I notice that Kotaku is running a series of articles all this week regarding the popularity of shooters in video games (appropriately titled Gun Week). One article, which I'm linking to here, talks to several developers about their own experiences and views with guns. The discussion with Matias Myllyrinne of Remedy Entertainment (the people responsible for Max Payne and later, Alan Wake) is real interesting.
http://kotaku.com/5626214/what-do-ga...bout-real-guns
Then, a couple of days ago, I noticed that GamePro had devoted most, if not all of their latest issue to upcoming shooters and, again, why they're so loved. Although I skimmed through it mostly, there was one article in there which was a sort of debunking/analysis of popular video-game weapons.