A Rant on Using Guns in Movies & TV

[My_Two_Cents]

This has been bugging me for many years, but after what I've seen lately I decided to vent a little here to see if anyone else is annoyed as I. Mods, if this is not in the correct forum, please feel free to move.

Watching Heroes yesterday (DVR from last week, I think), there was a point where Noah had his gun drawn (absolutely ridiculous that "professionals" are armed with bulky, custom-made, competition .45's, but that's a whole 'nother rant) on someone. In order to "make his point", he procedes to cock-back the hammer. Now, anyone who knows anything about guns would immediately laugh at him for pointing what is essentially a useless weapon at someone since the hammer was not already cocked. In another episode, either he or someone else were in a similar situation and then rack the slide before whatever confrontation they were in. C'mon, why would you be walking around in a dangerous situation carrying a gun that is not ready to fire?

Another ridiculous scene was in Lost recently. Sawyer is walking around carrying an M1 Garand. There was a scene where (again, to make a point) he thrusts the gun at someone and works the action. If you know how an M1 operates, this is comical because if the gun were loaded, there was already a round in the chamber. In Heroes last night, one of the black-ops guys fired-off a mag in his M16, swapped-out a new mag and then proceeded to pull back the charging handle to show he was chambering a round. Stupid, because all he needed to do was depress the bolt catch and a round would be chambered.

These are just a few examples that really bug me when I'm watching shows/movies where guns are being used. I guess the directors and technical advisors assume we are all too stupid to see just how comical all of this is. Yes, I understand that it is all done for "effect", but let's try to add a little realism to the situations. Makes me wonder sometimes if these folks even have a clue as to how the weapons really operate.

Anyone else notice things like this, or am I just being too picky about something that a very large percentage of the viewing audience would never pick up on?

/rant