where's the closest bathroom to the oval office?" Like, when the POTUS has to take a #2, does he have to run across the White House, or is there a Presidential crapper nearby. For some reason in TV and movies, unless there's a purpose to put a character out of the room, you never hear someone say "Be right back, gotta take a shit.", and walk off camera. If you never noticed it before, you will now. :)

    On a recent Fringe episode, I couldn't identify one of the rifles used, so I went looking based on the characteristics of what it looked like. It was a Galatz. I thought it was a decorated AR10. And ever since Stargate SG1 showed the FN P90, I've wanted one (well, a PS90), but I haven't been able to justify the cost.

    I may look like I know everything, but when I don't, there's a Google search history of it. :)

    My searches are diverse enough, and contain enough key words where if they really did use Google searches as a reason to bust someone, I'd have my own personal government funded security outside the door 24/7. That is, unless my file has been tagged "harmless", and they just ignore me. :)

Technically there's (as far as we know) only one real silenced gun in the world called the PSS. What is commonly called "silencers" are actually suppressors. Here is a video of suppressed pistols being used. (Technically, even the PSS has noise from the motion of the mechanisms.)

I guess commonly used guns have no software running on them. Let's assume, for the sake of this argument, that in some possible future they will: revolver's projectiles working much like Harpoons, or the talking bullets of Eddie Valiant’s toon gun. Is it relevant to be able to carry weapons if they are actually controlled by someone else? Remote control of guns --possibly with some unlikely guarantee to preserve freedom-- can be advocated on the basis of the real danger that accidental usage may cause. How about PCs and phones?

Halloween Harry has a jetpack, so does Duke Nukem. Harry prefers a flamethrower. Most would say Nukem prefers either the Glock or Ripper Chaingun though. I've always wondered why nothing ever features the Russian Sega shotgun and slugs (great international anti-piracy tool).