Everyone Is Armed

"Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail clad men, waited the beck of the warders ten Thirty steeds both fleet and wight, stood saddled by day and night. ''Barbed with frontlet of steel I trow, and with Jedwood axe at saddlebow A hundred more free in stall: such was the custom of Branksome-Hall."

- Lay of the Last Minstral, by Walter Scott

In this trope, a crowd of people (patrons in a bar, people in line at the bank, worshippers at church, etc.), are all armed to the teeth, down to the old lady with a walker, the nun, and the clown with the balloons. Like Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting, only with guns, swords, knives, brass knuckles, etc. In other words, a crowd where everyone's a Badass Bystander. Often overlaps with World of Badass. When someone makes the mistake of threatening these people not knowing how well-prepared for trouble they are, it's a case of Mugging the Monster.

A variation of this is when the hero and the villain meet in a supposedly neutral public place, only to have it turn out that all the bystanders are really the villain's Mooks.

Advertising

 * This XBOX 360 ad is an amusing play off of that idea.

Anime and Manga

 * Played for Laughs (just like every other trope) in the first episode of Miami Guns, where even the baby in the baby carriage is packing heat. Mugging the Monster ensues.

Comic Books

 * Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire has the planet New Hong Kong, where this is the norm thanks to the planet's only law being "There Are No Laws on New Hong Kong". Even EMTs whose job it is to help people who've been shot go armed.
 * Specifically happens in the graphic novel PSmIth:
 * "On any planet other than New Hong Kong, it might have worked."
 * "But you just don't DO that here."
 * Also New Hong Kong is invaded in the uncollected short story "Field of Screams"; it goes very badly for the invaders

Film

 * In the 1985 Chuck Norris movie Code of Silence, two armed robbers attempt to hold up the bar where all the off-duty cops hang out. It does not end well.
 * In Fast Five, Dom reminds Hobbs that they are no longer in the United States and states "this is Rio". Suddenly everyone in the crowd pulls out a gun.
 * In RoboCop 3, a Rocket Scientist picks the wrong doughnut shop to attempt to rob.
 * Predator 2: several people in a subway car draw guns in response to an attempted robbery. But since, it hardly matters.
 * In The Naked Gun: Nordberg Takes about five minutes breaking down the door to arrest a boatload of villains. He finally gets through the door but everyone in the cabin already has their hardware out and pointed at him.
 * During the escape from the Death Star in A New Hope, Han Solo chases a small group of Stormtroopers right into a room full of MORE Stormtroopers. In the Special Edition, Lucas turns it up to 11 by making the room an entire Hangar full of CGI Imperials.
 * Last Action Hero, The funeral scene where all the mourners- including grannies and nuns- whip out firearms.
 * In Hot Fuzz, someone casually mentions that there are more guns in the English countryside than in the cities. Sure enoug, during the final confrontation, literally everyone in town has a gun.
 * In Blazing Saddles, this was the reception Sheriff Bart received upon entering Rock Ridge for the first time. Even the school mom was packing!

Literature

 * The Dean Koontz novel Frankenstein: Lost Souls: an attempt to at a gathering goes awry when it turns out that almost every adult in town carries a firearm, and the villains encounter significantly more resistance than they had planned on.
 * Healer by F Paul Wilson. One of the planets in this fictional universe is Flint, basically the Planet of the Anarchist Gun Nuts. Everyone there is armed. Invaders who have been using a portal technology to launch terror raids try this on Flint only to instantly come under fire by everyone they encounter. (Thanks to Der Trihs of the Straight Dope Message Board)
 * The novel The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith portrays a minarchist society in an alternate history North America, where no one would think of not being armed.The Web Comic version is here
 * In Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code, Artemis and Butler walk into the bystander Mooks version.
 * Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels
 * Feet of Clay has a bunch of robbers burst into a tavern frequented by the City Guard: "As their eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, they received a general impression of armorality, with strong overtones of helmetness." They try to take a hostage, but make a poor choice.
 * In Hogfather there is an attempt to coerce cooperation out of the patrons of Biers. This was also a poor choice.
 * Averted by Barrayarans in Vorkosigan Saga, surprisingly for a Proud Warrior Race. Only Vor and their retainers(including servicemen who are all of course the retainers of the Emperor) are allowed personal arms and Counts are only allowed a personal bodyguard of twenty armsmen. Police don't seem to count in this calculation although they are certainly armed. The reason for this is chaos in the past which makes Barrayarans willing to endure a more-or-less enlightened absolutism.
 * Similarly in Honor Harrington the Steadholders on Grayson are limited in the number of armsmen they can field, for the same reason, that there had been a civil war in the past.

Live-Action TV

 * The opening scenes of Burn Notice shows Michael running away from the bad guys which involves a car chase through busy streets. When they stop and pull guns on him, however, about two dozen bystanders whip out firearms of their own, allowing Michael to escape.
 * Michael lampshades this by noting Nigeria as the "gun running capital" of Africa, and that it wasn't a good place to have a car chase.
 * Mega Python vs. Gatoroid on Syfy. There was a scene at a outdoor function that the gators / pythons attacked, and as soon as the attack began, everyone (including the waiters) was suddenly packing heat, and laid down a torrent of lead.
 * Reno 911: Miami, where Dangle fires a gun to quiet a rap party and all of the participants pull out and aim their guns at him and Junior.
 * The TV series Turks's pilot episode featured an attempted robbery of a cop bar.

