Hollywood Silencer: Difference between revisions

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]''

* Averted in [[Highschool of the Dead]]. Hirano hands Saya an MP5, warning her that even with a suppressor, any shots will still be audible enought to be heard by [[Not Using the Z Word|them]].

* In ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' during a flashback to Revy's [[Dark and Troubled Past|childhood]] she's shown killing a man using a pillow to suppress the sound. Subverted in that we don't actually hear the sound so can't judge how well it worked.

== Comic Books ==

* One story in ''[[The Punisher]]'' had a convict try to kill the temporarily-locked-up title character with a pistol muffled by jamming a glass bottle over the muzzle. Castle noted that it'd be good only for one shot -- and not much good even for that. Of course, everybody within easy earshot was also a convict, hoping for the Punisher's death, so it wasn't like anyone would yell for the guards....

* In [[A Sad Story]], Uncle Vernon uses one on his ''shotgun''. [[Aluminium Christmas Trees|These actually exist]], but they serve only to reduce the report of the weapon just enough to eliminate the need for hearing protection; it's clearly audible and identifiable as a gunshot from at least a hundred yards away.

== Film ==

* The 1972 French comedy ''The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe'' featured several government spies with silenced guns that, when fired, emitted only a puff of smoke with no sound at all.

* In ''[[The Man With One Red Shoe]]'', two competing teams of agents use these in Drew's apartment.

== Literature ==

* One of the ''[[Encyclopedia Brown]]'' stories played this straight, although there wasn't any '''real''' shooting: a school play was being put on, a murder mystery, but the lead actor's parents wouldn't let him touch even a cap pistol. So to avoid [[Special Effects Failure]], they pretended the killer used a '''''really good''''' Hollywood Silencer, with no sound at all ... or flash, or smoke....

* An episode of ''[[Sanctuary]]'' averts the trope, showing suppressed pistols as making 'pop pop' noises. It goes even further, making the characters put their hands over their ears when shooting off a lock in an enclosed space with the same pistols.

* ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'': An episode had an improvised silencer made by taping an empty two liter of soda to the front of a pistol. No one in the building was able to hear the gun shots.

* Averted in the second episode of ''Alcatraz''; Cobb uses a sniper rifle fitted with what appears to be a silencer, but it still makes a fairly loud noise when he fires it.

* In possibly one of the worst offenses ever, during the second season of ''[[Prison Break]]'', an assassin from The Company is sent after Lincoln Burrows and his family. The assassin breaks in and shoots one of Lincoln's father's bodyguards with a silenced pistol. No one could hear the gunshot (or the body hitting the floor), but apparently Lincoln's ears are so good that he could hear ''the shell hitting the floor'' from the other side of the (huge) house instead of the gunshot.

== Tabletop Games ==

* Played with, given that one of the options in some [[Warhammer 40,000]] [[Space Marine]] armies is to turn a boltgun into a sniper equivalent partly by extending the barrel and stock but mostly by the dint of using special "Stalker" ammunition which is gas propelled rather than the standard rocket propelled rounds, and has a "solidified mercury slug" to punch through the target rather than having a mass-reactive warhead tip. The gun modifications make the gun capable of longer ranges, but the switch in ammunition to one that doesn't ignite a rocket engine behind the bullet just after firing is what silences the gun.

** [[Corrupt Church|THE EMPEROR'S BLESSING SILENCES THE BULLET AND CONFOUNDS THE ENEMY]].

== Theatre ==

* ''Within the Law'' by Bayard Veiller features a revolver that can fire absolutely noiselessly, using smokeless powder and a Maxim silencer. Probably the [[Trope Maker]] for silenced revolvers, though this one is explained to be a specially made weapon.

== Video Games ==

* Some video games, likely due to [[Did Not Do the Research|not enough attention paid]], actually invert this - ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]]'' and ''[[Far Cry]]'', for instance, both feature an integrally suppressed MP5 which neither sounds like or is treated as though it is suppressed.

* ''[[Saints Row: The Third|Saints Row the Third]]'' includes suppressors as an upgrade for some of its weapons, which make it harder for unaware enemies to tell where you're shooting from. Likely in reference to ''Red Faction'' above (sharing the same developer), the suppressors actually make the weapons they attach to ''more'' accurate, without any explanation.

== Web Comics ==

* Averted in ''Marilith'', where the titular character explains to her apprentice that silencers are [[This Is Reality|not as effective as in television]].

== Web Original ==

* Played straight in the ''[[Madness Combat]]'' series, where all you can hear from a silenced gun is the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piBz1KKMsAQ clicking] of the mechanism.

* Oddly both averted and played straight in [[Freddie Wong]]'s ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRTP2IZ2nOo Duct Hunt]''. The silenced gun makes a reasonably loud sound, [[The Guards Must Be Crazy|but the guards don't hear a thing.]]

** The video description jokes "This is a sneaking mission where I infiltrated a Deaf Person's Warehouse."

** Special focus is also given to ''removing'' a silencer so Freddie's gunshot will be heard in ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05jtR9fZAnQ Claymores]''.

== Western Animation ==

'''Homer:''' Oh, I don't need one of those... yet. }}

* Inexplicably, ''[[Family Guy]]'' played this trope straight and then averted it in the same episode. A silenced pistol is so quiet that nobody even notices anything until blood starts spreading on Stephanie's dress. Later, {{spoiler|Diane Simmons}} is about to kill {{spoiler|Lois}}(with an unsilenced weapon), you hear a bang, {{spoiler|Diane}} drops dead, and {{spoiler|Stewie}} is seen with a smoking sniper rifle, which clearly has a silencer. Interestingly, the guns work [[Rule of Drama|exactly as they need to for each scene to work.]]

== Real Life ==

* This trope may have sent some people to prison since there have been cases of killers convicted by trace evidence of improvised silencers they wrongly assumed they needed—possibly by exposure to too many movies. Real hitmen do not often use silencers.

* There are a couple of revolver designs that have a sealed cylinder. The most famous is the Nagant M1895 (see [http://world.guns.ru/handguns/double-action-revolvers/be/nagant-mle-195-e.html guns.ru] and [[wikipedia:Nagant M1895|Wikipedia]]). Note that you don't see many followers: this solution made the Nagant [[Awesome but Impractical]] with its slow reload and lack of [[Revolvers Are Just Better|traditional revolver advantages]] due to its complicated mechanism and relatively weak cartridge. Revolvers with this design, or similar, can be suppressed. Check it out [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvF4yurWSc0 here]. Note that most Hollywood-silenced revolvers are ''not'' these models, however.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]

[[Category:Hollywood Science]]

[[Category:Sound FX Tropes]]

[[Category:Tropes Examined by the Mythbusters]]