Television The Walking Dead

[alasdairm]

in what sense is the second amendment "missing"? everybody has a gun!

alasdair

 

[socko]

In the USA, there are more privately owned firearms than there are citizens. For those nearly half a billion weapons, there are more than one trillion rounds of ammo, all privately owned. Next, take into account the weapons that the US military owns. On top of that, Gun Culture is popular in Georgia. Many of those civilian gun owners make and load their own ammo. Anybody with 400$ can buy a kit that does the basics. Then, there are many hobby-ests who cast their own bullets, make their own gun powder, primers, and brass. And then they load it all by themselves. Police like Sheriff Rick tend to either have that hobby or they know of its existence and could learn how to do it in an emergency such as a zombie outbreak.

Despite that, in the first three seasons of TWD, Sheriff Rick and friends were constantly short of ammo and weapons. Not one of them nor anybody they knew could solve their guns and ammo problem. This went on year after year. All it would have taken was an occasional supply run to Guns and Ammo stores, and the problem would have been solved. Take the Yellow Pages, look up the address under Guns, and just drive in. Finally in the last season, Nagen kidnaps Eugene because Eugene is the only person left alive who knows how to cast a bullet. And Eugene isn't even good at it. it takes him days to cast a single bullet, but anybody who has done a few and cast and load one round in a few minutes.

It's bad writing. It shows that the writers failed to research, even superficially, one of their major plot devices.

If this is not the case, the most likely alternate explanation is that the USA in the TV series does not have a Second Amendment. Instead, gun ownership is like that of Australia or the UK. That would explain the chronic guns and ammo shortage and the general ignorance on how to load ammo and make improvised explosive devices and firearms. Maybe I just missed the episode that explains that the Second Amendment was repealed.

in what sense is the second amendment "missing"? everybody has a gun!

alasdair

 

[alasdairm]

All it would have taken was an occasional supply run to Guns and Ammo stores, and the problem would have been solved. Take the Yellow Pages, look up the address under Guns, and just drive in.

i would think that, after bread and water, guns and ammo would be next on the looting list so all these guns & ammo stores would have been emptied before rick and crew got there...

alasdair

 

[socko]

i would think that, after bread and water, guns and ammo would be next on the looting list so all these guns & ammo stores would have been emptied before rick and crew got there...

alasdair

That still doesn't make sense.

When Rick woke up in the first season, Atlanta was deserted except for a few holdouts. In an America with the 2nd Amendment, those holdouts would have known where the gun stores were and would have stockpiled them in their warehouse. As the survivors, they logically would have had tons of weapons, or esle they wouldn't have survived. But that didn't happen.

Guns should have been everywhere. Suppose in the days o the outbreak, every gun store was looted. As people ran out of ammo, they would have dropped the guns and fled, or they would have been overrun by zombies when they still had ammo and dropped the guns and ammo. Since zombies aren't interested in firearms, the weapons and ammo would have been left where they fell.

If you think Atlanta would have run out of ammo, there are untold trillions of rounds of civilian ammo floating around. For the 500 million civilian weapons in the USA, that is at least 2000 rounds per weapon. Except for automatic weapons, it would be extremely UNlikely for low capacity civilian weapons to fire off 2000 rounds each in a matter of days while leaving tens of millions of surviving zombies.

Still, not all would have been looted. Many areas were still pristine (not looted) including commercial districts after the outbreak. Even if that which was looted would still exist somewhere. Many would be stockpiled. The ammo would be there too, much of it unused. Others would be at sites of carnage where there was an obvious shoot out. In TWD, they show Rick and his crew searching house after house, and most of these houses are pristine and occupied by the original owner who is now a zombie. One out of three Americans owns a firearm, yet none of these pristine houses has guns or ammo.

Since, as you say, food is the first priority for looters, how come they keep finding food stockpiles but never guns and ammo stockpiles?

Then there is military weapons. The military owns untold billions of weapons and trillions of rounds of ammo. Why do we so rarely see any of it in the show? Military stockpiles and armories should be a constant source of new supplies, but this doesnt happen.

Now that I'm thinking about it, what's with the absense of cars and gas? Why do they walk every where? Why not drive heavy, fortified vehicles? Maybe it happened during an Oil Embargo? Which episode explained the gas shortage?

On the topic of gas shortages, gas does rot, but it takes a couple of years. Somebody who has no knowledge of chemistry would see this as the time limit for having cars. But they have Eugene. Eugene is a chemist. Rick could have led them to an oil tanker, then they could have siphoned off barrels of oil, and Eugene could have shown them how to build their own bush refinery. But they wouldn't even need Eugene. With access to a library, anybody with a freshmen's knowledge of chemistry could figure out the procedure. Illiterate Nigerian tribesmen run bush refineries that distil gas from stolen oil, so Rick's or Nagel's guys could have gotten one working easily.

There are so many problems. I can suspend disbelief and allow for a zombie plague from some weird bacteria or virus. Maybe a rogue genetics engineer brew the stuff in his basement lab and released it. But asking for too much suspension of disbelief without a good explanation weakens the story.

