Family-Friendly Firearms: Difference between revisions

* Changes in American gun culture, akin to those that made things like smoking an increasingly rare phenomenon in American media.

* Imitability. Shooting someone with a bullet is [[Don't Try This At Home|an imitable act]] which might result in negative publicity, but a kid can't find his Dad's laser rifle and zapfry his buddy. [[Technology Marches On|Yet]].

 

Note that this is usually limited to bullet-firing weapons. More destructive weapons like RPG's may still be seen in works using this trope, despite (or perhaps ''because'' of) the increased difficulty in obtaining them. In rare cases, it will have [[BFG|large guns]] fire actual bullets, but still no realistic small arms.

 

Goes hand in hand with [[The Lethal Connotation of Guns and Others]]. See also [[Abnormal Ammo]], [[Trick Arrow]], [[Inverse Law of Sharpness and Accuracy]]. Often given to a [[Badbutt]].

 

== Anime & Manga ==

** In one instance, a poison dart gun was changed to shoot poison ''suction cups''.

** In the flashback to Luffy and Shank's origin stories, Shanks is held up point blank with a gun to his temple and he casually points out that the man holding the gun is in danger of a backblast if his skull causes the bullet to shrapnel, just to show how badass he is. In the 4kids version the man is holding a popgun, although Shank's lines remain mostly unchanged. Shank's man shoots the would-be shooter dead and they didn't bother changing his gun, but left in a comment that it was full of blanks and that the other man simply fainted.

** Kaya threatens Kuro with Usopp's slingshot. Which makes a rattling sound suspiciously similar to a gun when she trembles.

* The dub of ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' slightly modifies the names and sound effect of Gargomon's attacks (essentially done with a Gatling gun in the original).

* Both the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh]]!'' card game and TV show have monsters that wield or resemble guns edited into lasers... [[Memetic Mutation|in]] ''[[Memetic Mutation|America!]]''. The most notable example of this is the monster called "Barrel Dragon", which could be described as resembling several guns welded together in Japan (whether this counts as [[Truth in Television]] is arguable). An exception is the "Ancient Gear Soldier" in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]'', which uses a submachine gun-arm - it can be argued this was just because editing it would have looked ridiculous.

** Several guns are left intact however, but are slightly redesigned to look less like real guns. One particular trap card features an old fashioned flintlock, in the japanese version, that was covered in gold ornaments for the international release.

{{quote| '''Thug:''' Don't move a muscle or we'll shoot you with our invisible guns!<br />

''(...)''<br />

** This becomes even less believable when lasers that were previously guns are shown being shot around in a Space Station takeover during a flashback of an event which took place fifty years previously. Because of course, they ''had'' lasers in the nineteen-fifties. And space stations.

* In ''[[Transformers Armada]],'' Demolishor's missiles were frequently shown to ''stay in place but fire missile-shaped lasers.'' Of course, it does provide an explanation for the usual "we can see he's only got four, so how come he's been blasting away all day and never runs out?" problem that some Transformers have. Most weapons fire appears to be lasers, but Cyclonus has more than once told an enemy to "eat lead".

* Played literally in one episode of [[Full Metal Panic]] Fumoffu: when a thug explains to his boss the features of the Steyr SPP machine pistol, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_jOS2e2y-I an ad reminiscent of the 50s or 60s plays, advertising the gun as "fun for the whole family!" while a father, mother, and two children spray bullets willy-nilly]. (The SPP might be the civilian version of the TMP, but it's no toy.)

* In [[Fairy Tail]] one goon of the Naked Mummy Dark Guild is seen using a shotgun loaded with magic bullets. In the anime it was changed to a more toy-looking rifle.

* ''[[Kamen Rider Decade]]'' features a very minor version. In the original ''[[Kamen Rider Agito]]'' G3-X's weapons fired bullets and rockets. In the ''Agito'' [[Alternate Universe]] visited in ''Decade'' the G3's Gatling gun shoots red laser beams. Very slightly justified as well since it is an, well, ''alternate universe equivalent'' and thus not the original armor.

