Loose aggressive dog is not a human. It is dangerous vermin that can kill you! You are absolutely allowed to play it safe, defend yourself, and shoot it (the same way you would kill mosquito).

"It just wants to play" is not an argument, you are not a "toy" for some strange dog. It was "reactive" is also not an argument, you have no obligation to suffer its "reaction" to the full end.

Dog owners will say they have a right to mangle child, for petting their dog (it was self defense). They will also insist dogs are safe around the children, two sentences latter. Do not listen to them!

In general the sounds of guns are very bad in most movies/tv shows (Heat from 1995 comes closest for me).

I assume a lot of writers get their misinformation from Hollywood sound effects and the countless other gun related liberties.

Like the terminator asking for a phased plasma rifle in a 40W range. Everyone knows those weren't available until 1997.

Beginning and then almost immediately dropping niche hobbies (eg flight simulators, poker, guns in the linked post) is transformed from something a spouse or partner might see as an undesirable and potentially annoying personality trait, into: "this is research, darling, it's my job", which is probably significantly more annoying.

It is easy to make mistakes with a verb one might not think to question like "cocked". Of course, ideally, you'd question every word used, so that the % of readers who understand its full associated meaning don't have their immersion in a story suddenly & painfully torn away.

To be less glib, I find that when speaking about a topic from a character's perspective - in dialogue or narration - a relatively important part of empathising with their point-of-view is understanding the physical and linguistic structure of their world. Sometimes I find there's no way to do this without putting hundreds of hours into understanding the tools they would use or the way they would live. Write what you know!

Some people judge fiction way too harshly for inconsequential but inaccurate details which only serve for narrative structure. There are actually tons of authors who get all of these details right, but you almost never read their books because if they can get them published at all, nobody reads them, because they absolutely suck. An author that gets these details right and is actually a good storyteller is extremely rare. It’s basically a list consisting of Tom Clancy.

It’s just a pet peeve. At some point you have to let it go, or you’ll end up wasting your time writing blog posts begging authors who don’t care to talk to you so they won’t get inconsequential details wrong.