 

[alasdairm]

it's a work of fiction. you seem to be thinking about it a lot more than i am...

alasdair

 

[socko]

it's a work of fiction. you seem to be thinking about it a lot more than i am...

alasdair

Wait. This thread has 42 pages and 1027 replies. In some of them, I was replying to you, and you think I'm thinking about it too much? Don't you think about the stories you read and watch? I thought that was the point of a discussion.

it's also worth discussing how much the writers ask us to suspend disbelief and how many plot holes they leave. If they do it too often and go too far, it just looks like bad story telling. it ruins the story. For example, they ruined Happy Days when the Fonz jumped the shark. They ruined Downton Abbey within the first five episodes with the Amnesia story line. That was straight out of Giligan's Island.

I finally get it. You're trolling me.

 

[alasdairm]

Don't you think about the stories you read and watch?

of course i do.

the number of guns in the show has ruined the walking dead for you. it has not ruined the show for me. ymmv.

it just seems odd to me that you have a problem with accurately accounting for the number of firearms in the show that you just can't get past but no issue with, you know, flesh-eating zombies

alasdair

 

[socko]

Do you always ignore what people say two or three posts ago? We've already been over these points. Too bad admins/mods can't be added to the ignore list.

of course i do.

the number of guns in the show has ruined the walking dead for you. it has not ruined the show for me. ymmv.

it just seems odd to me that you have a problem with accurately accounting for the number of firearms in the show that you just can't get past but no issue with, you know, flesh-eating zombies

alasdair

 

[alasdairm]

if you have a problem with my opinion, then just ignore me.

you seem to be getting a little testy - you've made your point that this issue has ruined a show for you. if i were you, i'd just stop watching. but ymmv.

i'll be over here enjoying the walking dead if you need me

alasdair

 

[mal3volent]

it just seems odd to me that you have a problem with accurately accounting for the number of firearms in the show that you just can't get past but no issue with, you know, flesh-eating zombies

alasdair

Come on, man... I get that you choose to like the show despite its flaws, but that is such a bullshit argument. If you were consistent with that logic you could never criticize ANY show or movie with ANY kind of supernatural element. Can't criticize Game of Thrones because it has dragons. Can't criticize Star Wars because it has Wookiees.

 

[34-dihydroxyphen]

it's a work of fiction. you seem to be thinking about it a lot more than i am...

alasdair

The purpose of fiction is to provide a lens to a make-believe universe, through which we can gleam a reflection of our real world, promoting thought and discourse. People don't write fiction with the intention of having nobody talk about it, or nobody think about it. Unless they are simply collecting a paycheck and do not have an emotional or professional investment in the quality of what they write.

The very premise of TWD is to imagine what would happen in our real world should this one unreal, highly catastrophic event occur. The zombie epidemic is the only area in which we are supposed to suspend our disbelief; the rest of the world is supposed to exist as ours does. Or as it would, if industrial, organized society broke down as a result of some disaster and we saw a return to tribalism.

I would argue that the gun issue socko raises is symptomatic of the laziness and sloppiness that is pervasive throughout the show. There is clearly very little time and thought put into balancing the economy of the world of the TV show in a cohesive, logical manner - as opposed to the comics or a George R. R. Martin novel, to provide examples of fictional worlds with balanced economies.

Socko brings up some valid points by hyperfocusing on a microcosmic aspect of the show that highlights the ways in which it is macrocosmically fucked. A good universes possesses a depth to its economy that allows for discussion that goes beyond the scope of the work itself. There is a logic to it that is consistent, and that one can take to its full conclusion. The economy in TWD is based solely on which plotlines the writers feel like exploring that season; there is no consistent, cohesive logic to it, and as such the world comes across as dubious and unconvincing.

There are enough great shows on TV today; one does not need to waste their time on shit.

 

[alasdairm]

^ good post.

Come on, man... I get that you choose to like the show despite its flaws, but that is such a bullshit argument. If you were consistent with that logic you could never criticize ANY show or movie with ANY kind of supernatural element. Can't criticize Game of Thrones because it has dragons. Can't criticize Star Wars because it has Wookiees.

i don't think it's bullshit just because you disagree with it.

i just find it funny/interesting where people draw the line. that's all. they'll let something enormous slip but get tied up in some minor (to me) detail.

it's a simple - quite mundane really - difference of opinion but it's obviously touched a nerve.

on topic, there are plenty of other possible explanations for where all the guns went but not having the answer to that question hasn't completely ruined the show for me. others' mileage obviously varies.

There are enough great shows on TV today; one does not need to waste their time on shit.

but waste their time watching - and complaining about - that shit, they do

alasdair

 

[mal3volent]

It's not bullshit just because I disagree with it, I never said that. I said it's bullshit because it's logic that I'll bet you'd never apply to any other tv show or movie.

3,4-d said it brilliantly. This particular issue with the guns is indicative of a much larger problem...laziness. I would say arrogance too, actually, because the show runners very clearly take their audience for granted and have for a long time.

 

[CFC]

I gave up on this shit this season, though I did fast-forward through large parts of last season. So I guess 5 seasons of inconsistent incohesive shit was my approximate limit

 

[alasdairm]

^ indeed. if details like this annoyed me so much in a tv show, i'd probably just stop watching it. ymmv

alasdair

 

[mal3volent]

^ I did stop. A lot of people have. Doesn't change the fact that these criticisms being made are valid and you can't brush them off by saying "but it has flesh eating zombies, therefore nothing has to make sense!".