* [[Super Sentai]] is odd about its use of this. Of course, we're dealing with magical/futuristic tech, and so lasers aren't as wildly out of place as in most series that use this trope, Anyway, sometimes the same weapons will shoot beams one day and bullets the next. Sometimes beams will go Matrixy and you'll ''see a bullet inside.'' Sometimes things that really, really shouldn't shoot bullets will (ancient technology, swords, claws, etc.) At one point (the Dekaranger version and SPD version are exactly the same), we get a "tink!" and [[Bullet Sparks]] off of a [[Monster of the Week]]'s new armor. He turns to see Blue pointing at him with his weapon - which he fires again, only ''this time it's a blue beam.''

* [[Kamen Rider Dragon Knight]] has the bullets from Torque's usual gun changed to lasers (green, the color of his suit), but his finisher (which has [[More Dakka]], [[Beam Spam]], and a [[Macross Missile Massacre]] ''at once!'' [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]], after all.) remains the same as it was in [[Kamen Rider Ryuki]].

** {{spoiler|Possibly justified by the fact the Riders' gear were made by [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]].}}

 

== Video Games ==

* Occurs within the ''[[Command and Conquer]]'' [[Novelization]] of ''Tiberium Wars''. Within the novel, the regular infantry of Nod (the bad guys) are armed with energy weapons. While Nod do have lasers within the game, its only limited to special forces, while the regular mooks get conventional weapons. The trope is almost invoked by one soldier "Where the hell'd they get-" after seeing the lasers. The change isn't because of censorship, but as a result of a continuity error.

** In the expansion to ''Tiberium Wars'', the Black Hand subfaction can upgrade their basic [[Mook|mooks]] to use lasers. That said, they are [[Elite Mooks]], since the Black Hand is apparently Nod's elite.

** There is a part in the ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' movie when Will puts a gun to his head and threatens to kill himself if his friends are not released (because the pirates can't end their curse without him). In ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', he leaps to the edge of the ship, just like the movie, and threatens his own life...while pointing the gun at the ground. You probably don't want to encourage children to point guns at their owns heads, but at the same time it was a bit jarring to anyone familiar with the movie.

** Oddly enough, when ''358/2 Days'' came out, they stopped doing that to Xigbar, whose Limit Break has him again merge his gun-arrows into a sniper rifle.

** Clayton's aforementioned rifle was not edited or censored in any shape or form in ''[[Tarzan]]''. It's as realistic as the guns in ''Pirates''... whereas Xigbar's gun-arrows are decidedly not. Children are probably going to see these movies before playing ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' (or at least, it would be more likely for their parents to allow them to see them), so this censoring really makes little sense.

** The series' iconic Keyblade was originally planned to be a [http://ds.ign.com/articles/100/1002401p1.html chainsaw-like weapon.] Disney obviously wasn't too happy about this idea.

* The short-lived ''[[Mighty Orbots (Animation)|Mighty Orbots]]'' had an extreme example of this. In a cartoon about a futuristic [[Combining Mecha]] team battling [[Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever|giant monsters]] and alien [[Mad Scientist|mad scientists]] led by an [[Energy Beings|evil energy computer]], ABC's [[Executive Meddling|Standards and Practices]] dictated that '''none''' of the weapons could bear any resemblance to gun-shaped objects. The end result? Battles waged with giant wedges and cones of light flashed from arms, legs, eyes, and whatever else was convenient. Writer Buzz Dixon noted that the show appeared ''more'' futuristic as a result.

* Partially justified in ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'': while the first few episodes portrayed "particle beam" weapons as being accessible only to the very rich (such as millionaire David Xanatos), everybody else carried and used real guns. However, in the episode "Deadly Force", mob boss Tony Dracon steals a shipment of these and sells several of them on the street. Thus, the writers establish that there are energy weapons available for criminals to use if they know where to look. In the end, who used what depended on which group one belonged to: members of the N.Y.P.D. (including co-star Elisa Maza) would uniformly use real guns; high-end baddies such as Xanatos, Demona, and Thailog heavily favored lasers; and anyone else would use whatever the not-always-consistent animation felt like displaying.

* The 1990's ''[[X-Men (Animation)|X-Men]]'' animated series was a serious offender. Everything shoots "lasers". Machine guns shoot lasers. Tanks shoot big red beams that somehow arc and hit the ground like heavy artillery. Also typical for this trope, the series had the anti-mutant supremacist group stockpile what were clearly regular munitions, despite constantly using laser weapons onscreen. Even sewer-dwelling edge-people have lasers! The animated version of the battle between Storm and Callisto for leadership of the Morlocks was fought with what looked like double-bladed lightsabers (in the original comic book, it was a knife fight). The one arguable exception in the season 5 episode “Old Soldiers”, in which more realistic sounds are heard when a few rounds are let loose.

