History Channel's Tales of the Gun

[Miami_JBT]

I picked up the History Channel's Tales of the Gun collection on DVD. All thirty three episodes for $59.00. I remember watching these episodes as a young fourteen year old with my father in the living room. We especially loved the S&W episode and the episode on Police Guns. My father of course being a cop and a S&W fan. Also I swear that Discovery Channel aired those episodes first. I know I didn't have the History Channel as a kid.

Thirteen years and now I'm a 27 year old cop and Army Vet. Yet I can still watch these episodes as wide eyed as I did back then. What is kinda funny is in some issues they talk about what guns might be like in 2010. The cops that they talk to think that we'd have phasers and computerized targeting systems. Some of which has been fielded by now (Army's new Grenade Launcher comes to mind). But the majority of it is still the same as when these episodes were filmed.

All in all, even though the series is a little outdated and was filmed in the height of the AWB. It's pretty damn entertaining and informative. Oh.... the majority of cops and talking heads interviewed show their disdain of an armed civilian populace.

 

[egor20]

Oh.... the majority of cops and talking heads interviewed show their disdain of an armed civilian populace.

Long story short, I have a Detective whose daughter (13) boards her horse with us that enjoys the fact that most of us carry. I also had an officer who used to sneer at my farm hands when he got his horse out of the stable.

Guess which one no longer boards with me.


I know there are a lot of LEOs that don't enjoy an armed society....
All I have to say is:

Don't screw up to give them a reason not to

OK OK.............. Rant over

 

[RickB]

I bought the whole set on VHS from NRA, over ten years ago, but it keeps showing up under various guises on TV, so I don't think I've actually watched any of the tapes. While it's a fun show, they repeat a lot of "conventional wisdom" that often isn't true. Hitting someone "anywhere but the hands" with a .45 will probably not blow them off their feet. The Luger may have been at one time considered a natural pointer, but not compared to almost all service pistols made today. Four or five different guns cannot all be the "most recognizable gun in the world", etc.

 

[Boberama]

The Canadian History Channel doesn't show this stuff.

It might as well be called the World War II Channel.

 

[Chris_B]

he majority of cops and talking heads interviewed show their disdain of an armed civilian populace

I love it when things like this are done. They interview all sorts of people and then use only the ones that meet their agenda. It's like the good old opinion poll. If I poll the right bunch of Americans, I can "prove" that the Easter Bunny exists. Opiate of the masses and all that....

 

[Gbro]

I have most of them on VHS and have been burning them onto discs.
I love to watch one on a rainy day.
I encourage a couple grandsons to read books about Guns, but the video's are more appealing to them.

 

[Single Six]

Not trying to hijack the thread here, just saying: I'm a LEO, and I for one fully support the right of law-abiding folks to be armed. I know full well that LE can't be everywhere at once. Personal protection is a fundamental human right, and let's face it: Most of the time, about all we {the police} can do is string up crime scene tape and take the report. Until we get there, the citizen is on his own. To defend yourself successfully, you need training, the will to win, and, most certainly, wherewithal. Don't trust any LEO who tries to tell you otherwise...and thankfully, in my neck of the woods, such officers are pretty rare.

 

[Doc TH]

Tales of the Gun

Entertaining, if you know enough to separate the BS from the facts. There is a lot of "poetic license" in the series.

 

[Miami_JBT]

Posted by Single Six

Not trying to hijack the thread here, just saying: I'm a LEO, and I for one fully support the right of law-abiding folks to be armed. I know full well that LE can't be everywhere at once. Personal protection is a fundamental human right, and let's face it: Most of the time, about all we {the police} can do is string up crime scene tape and take the report. Until we get there, the citizen is on his own. To defend yourself successfully, you need training, the will to win, and, most certainly, wherewithal. Don't trust any LEO who tries to tell you otherwise...and thankfully, in my neck of the woods, such officers are pretty rare.

Hey Six.... I'm also LEO and I am 100% against our fellow brothers in blue that want to strip the citizenry of the lawful right to own and carry arms. You got that right about us being armed note takers.

Never trust any government official. It's that simple.....

 

[Paul B.]

"Entertaining, if you know enough to separate the BS from the facts. There is a lot of "poetic license" in the series."

Also a lot of out and out mistakes.
Paul B.

 

[AJD21]

I remember watching these episodes on the History Channel when I was just starting to get into firearms. I always loved watching them and would always try to record them on VHS when they aired.

I too picked up the DVD boxset a couple years ago and still enjoy watching them. The main thing, as has been mentioned, is that the "experts" on the show make simple mistakes and repeat firearm myths.

One example not mentioned is at several points in the episodes they refer to the PPK/s as the "PPK". The PPK which is historically chambered in .32 ACP is also described as being "very powerful".

All in all I think its a great series of shows. While I've enjoyed shows like Lock N Load, Top Gun and Tactical Arms to name a few. Tales of the Gun relied less on "flash" and lots of guns blazing and at least attempted to give the viewers a healthy dose of history and covered a very wide range of firearms.

 

[RickB]

Didn't Q tell James Bond that the PPK delivered like a brick through a plate glass window, or something to that effect? That's gotta be pretty powerful.

 

[AJD21]

I don't know what Q said but I believe he was carrying a .25 ACP Beretta before going to a PPK in .32 ACP...so I guess its an upgrade but hardly powerful.

 

[44 AMP]

Q did say that to 007, but Ian Fleming (the author) didn't really know guns. He knew some gun names, and combined it with the rather typical English atitude against large bore firearms. In a later novel, (IIRC) Bond comments how his American agent contact's .38 Spl is "a cannon". Fleming also has Bond carrying his PPK in a Berns-Martin shoulder rig, and while Berns-Martin was a reputable holstermaker of the era, they didn't make holsters for autopistols, only revolvers. Still. I suppose it could have been custom made for the Crown, right?

I have seen just about all the Tales of the Gun, and have found that they run about like the History Channel in general, good and accurate about 90-95% of the time, and simply dead wrong the rest of the time.

The depressing thing is that when they are wrong, it isn't always (or even most often) on obscure data, or less well known info. Seems a shame to me for them to spend all that money making a show, and blow their credability making a mistake about something that virtually every enthusiast will know, even if the general public doesn't.