Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Question about Trask's armament

Since my knowledge of firearms is limited to what's published in mystery novels... and since I'm too lazy to go and re-watch the DVD's...

Didn't Trask have a sidearm in GGGoH? And didn't he shoot someone (or threaten to shoot someone) with it?

The assumption is that Trask is an ex-military officer. What branch of the service was he in? Is this stated?

Do officers get to carry sidearms? (I always thought they did.) And are they required to carry a sidearm? If you are an officer, are you issued a sidearm? (I'm assuming "yes" here for the sake of the next question.)

Would Trask still have the one he was issued, and if so, what kind of a gun would it be? And, if he is *ex*-military, wouldn't he have to give back his sidearm when he left the service? But would he get a new gun that was just like the old one, for familiarity's sake?

I can't speak for military, but my father is a retired peace officer (NYC Bridge and Tunnel authority). He carried a gun on the job and had to return it upon retirement.

I haven't checked the videos either but I'm almost certain Trask had a handgun in GGoH. If it was military issue it would almost certainly be an M1911 .45 caliber pistol. Though a few other models have been creeping in and Trask being an operative of a "rogue" agency could certainly have a "rogue" sidearm if the story called for it.

Army Officers (and certain others in occupations where a rifle isn't practical) get to carry sidearms when they are deployed. It isn't an everyday part of the uniform and would likely raise issues if one were carried without justification. (The rare exception, apparently, was the time I went into the PX to get a snack carrying an M-16. oops.) The practice of officers carrying pistols goes back to WWI when officers still carried swords. Faced with machine guns and no way to adequately defend themselves, officers requested that the swords be replaced with firearms. The administration finally bowed to pressure and allowed officers to carry pistols, but they were still required to use the sword with their right hand to signal troops, etc. I'm told that WWI produced a number of gifted left-handed shooters.

When you in-process to a unit you are issued a firearm. It is yours to maintain, you sight it in, and no one else uses it, but when you're not deployed it is kept in the armory and you don't have direct access to it. When you transfer to a new unit your old unit keeps that firearm and your new unit will issue a new one.

There's something to be said for familiarity but the M1911 is a big, heavy handgun. My brother carried one as a police officer and even though he owned his, he used a much smaller pistol as his backup. (Technically, his department also issued a pistol to him but he carried his own customized version of the same model because he's a left-handed mutant.)

Hi Iolanthe:
Trask was Air Force since that was the arm of the service that did "Project Blue Book." Yes, he probably still had a M1911 gun in GGoH. He definitely had a hand gun to use on Clark. Go here for more detail on the handgun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1911_pistol
Basically we are still using derivatives/modifications of the same gun today.
Here's part of the article pertaining to today:
My own experience with a .45 caliber handgun is that it is heavy and shoots a slug that has tremendous force. It would be deadly to even a large man as a target. It is also a heavy gun and has a kick like a mule. Most TV shows today are showing a M1911 replica.

A suggestion would be to go into a Cabe1a's or Bass Pro Shop store and pick up one of the guns and feel it's weight. http://www.cabelas.com/

Artemis

Hi Iolanthe,

Here is the definitive answer.

Sorry to have to correct you Artemis, what he carried definitely was NOT an M1911A1, .45 cal. The Baretta has been the standard side arm since the early 90's for all services. It was just coming in as I was retiring.


Yes, Trask carried a side arm. It looked like a Baretta or Astra 9mm.

The funny thing is that being an ex-military oficer I would have expected him to carry it in a regulation holster, however, he carried it on the left in a reverse holster making it very awkward to draw. He had to twist his left hand around and open a flap to draw it and then transfer it to his right hand as he was obviously right handed.

Absolutely non-sensical. They really blew it on that one.

The military had two standard holsters, one hangs from the belt and the other, believe it or not is a shoulder holster. The shoulder holster is used primarily by Armor crewmen as the 9mm is the standard side arm for them as opposed to the M16A1. The reason they use the shoulder holster is the fact that they have to move through hatches in the turret to get inside and a gun hanging from their belt could more easily get caught than a shoulder holster. I was an Armor Officer.

I learned a few things during my 20 years in the Army.

Ken is correct. The Beretta Model 92 (there's a further model qualification I can't recall) is a 9mm semiautomatic pistol which can accept a flush-fitting eighteen-round magazine. One can also purchase a twenty-round magazine with protrudes only slightly below the bottom of the handle, or one may go completely nuts and purchase a fifty-round magazine which will hold the entire contents of a box of ammo. It's very awkward and would make the pistol much heavier and harder to handle, so I have no idea why any serious shooter would have one. Plus it would take all day to load it, and where would you store something like that? It's almost three feet long.

The 9mm Luger round in the Beretta 92 has a higher muzzle velocity than the .45 ACP round, but because of the difference in bullet weight, the .45 imparts more force upon impact and penetration. This translates into what combat shooters call "knock-down power." The native Filipinos in 1900 who went up against the US Army and Marines armed with .38 caliber revolvers (the .38 round is similar in performance to the 9mm Luger round) were hopped up on any number of local natural pharmacological boosters, and the .38 round would not stop their headlong charges from jungle concealment. The .45 ACP did.

I just re-watched the shooting scene with Trask again. The pistol he pointed at Clark in the van doesn't look any larger than a 9mm to me. But the one he pulls while he's in the pond is a different weapon. It's much smaller, silver instead of dark, and is probably a .32, or maybe even a .25 auto. They're not much good for anything except in-your-face shooting. Because the barrel is so short, they're inaccurate, the cartridge doesn't hold much powder, and the bullet is small. But they can kill people.

