Even if you’ve never seen a real gun, you’ve seen plenty of shootings. Countless bad guys got shot in those 1950s and ’60s cowboy westerns featuring Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Chuck Conners, James Arness and others. I remember Russell Johnson getting shot dead by Matt Dillon in the Long Branch Saloon. That was before he played “The Professor” on Gilligan’s Island in his next fictional life.

As kids, my friends and I acted out getting shot. Our acting instructors were the bad guys the Lone Ranger was chasing. When they got shot, they looked surprised, winced and then crumpled to the ground. So, that’s how we did it. Their final words might have been a lucid confession to Tonto just before going limp. Then Tonto would say, “Him dead, Kimo Sabe.” Apparently when a bad guy was unconscious and not on a horse, he was dead for sure. And Tonto struggled with pronouns.

Bad guys usually got shot in the heart, but when good guys got shot, it was probably in the left shoulder. That way they wouldn’t die, and their right hand was available for a few more shots at bad guys. That also means good guys were better shots than bad guys, a good reason to be a good guy. The Lone Ranger was such a good shot that he often shot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand. Mercy!

In the 1800s, a good guy’s shoulder was simple. Marshall Dillon probably got shot in the left shoulder more than 30 times, but it was always good as new the next day. No broken bones. No nerve damage. Nothing torn or dislocated. And no surgery. Since then, human shoulders have evolved into highly complex joints, and it takes a lot less than a gunshot to mess up the complicated arrangement of bones, muscles, nerves and tendons in today’s advanced shoulder. Tear your rotator cuff by reaching behind your seat in your pickup buckboard, and healing might take a year.

American TV viewers long ago turned from cowboy westerns to detective shows. The shooter is not reckless bad boy Steve McQueen on Wanted, Dead or Alive. It’s heartthrob bad boy Mark Harmon on NCIS, but shooting bad guys is still not realistic. Harmon might shoot two or three in a single episode, but he’s never demoted to a desk job while an investigation is done. He just keeps shooting people. And the bullet from the semi-auto issued to Harmon can’t lift and toss the bad guy through the air like a rag doll. (Let’s say it together: “Overdramatization!”)

Modern TV directors exaggerate shootings as though they’ve never heard of Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That means if the guy getting shot goes flying 10 feet, the guy doing the shooting ought to feel equal and opposite force in the form of recoil. But he doesn’t. His gun barely moves. Maybe California legislators repealed Newton’s law for Hollywood.

Most people have never shot a Smith and Wesson Model 29 of Dirty Harry fame. “This is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world …, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?” See Harry’s squint-eye. Luckily, the punk felt unlucky.

Whether the Model 29 firing a .44 Magnum cartridge was “the most powerful” is debatable. But I assure you, handling its recoil still requires two hands or you won’t hit anything, and it will attempt to wrench itself from your grip. Those are good reasons real Dirty Harrys use weapons with far less ferocious recoil. (That’s also why criminals — contrary to widespread belief — don’t go for the most powerful guns).

It has never been good that shootings on television are commonplace but unrealistic. What else is unrealistic about television shootings? On TV, good guys survive, and bad guys die (unless the script requires a final line or two from the bad guy). But it’s not that way in real life. On TV, shooting someone is no big deal. But in real life, shootings shake things up, especially the person who pulls the trigger.

Shooting a person will change your life. It won’t matter whether you’re involved in a hunting accident, in a life-or-death self-defense situation, or you premeditate the crime. Even if you’re innocent, your life will change.

So, what’s this all about? Just that maybe our society should not be so casual about shooting people, even on television. Or maybe TV should be more realistic so killing has the serious impact it should. And maybe we should stop getting our firearms education from our television shows.

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When “The Everyday Hunter” isn’t hunting, he’s thinking about hunting, talking about hunting, dreaming about hunting, writing about hunting, or wishing he were hunting. If you want to tell Steve exactly where your favorite hunting spot is, contact him through his website, www.EverydayHunter.com. He writes for top outdoor magazines, and won the 2015, 2018, and 2023 national “Pinnacle Award” for outdoor writing.