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Notes -
It’s TV and movies. Which I think is the truest statement you can make about the way most Americans understand worlds they have not personally entered. The TV or movies show things being a certain way, and unless the given American has significant experience or knowledge that teaches them otherwise, they assume it’s true.
And movies love to do leg shots because it’s dramatic. They’re not worried about the realistic problems with doing that. They care that it looks cool and therefore sells more tickets. Most movie and TV fights are generally fantasy based on looking good and not based on the method being realistic to the type of fights depicted.
The same could be said of almost anything. Ask any computer programmer about the ridiculous hacking scenes, doctors about medical shows, or scientists about any depiction of working scientists in their field, or what can and cannot be done. But because of the way most people live without interaction with those things outside of personal friends or high school, most people just assume the movies are accurate.
This is another reason why Terminator 2 is such a great movie. The T-800 abides by his directive not to kill any humans by shooting them in the legs instead, but then again you'd expect an advanced robot assassin to have that level of firearm precision.
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