Web Comics

 * This page of the RH Junior webcomic highlights the brief career of a would-be supervillain.
 * Escape From Terra, the webcomic by Big Head Press features an anarchic Belter society centered on the minor planet Ceres where virtually everyone carries a gun or a knife
 * roswell, texas by L. Neil Smith and Scott Bieser also from the big headed press tops this.

Video Games

 * A cheat code for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas causes all pedestrians to be armed, carrying everything from handguns to RPGs.
 * Due to a glitch in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, attacking certain pedestrians and then standing on a car would result in the pedestrian running confused into the vehicle for a few seconds before pulling out a pistol and attacking you with it.

Western Animation

 * Rango, where the title character asks if anyone has guns to contribute, and they all pull out multiples, even the cute little mole girl.
 * The Simpsons
 * In the first part of the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" storyline, every adult in town but Marge and possibly the Mayor is packing heat at the town meeting.
 * It eventually is strongly hinted that Marge does habitually go armed, with the very gun Homer was eventually convinced to stop carrying.
 * Spoofed in the episode that parodied Tom Sawyer. Everyone on a riverboat pulls a derringer on each other at the same time. Then they fire them and the bullets bounce off the windows. Them derringers are weak. Powerful weak.
 * In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Almost Got 'Im", various Batman villains meet in a club and tell tales of how they almost killed Batman once. Turns out one of them is Batman in disguise trying to get critical info. When he reveals this they all pull out guns; but then every patron in the club pulls out a gun pointing at the villains - they were all undercover Gotham police, making this an example of the bystanders being the hero's mooks.

Real Life

 * In early human history the men of most families were expected to be proficient with arms, first for hunting then later for defense against beasts and each other. Some cultures also let women carry defensive weapons like knives to protect themselves and their children and some places even considered it acceptable to arm the children. After standing armies became common, bladed implements like knives and machetes were still widely carried as all-purpose tools until modern regulation of lethal and potentially lethal weapons. People in several Asian and African countries as well as more remote areas of developed nations still wear their knives openly.
 * Some historical social classes, such as gentlemen in Europe and samurai in Japan, carried weapons as a symbol of their station. In Europe, when swords went out of style, walking sticks took over, which were essentially fancy clubs. Thus, when you were rubbing elbows with the elite, everyone was armed.
 * In Medieval Europe a surprising proportion of society had access to weapons and took part in warfare fairly often and sometimes more effectively then one might expect from their station in society. There was of course the traditional warrior class. But even peasants often had arms especially in rough country-though they were often only adapted farm tools. Burghers of course had their money as a "weapon", but they also had warships and walls and war machines, later including cannon which the noble class often could not pay for. As well as crossbows which were a favorite Italian specialty. Jews were usually disarmed but there were even exceptions to that in odd corners here or there-enough for cases involving weaponry to enter into the Talmud. Even clergy a number of times became noted warriors.
 * Sikh men are required by religious law to carry a knife with them at all times. These days it's usually a small, ceremonial knife.
 * Exaggerated in the retelling but basically true: The Guy who tried to rob a Gun Store
 * In recent years most of the states of the US have passed handgun carry laws that allow almost any law-abiding citizen with a clean record to obtain a permit to publicly carry a firearm, and going armed has become more common.
 * The attempt by the James/Younger gang to rob a bank in Northfield Minnesota in 1876 led to several of the gang members being killed or captured by armed citizens.
 * And the attempt by the Dalton gang to rob two banks in Coffeyville Kansas in 1892 ended in a gun battle. It was the last raid the Dalton gang ever made.
 * Kennesaw, Georgia famously passed an ordinance in 1982 actively requiring most heads of households there to possess a gun and ammunition.
 * This happening repeatedly is why Hamas switched to bombing instead of using guns in Israel.
 * Being armed and trained for militia service is part of the duty of citizenship. In fact this inspired Heinlein in writing Starship Troopers.
 * Every few years another incident makes the news in which crooks attempt armed robbery in places where multiple off-duty police officers happen to be.
 * One notable example involves the robber robbing a bank branch in New York, directly under the FBI's office, on payday.
 * There have been notable examples of inept criminals trying to rob bars or restaurants frequented by off-duty police (which, in many places, tend to be frequented by few others). There has also been at least one example of rather cleverer criminals staging an apparently stupid attempt to rob such, then a second group arriving after the obvious happens, posing as another, unfamiliar group of police. The second group of criminals then attempt to trick the real police in the establishment out of their guns to conduct a real robbery.
 * In Tales of the Alhambra Washington Irving commented about this aspect of Spain. As there had not only been a recent guerilla war, but the government was corrupt and incompetent, disorder was rampant and private subjects were often forced onto their own resources.