Firing in the Air a Lot: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Nicholas:''' ''No, I have never fired my gun in the air and gone, "AHHHHH!"!''|''[[Hot Fuzz]]''}}

 

An increasingly common gag is to have the character waste most or all of their ammo in a manic fit of in air firing.

 

 

As usual, [[The Other Wiki]] [[wikipedia:Celebratory gunfire|has more details than you could ever reasonably ask]].

 

* In the ''[[Dragon Half]]'' anime, the cybernetically-enhanced Damaramu demonstrates his [[Chest Blaster]] and [[Arm Cannon|machine gun arm]], with cutaways to a roast chicken and a flaming [[Anachronism Stew|space shuttle]] falling out of the sky. He later "regrets" having "used up all the rounds showing off".

** "WAHH! ISAAC IS DEAD!"

** To explain: ceremony of joining [[The Mafia]] is concluded with a shot into air, inside the building. Isaac and his girl were hiding in the roofspace, peeking through the oh-so-convenient round holes in the floor...

 

== Film ==

 

* As the quote above would indicate, ''[[Hot Fuzz]]'' lampshades the use of this by a single character (as a reference to ''[[Point Break]]''), then later in the film directly parodies it.

* ''[[The Mexican]]'' had a bullet from one of these parties come down and kill someone, leaving the lead in a bit of a predicament.

* At the end of ''[[Jarhead]]'', after not getting to use their guns once for the entire movie, every single character begins firing their weapons into the air when they hear that they are going back home.

** And how not to fire in the air: later in the film, they are instructed to fire in the air once each to summon a spirit. Lucky Day and Ned Nederlander both fire into the air. Dusty Bottoms's shot is more horizontal. {{spoiler|Straight into the Invisible Swordsman they were summoning.}}

* Also subverted in ''[[Big Trouble in Little China]]''; right before the big battle scene, Jack fires in the air repeatedly, and is knocked out by falling debris.

* A Turkish comedy film, "Kahpe Bizans" (not sure what the English name is) lampshaded this. The film occurs around medieval times, before gunpowder weapons were common. So how do the Turkish tribesmen celebrate their victory at the end of the movie? By shooting ''flaming arrows'' in the air. Extra points for the bows making sounds of gunfire when they are used.

** Of course this trope is quite well known in Turkey, although its been much better in recent years thanks to intense campaigning.

 

== Literature ==

* The main character of [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s novel ''Deadeye Dick'' commits an accidental manslaughter as a child by firing a gun in the air and killing someone miles away, scarring him for life and providing the novel its title.

* In ''[[Cryptonomicon]]'', Company 2702 does this with a heavy machine gun to kill Italian troops that are pinned down, but outside of line of sight due to a slight hill. They even do the math to figure out what angle to aim it at, and how long they'll have to do it to saturate the target area with no fewer than one bullet per square foot.

* Occurs in Chinua Achebe's ''[[Things Fall Apart]]'', with fatal consequences; though from the gun exploding, and not any falling bullets.

 

 

* ''[[CSI]]'': In one a man killed a woman miles away by discharging his revolver into the air. When the man says that it was an accident, the CSI notes "Well, that's why it's illegal to shoot guns within city limits, Genius!" By the way, this was based on a real case in 1948.

* One old visual gag from the Chilean humor show ''Japening con Ja'' has a sniper practising his shots, accidentally shooting a plane down (the video is obviously taken from the news or a movie) and then having the police after him.

* Parodied in ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' when Stephen celebrates Chicago lifting a 3 decade long ban on [[Handguns]] by firing [[I Call It Vera|Sweetness]] into the air and having Jimmy drop the balloons... which were all popped by the bullets.

 

== Stand Up Comedy ==

*** This Troper stays in a Central Valley town in California over New Years and it basically sounds like a warzone for a few minutes after 12AM on New Years. There's a lot of doubt into thinking that those are just party poppers (who fires those outside?) or fireworks (which aren't even sold during the holidays).

*** Well of course not, fireworks are ''dangerous''...

** In ''[[Modern Warfare]] 3'', during the mission "Back on the Grid", a group of militiamen douse a civilian in gasoline and set him ablaze (unless you stop them in time). One of them fires his gun into the air.

* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'': During their trip through Palumpolum, Snow and Hope happen upon a group of civilians lined up to be relocated (or Purged) by PSICOM, and the line happens to go through their current path, meaning that if they try to force their way through, the civilians will be put in the line of fire. In an initially uncharacteristic move, Snow grabs a machinegun and fires into the ceiling, shouting that he's a l'Cie and that he'll kill them all. This causes the civilians to back off and PSICOM to filter through the crowd to them. It's characteristic of him after all when you realize that if he tried to help them in typical fashion, their chances of being Purged would have skyrocketed. [[What the Hell, Hero?|Try explaining that to the townsfolk they just saved. Or to Hope, for that matter.]]

* In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', Zaeed does this at the end of his loyalty mission {{spoiler|if you follow the Paragon route and let Vido escape while you save the workers}}.

== Webcomics ==

 

 

== Western Animation ==

== Web Original ==

* Shawn Waits of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' v3 does this in a currently ongoing thread, though in his case it was unintentional; the recoil of the sub-machine gun caused it to walk up until he was shooting in the air instead of at his opponent, and he was distracted by being shot through the cheek, missing every shot.

 

 

** When Lebanon fell into a decade-long civil war in the 1980s, factions and gangs all over the city armed themselves with AK-47s. These were so common that firing them into the air became a standard feature of celebrations, parades, protests, etc. Per news accounts, casualties from bullets falling out of the sky appeared regularly in hospital emergency rooms.

*** They also often fired into the air in the city of Beirut, which had many tall buildings, in order to kill people that had taken up position in said tall buildings. Some factions even brought in Soviet self-propelled anti-aircraft weapons (AA guns mounted on on vehicles- the famous ZSU-23-4 Shilka, in particular) as their response to the challenges of this brave new vertical aspect of combat. The Soviets did the same thing in Afghanistan in many cases, when the mujaheddin would ambush them in mountain passes and ravines; they'd hold the high ground and shoot down at the poor Soviet conscripts. It might not really qualify, of course, because they were actually shooting at something and not just expressing their joy to the world.

**** Actually a strategy since the Cold War for penetrating heavy enemy air defenses. Bombers carry their warheads in the internal bomb bay, and carry decoy drones on the wings to confuse the enemy by launching them all over the place. By making the drones a particularly un-stealthy shape, they can even make the drone appear to be a huge bomber without even adding extra equipment (this would be even easier for modern aircraft, designed with minimal radar cross-sections in mind).

** This troper has personally witnessed an extreme version of this trope in gun-happy Crete, Greece. A wedding celebration led to the locals doing this to celebrate, which led to the mayor bringing out his ''WWII Gatling Gun'' which led to nearby villages picking it up.

*** Also, believe it or not, blanks are pretty damn expensive; usually starting at about $1 a shot.

*** Also, blank cartridges don't tend to cycle the action of automatic and semi-automatic firearms that well.

* [[wikipedia:Darra Adam Khel|Darra Adam Khel]]. It's not celebratory, it's just product testing.

** Fairly common in Pennsylvania and upstate New York as well.

* In his book ''Lord of Misrule'' [[Christopher Lee]] mentions his squadron doing this to celebrate the surrender of the [[World War Two|Germans in North Africa]], including Spitfires firing their machine guns into the hills, while they were still on the ground.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]