Bullets vs. Lasers

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fahim f

New member
I've noticed action cartoons often shy away from the use of real guns. However there seems to be a general acceptance of laser weapons. I've heard this acceptance is based on the following:

1) Handheld lasers are considered more in the realm of sci-fi and therefore doesn't glorify the use of real life guns.

2) Laser weapons can be set to "stun" so no one really gets hurt (see the 90's X-men cartoon).

What's your take on this? Is a gun still a gun no matter what it shoots? Does making weapons seem "less lethal" do more harm than good?
 
Lasers actually are more violent, though they may have a bit less of an influence on kids. You can get medical help if you get shot. In most sci-fi stories, lasers seem to be instant kill weapons.
 
For an actual laser to have the same stopping power as a slug throwing weapon the wound would most likely be like one caused by holding a high power blow torch to the the flesh for several dozen seconds.
 
Eh, I think both are acceptable, although there is a limit. The 90's Spider-Man series, for example, had regular policemen in addition to villainous henchmen/red shirts firing lasers, which is kind of stupid. Gargoyles is a good example of having both; cops like Elisa Maza and Matt Bluestone fired bullets, and the bad guys fired lasers and (occasionally) bullets. A good thing about the lasers in Gargoyles is that they hit their targets more often than not, sparing us idiotic scenes where millions of rounds/beams miss the hero. It also had a great "guns-are-not-toys" episode in the form of the infamous "Deadly Force".
 
I think another reason why lasers are used is because they aren't seen to be as "violent," in a way. What I mean is when people think of lasers, they could think about the blasters in Star Wars or what not and how they usually leave a scorch mark when they hit a person. Meanwhile regular guns bring images of bullets burrowing and tearing away at flesh and bone, often leaving a wound that's bloody and grisly.
 
When I think of lasers I tend to think of stuff like Metroid where an enemy is given one good shot and it either explodes or disintegrates. Not the most pleasant way to die.
 
Some kids have actually seen people shot and killed by bullets. That explains why they use lasers, which most people have never seen used in a violent fashion in real life.
 
I think that lasers are less violent than bullets. Also it is harder for some kid to get their hand on a big laser than it is a gun.
 
A regular gun can look just as ridiculous if it never hits anything. The Rambo cartoon had real guns, but they never hit their targets.
 
Lasers can look ridiculous too; or really it just depends on who's firing them and what color they are. A prime example of this is G.I. Joe; The minions of Cobra could not aim. They would fire a dozen red lasers at the Joes and not hit a single one, yet a member of the Joe team could knock out several Cobras with a single blue laser shot. No wonder Cobra always lost.
 
Well, GI Joe is a bad example, since they were coy as to whether it actually was lasers or bullets. It depends on the writers. Sometimes they were shown loading bullets (plus, the blasts left bullet holes in wood and metal). BTW, no one ever got hit except the Cobra androids. They never shot the actual human Cobra soldiers, except to shoot the guns out of their hands. I prefer to think that they were just always firing silenced red/blue tracer rounds all the time. :D

Logically, I don't think it makes any differernce. A laser "blaster" is just a fantasy eqivalent to firearms. If a child was easily influenced enough to go get a gun after seeing one in a cartoon, he'd do the same thing after seeing a laser. It doesn't really prevent anything, it just seems less "real" and violent when Mommy peeks in to see what little Johnny is watching. Parents are more distubred by realism than they are by violence becase they have an instinctive desire to protect their children.

Kids were exposed to guns ALL THE TIME in the 1940s/50s. Read any Golden Age comic book, listen to the Superman, Captain Midnight or The Shadow radio shows, watch The Lone Ranger TV series or any of the classic John Wayne movies that my father's generation grew up with. Those kids played with metal toy guns with no orange caps. How many school shootings happened in the 1940s ... ? Hmmm? ??? Oh, that's right. There weren't any.

Is there any real reason why a 10-year old shouldn't know what sex is or hear cuss words? Not really. But in our culture, parents feel they need to sheild their kids from "inappropriate" content. If a show is deemed to gritty by Mommy, than Little Johnny doesn't buy the toys and no one makes any money. So if replacing guns with lasers boosts sales ... than they replace the guns with lasers.
 
I was thinking about this just this morning watching Mercy on The Batman pull what were clearly guns from her sleeves, then proceed to fire pink bolts from them. Most likely "laser"(I use the term loosely, but I'll explain.) beams are more clearly animated than bullets. The characters can easily be seen just managing to dodge the shots. Then there is the less violent aspect as the "beams" only hurt and knock the characters down if they are hit. About like a boxing glove on a spring thing.