* Alongside ''[[X-Men (Animation)|X-Men]]'', ''[[Spider-Man the Animated Series (Animation)|Spider-Man the Animated Series]]'' (known for its particularly heavy censorship and restrictions) also excessively used laser weaponry. Many realistic guns were not allowed, and no firearms could shoot bullets, so instead they fired lasers complemented by "futuristic" sound effects. This often led to preposterous scenes in which ordinary policemen wielded bizarre, futuristic pistols, and the mere ''appearances'' of realistic-looking guns (as seen in "Tombstone" and "Day of the Chameleon") were pointed out as major exceptions. The most preposterous example ''has'' to be “Secrets of the Six” where, during a WWII flashback, [[Captain America]] is leads a crackdown on the Red Skull's Nazi infiltrators, which, upon being discovered, promptly pull out their standard issue ''1943 model laser guns'' to shoot those pesky heroes.

** Averted in ''[[The Batman vs. Dracula (Animation)|The Batman vs. Dracula]]'', though - at one point, Batman is pursued by a SWAT team whose guns are quite clearly firing bullets, even though they look rather sci-fi-ish.

* ''[[Teen Titans (Animation)|Teen Titans]]'' plays this trope straight, although the fact that the world established in the series appears to be different from our own in several key ways means their use is not as jarring as some other cases.

* Everyone in the various ''[[Ben 10 (Animation)|Ben 10]]'' series uses lasers. While it make sense for characters who are connected to the numerous alien races that are a series mainstay, the fact that regular people--such as the security detail assigned to protect a to-be-released videogame--also use them without explanation can be rather off-putting, if you care about stuff like that.

* While the trope was initially in full effect (with some exceptions, such as a scene involving a wild west shoot-out) in the early episodes of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 (Animation)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003]]'', more realistic-looking guns started appearing as the series went on. The second season featured stylized guns which shot ambiguous-looking ammo which appeared to be designed for maximum plausible deniability, which evolved into more realistic automatic weaponry in the third season. It wasn't until the fourth season that handguns began appearing. While laser weapons did appear throughout the series (and far more frequently than "real" firearms), the producers attempted to justify them by showing that they were only accessible to the particularly well-funded; however, once an alien invasion left a large amount of advanced ordnance lying around, a black market was created, and street gangs began using them as well.

* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls (Animation)|The Powerpuff Girls]]'' featured real guns during the first two seasons, with cops, robbers, commandos, and even ''Miss Bellum'' wielding threatening, bullet-firing weapons with appropriate sound-effects. One episode even points out that the girls are bullet-proof, with Blossom [[Shooting Superman|wondering why criminals even try]] as bullets bounce off of her. This changes in the third season, in an episode which shows policemen fire fully-functional pistols and machineguns which are inexplicably coloured fire-hydrant red, and eventually the trope is played straight, with a bank robber shooting at the girls with a laser pistol.

* Parodied in ''[[South Park (Animation)|South Park]]'', where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg set out to release remakes of ET and the [[Indiana Jones]] movies where all the guns have been digitally replaced with walkie-talkies.This is later taken a step further [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] when the boys are being held captive by real soldiers, all armed with machine gun sized walkie-talkies.

* While ''[[Generator Rex (Animation)|Generator Rex]]'' generally has little problem with featuring conventional firearms, these are occasionally—and inexplicably—absent in episodes where their use would actually be effective against the threat of the week, making the show an example of the first listed version of the trope. The best example probably occurs in the second episode, which involves an outbreak of humanoid E.V.O.s who are individually rather weak; Providence is initially seen trying to contain the monsters using net guns and other non-lethal weaponry, and after this proves ineffective, White Knight gives the order to escalate, skipping automatic weaponry and heading straight into weapons of mass destruction.

* In ''[[Doug (Animation)|Doug]]'s First Movie'', Mr. Bluff has hired the police who are armed with high powered assault rifles and orders them to shoot the monster once it's released from the giant Valentine box, at the last minute the kids switch the monster with Roger's robot and they fire upon it but for some reason they fire lasers.

[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]

[[Category:Family Friendly Firearms]]