Z is for Zombies

With so much zombie-related media flooding our pop culture these days, you might be tempted to think that if a zombie outbreak ever actually happened, it would end in about ten minutes because everyone would just grab a weapon and follow the lead of their favorite movies and TV shows. Maybe so. Or maybe it would turn into bloody chaos as legions of Walking Dead fans charge into battle armed with the best combat training that their roommate's friend's brother's Netflix account can buy, spraying bullets and swinging around wildly with garden tools until the smoke clears over a field of friendly fire casualties and they realize that about 90% of what they've learned from TV is absolute bullshit.

Now, I've never actually watched more than a few early episodes The Walking Dead, because the characters were so boring and obnoxious that I always ended up cheering for the zombies. But this isn't just about The Walking Dead. It's about the fact that zombie stories are popular, easy to write (since they all share a similar backstory), and most important of all, fun. An unfortunate side effect of this trend is that some people think they can just crank out a zombie story without needing to do any research because they already know everything about battling the undead. Not that that's such a bad thing if you're just looking for entertainment, but please, do not, under any circumstances, fall into the trap of thinking that this makes you qualified to crush a zombie outbreak!

And in case you think I'm being nitpicky, in case you think I'm just being "that guy" who enjoys ruining everyone's fun by pointing out what's wrong with their favorite movies and shows (I am, but that's not the point!), in case you ever think that I'm making a big deal out of something that's not even real....well, I have one question for you. How many of you noticed this:



I'm not going to pretend to be some kind of firearms expert, because I'm not, but I've been on the UVM pistol shooting team since I was a sophomore and I've spent enough time around guns to at least know how they work. Three things are wrong with that scene. First, he's holding his pistol all wrong, with the left hand cupped around the bottom when it should be just as high up as the right. Second, he pulled the slide all the way back just to check if there was a round in the chamber, and he was lucky that there wasn't because if there was, it would have ejected and he would have one less bullet to fight with. And finally, his gun is a Glock, and has no manual safety! What he pushed was the slide stop lever, meant to hold the slide back when the magazine is empty. The first two mistakes might make sense for a young, panicky officer, but the third is a clear sign that whoever directed that scene didn't bother spending two minutes on Google to learn the basic functions of one of the most common handguns in the country. If you ever find yourself fighting zombies with a Glock 17, and you think that the gun can't fire just because you fiddled around with that little lever on the side, don't be surprised when you try twirling your gun like a cowboy and end up with one less kneecap (Side note: do not ever try to twirl a gun. Any gun. Seriously, drunken blindfolded skydiving is probably safer than that).

There are plenty of other examples I could bring up from TWD and shows like it, such as shotguns with no recoil, guns firing four times as many bullets as the magazine actually carries without reloading, and "silencers" that actually make guns silent. Instead, I'm just going to take a moment and congratulate Max Brooks. Sure, he occasionally mixes up some technical firearm terminology in World War Z, but the interviews where they talk about how ineffective modern rifles were against zombies shows that at least the guy actually bothered to do some research! Is that really so hard to do?

So what should you do in a zombie gunfight? Well, you should swallow your pride and get the hell out of there, obviously. But if that's not an option and you have to make a stand, here are the real rules of filling zombies (or anything else) with lead:

1) Always assume that every gun is loaded.

2) Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot (this is the rule that TV violates the most).

3) Never point the gun at anything you don't want to shoot.

4) Be aware of your surroundings, including the area behind your target.

5) Don't rely on the mechanical "safety."

There are more, but those are the basics, and some of the others are about stuff like ear/eye protection and not modifying your guns, which wouldn't be top priority in a zombie apocalypse. Just remember to be careful out there and use your brain. Brains. Braaaaaiiiins. Braaaa-Aw crap, I'm still a zombie and I just gave the humans advice on how to kill us! The rest of the horde is gonna be pissed...