Not glorifying guns? it's a very fine point to me. You point something at someone as a weapon, you've glorified a gun, no matter how badly it's animated. And some heroes aren't Superman. They have to have a way to use their skills,,, rather than simply be riddled with machinegun bullets. :robin:

Now, lasers are very poor weapons. They make a razor thin hole and cauterize wounds as they are made. Phasers got around that problem by using a beam wide enough to transmit heat to the surrounding tissue, turning the water instantly to steam and causing an explosive effect internally. quite nasty really. A slug just rips tissue and transfers shock energy. Yea, I think about this stuff wAy too much. It's just so kewl. :anime: Yes, my inner Trekkie will show through from time to time.
 
Ironically, I posted the topic about 15 minutes before the show aired. The moment Mercy ejected the hand guns from her sleeve (cool scene btw), I was like "oh snap! She's going to start bustin' caps!". Unfortunately, red beams came out instead of bullets. Although, I did find it strange that the shots sounded like normal gunfire.

Eh, I was lazy. It's quicker to just type laser.
 
There are certain times when you can tell they changed bullets into lasers (at least the sound effects).

Sonic X Ep 1: During the opening scene, the drones shoot bullets. In the dub, they shoot lasers.

Sonic X Ep 3: The police shoot "lasers" at Eggman's robot with shotguns. Anybody knows shotguns don't shoot lasers.

Sonic X Ep 37: This has to be the stupidest cover-up ever, especially since 4Kids never realized that many people who watch the show have played Sonic Adventure 2. They tip-toed around the fact that Maria was killed by G.U.N, and said in the dub that she was "taken away". Even if Maria was taken to Prison Island, she would still die because of her disease.

Sonic X Ep 38: During the scene with them watching Professor Gerald's last message, you hear gunshots from him being executed (you don't see his execution), which for some reason 4Kids didn't edit.
 
I'd like to also remind people not to forget Zatch Bell's Kryptonite Guns and SEED's Disco Guns.

Ack, and one of the worst was Elly's Tonfa Guns in the Rave Master. Machine gun fire replaced by generic pulse laser sound effects. Lame.
 
Technically they aren't. If I recall my "SDI" energy weapon theory.
  • Laser- Strictly electromagnetic spectrum, theoretically Microwaves through Ultraviolet.
  • Focused partical beams
  • High temperature plasma. probably the least understood.
 
Personall, I think swords/knives are probably the worst thing that could be shown to children since knives are present in EVERY home, wheras guns aren't.

But, as I said before, it's all about profits at the end of the day. Guns are controversial on modern childrens television. I can't even count how many mothers I've heard (including my own, who ironically collects and shoots handguns as a hobby) rail about Batman: The Animated Series having guns. I think being a gun owner is part of what made my mother worry, since she felt that seeing guns on TV would make my brothers more likely to try and get into her guns (though the big-ass metal cabinent and trigger locks would've been pretty hard for a couple of 7-year olds to breach).

I honestly fail to see what makes a gun any worse than the hundreds of other potentially lethal items present in a household. Keeping dangerous things away from small children is a parents responsibility. If a child gets ahold of them, it's more the parent's fault than a TV cartoon's fault.
 
This always has bugged me. We have gangs shooting people in the streets, and we have to get guns off cartoons. That I will sadly have to accept. But what REALLY fries me is that you can walk into half the toy stores (or places that sell toys) and they have toy guys. I once was pretend shot by a 2 or 3 year old in a stroller. If we can have toy guns, how come we can't have animated guns?

I will sadly say that laser guns are the best route you're gonna get (though I loved Darkwing Duck's gas gun). I think this was popularised by the 1980's Ninja Turtles cartoon. In the first episode, an elderly woman (at the sight of the Turtles) kicks over a shopping gun and pulls out an asault rifle and starts opening fire at them. it had the same SFX and animation of a real gun firing. A couple episodes later, Rocksteady opens fire on the Turtles. However, he says "eat balzing electric death!" refering to the fact that he's shooting a laser gun. However, it was animated with gun blasts and rounds of ammunition falling out of the side of the blaster, and had the SFX of an actual gun. Of course, that could have been a miscommunication on the end of the Japanese animation studio (Toei).

But then again, I recall seeing several Darkwing Duck episodes where there was gunplay. Not to mention an old Donald Duck cartoon in which Donald opens fire on an audience with a machine gun. While not controversial at the time of it's release, it aired on "Mickey's Toontown" unedited several years back.
 
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