You would think the producers of forensic type TV series would maybe employ someone who knows something about firearms before they start reenacting what are supposed to be true stories. NCIS, a fictional series, has a retired NCIS agent as consultant to correct dumb mistakes, Forensic Files and The FBI Files which are true crime series can't hire a firearms expert? I'm a novice (I don't own any firearms, yet) but even I can catch the mistakes.

Before I started watching youtube videos about handguns I probably wouldn't have noticed the mistakes. But since I have educated myself a little on firearms I find these silly mistakes annoying.

First Forensic Files, which I otherwise enjoy misidentify a pistol as a revolver, and not just once but multiple times in one episode. They quoted the crime season report as saying a revolver was found at the scene, then showed a semiautomatic pistol. They said the victim was shot with a revolver by his wife, then showed a woman pointing a pistol at him. Every time the mentioned the murder weapon they said "revolver" and showed a pistol.

Now The FBI Files has done it. They said this man with no survival skills tried to catch fish by firing a revolver into a river but show a man firing a 1911 semiautomatic pistol (that's a style of pistol, originally designed in 1911). I'm sure the FBI knows the difference between a revolver and a pistol. Probably the person who actually fired it does too, but the producers and writers apparently not.

A revolver has the revolving cylinder (hence the name), a pistol doesn't. You can tell at a glance whether a revolver is loaded or not, you can't do that with a pistol.

And BTW the proper term for "silencer" is suppressor. They do not actually make pistols silent (they can't be used on revolvers at all), they just reduce the noise a small amount to reduce the damage to the hearing of people who shoot at target ranges. A professional killer with a suppressor on his pistol cannot actually murder your husband in the bedroom and you not hear the shot in the living room. Unless you're blasting your music so load the neighbors will probably complain. So don't believe the next TV show or movie you see with killer with a "silencer" that make their revolver go "pppttt". In fact you probably shouldn't believe anything about how they portray firearms. There is no such thing as infinite round weapon. Revolvers hold 5-7 bullets. Most pistol clips 7-8 although a few 13-15.

One more thing "assault weapon" is whatever weapon antigun politicians and the media want to ban, its not an actually firearms category. "Assault RIFLEs or "Machine guns" (proper term automatic weapons) are already banned for civilian use in the US.

It's not just crime shows and guns, it's everything. My husband always laughs at me for finding every little thing that doesn't really work that way in real life.

Hah !!

Perhaps they think we won't notice such things ??

Or all the "continuity" errors !!

There are so many errors that I really think they do it on purpose just so those of us who watch for errors will have something to talk about. Some of the mistakes are soooo obvious. I enjoy watching for mistakes and for 'easter eggs'. Loads of fun. And then there are the 'series' that sometimes look like they forgot an episode, when the current one 'skipped' something and it just doesn't make any sense. So weird. In any case, it is fun screaming at the TV.