Is James Bond Above Cooper’s Rules?

There’s a bit of a debate that’s been going on over at a Facebook post on my James Bond piece. I had my say in the article and typically don’t involve myself much in commenting in order to give everyone else a chance to have their say. Plus, I just don’t have time. That said, there are a few points raised I want to address, then I need to bow out and focus on the priorities demanded by the queue of developing stories.

I will say, the way this one spread surprised me. Invariably, stories I consider important, like ones I break and major media claims as theirs a day or more later, yield mediocre readership returns, and the ones that are just quick asides, that don’t require much research or validation of exclusive information, seem to be the ones that spread. I can’t figure it out.

I’m not going to give a synopsis to explain each of the following responses. If you’re interested, what prompted them is over in the Facebook thread.

Tier two cigar. But a 90-rated tier two.

Yes, I’m well aware that old Bond posters and most of Hollywood’s portrayal of gun handling was and remains abysmal. In the old days, most people didn't know better. And that doesn't mean we should stand by now and let known gun-grabbers, who call themselves “gun safety advocates” these days, set bad examples – or at least not have fun calling them on being hypocrites. The sad truth is, a certain percentage of idiots play monkey-see/monkey-do and try to pose like that – you can find no shortage of photos on the internet, and I’m calling the antis out for not encouraging their “progressive” friends in Hollywood to realize that by “demanding,” which is what they do best, that they not promote flagrant rules violations -- "for the children" and "if it saves one life." (One point not in the Facebook discussion, but raised in article comments, is that "we have bigger fish to fry."  No one said "we" didn't. That doesn't mean pointing stuff like this out will cause a multi-tasking overload, unless walking and chewing gun are also a challenge.)

As for Bond being "Tier 1," as I recall from reading the books many years ago, the PPK was forced on him by M, and his preferred gun of choice was a jamming-prone Beretta .25. I don’t for a second have reason to believe that was a consideration of the photographer and publicists behind the poster (and that seems borne out by those previous Bond posters). As for the wider argument that operators are above safety rules that apply to us mundanes, I have no specific knowledge of that and would like to see some corroboration from an official source. I’m admittedly not qualified to argue with someone’s superior training, and think the best course to take in debates like this is to produce documentation that others can independently validate.