I'm not a ballistics expert, but I have fired some weapons in my time.

Thanks, everyone! The FoLCs come through again!

This makes me wonder why Trask, an ex-military officer, would carry such a gun. Anybody care to speculate?

So if Trask were to shoot someone with the .45 ACP, they would be much more seriously injured, even if it were a "flesh wound"?

/Sigh.../ This sort of thing is typical for Hollywood, yes?

To answer your questions, one might carry a small pistol like that as a backup weapon. Sometimes you just wish you had another full magazine for your primary weapon, or your primary pistol is jammed and you can't clear it. Plus the smaller pistol is less likely to be found during a cursory search or pat-down. People who aren't trained in such things often remove the big pistol in the holster but miss the little one in the pocket, or they stop searching after finding one pistol - often because that's what they've seen in the movies.

The .45 ACP would do more tissue and blood vessel damage than the .38, yes, with a higher likelihood of a fatal wound.

Hollywood almost always gets it wrong regarding firearms. How many times has a Western hero had to reload during a firefight? And how many times has the hero fired more than six times from a six-shooter without reloading? That always breaks me out of the story. Even one of the best modern Westerns, "Open Range," has Kevin Costner's character firing nine or more times from the same Colt Peacemaker at the beginning of the final gunfight (which is well done otherwise).

One final note. Newton's first law of motion, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, means that if a bullet could throw a grown man ten feet across a room, it would also throw the shooter ten feet in the other direction. Recoil is real but it doesn't work that way. Bullets are designed to penetrate, not push hard. When I see that in a movie or read it in a book, I know someone didn't do his research.

That chromed weapon he pulled at the pond is what is affectionately called a derringer. It is a hignly concealable weapon and has an over and under barrel to load two rounds which can be fired indipendantly. the barrel is only about an inch and a half long and is only accurate to about 5 feet, unless you get really lucky. Earlier in that scene he had the 9mm but he lost it in the scuffle with Clark. It was when he was desperate to get rid of Clark that he pulled the hide away piece.

The .45 cal has a lower muzzle velocity than the 9mm but it carries a punch as opposed to the 9mm. The 9mm actually has more penetrating power. If you get hit with a .45 round it will pick you up and move you back three feet and then drop you to the ground.

I personally own a Colt .45 auto and a Browning 9mm Hi-Power. I recently sold a 9mm Luger of WW2 vintage. The ballistic characteristics are radically different as well as the handling.

The punch delivered with the .45 is significant, not only to the victim but to the shooter as well. The proverbial 'kick' of the .45 is nothing to sneeze at. The 9mm you can just about hold on target and squeeze off round after round with minimal readjusting of sights. With the .45 you need to re-aim with each shot.

As an Army Armor officer I have had to conduct range fire with the M1911A1 for the troops which included teaching them how to handle the weapon.

So much for wikipedia! It's been a busy day, but now I have time for a little more discussion. Clearly Ken and Terry have more experience than I do. I haven't shot a pistol for several years. There are other points I can address, though.
Ken said:
I think I can answer this by the way the scene was set up. Clark was in the back of the van and Trask was to the audience's right (Clark's left). To show the audience that Trask was pulling a gun, it had to be on his left side to be visible and more threatening, with a big sweeping movement as he pulled it.

In Western's there was often a "crossdraw" position, especially with long barreled "pistolas".

I was always a fan of Westerns where the derringer was the weapon of choice for the ladies, particularly since they could hide it in their garter or in their bustier. I figured Trask had an ankle holster.
Artemis

Ken is far more qualified to compare these two weapons than I am because of his training and experience, but I can offer one personal anecdote. I went to a shooting range a few years ago and rented a Smith and Wesson .44 magnum revolver, and it made some very loud noises when I pulled the trigger. The other shooters around me actually went "Oooohhh!" after I'd fired a couple of rounds.

That pistol is the only handgun I've ever fired that kicked harder than the .45. I used a two-hand grip on the .44 and the recoil still kicked it up above my eye level. (I'm 6'4" and a good bit heavier than I should be, and at that time I was lifting weights pretty regularly.) My son, who was in his mid-twenties at the time and weighed about one-sixty-five, said it was too much gun for him. He's a pretty good shot, but he just couldn't control it.

I was fairly accurate with it, but there's no way I could have rapid-fired that pistol. I would have sprayed the entire room.

I don't know if you need this information or not, but a sizable percentage of mid-sized to large cities in the U. S. have standardized on a .40 caliber handgun for their police forces. It has a bit more stopping power than the 9mm, but it's not too large nor does it kick too hard for shooters with smaller hands or upper bodies. And it's accurate with good range in urban settings if handled properly.

Terry, that brought back memories. We had a .44 too and I fired it once and decided I was much better with a Ruger .22. The side blast alone would have taken out some bystanders.
Ah, memories.
Artemis

Yeah, the .44 is some gun. I have a pair of .357 Magnum Ruger Blackhawks They have to have a kick second only to the .44 Magnum.

Regarding Trask's holster, yeah, there are cross draw holsters out there. I have one for my Colt Detective Special 2 inch. Typical police carry, front left for right hand draw or more concealed back right, but, the holster Trask was wearing was a drop holster. It actually was a right side, quick draw type holster. He was just wearing it on the wrong side of his belt.

I agree. Totally sexy, that.

Artemis

Don't forget the twin automatics he usually carried on either hip, the lever-action shotgun, and the Lewis gun from the crashed airplane. The man was practically a walking armory.
(not a real quote from the movie)

Thanks once again. It's always fascinating to read stuff by people who really know what they're talking about.