Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Difference between revisions

** ''Macross Plus'' surpasses that: Myung is trapped in an elevator, and two security guards ''spray the inside of the elevator with automatic weapons... '''Not. Hitting. Her. Once.'''''

* ''[[One Piece]]'' tries to avoid this trope by having the navy use swords more often than using guns. Whenever the marines use guns on the Straw Hats, it's only against the stronger members that can easily dodge the bullets or disarm the snipers. If fighting the weaker members, they normally are too close and will be attacked by them or reasonably too far away to hit them.

** Played very straight, however, in the Whole Cake Island Arc where Pudding pulls a revolver on Sanji and tries to shoot him ''while he's carrying her''. Sanji ''does'' have near-superhuman reflexes (the reason her next five shots do no better), but that's hardly an excuse when you are at near point-blank range and take your target by surprise.

* From the second ''[[Naruto]] Shippuuden'' movie, the ninja of the Sky Country have gatling guns that fire kunai. Apparently they're a deadly force, but they just seem to land by peoples' feet more often than not. One of them almost hits Shizune's foot as it just barely misses Tsunade, but she just has to stand there. Then Sai fights several of them in the air and just stands atop his giant bird thinking to himself while a volley of kunai fly over his head. But then, perhaps this also involves the [[Inverse Ninja Law]].

** Another ''Lucky Luke'' story, ''The Rivals of Painful Gulch'', features two feuding families who's been fighting for ages, but never wiped out each other since they were all such bad shots. At one point, the town undertaker even pleads for the hero, if he cannot bring peace between the families, to at least ''teach them how to aim'' so they can finish each other off.

*** In the beginning of that story, the mayor is showing Luke around town when they come to a place where one member of the feuding families was cornered by three members of the opposing family. They had been firing at their victim for 15 minutes, but not a single shot hit. The wall at the spot is riddled with bullet holes everywhere, except for the place where their target stood.

* Anyone who tries to fire at [[Tintin]] will either miss or only graze him. If they graze him, they will only ever graze his skull, and he'll be unconscious/in hospital long enough for them to make a plot-relevant getaway.

* The ''[[Mad]]'' parody "Bat Boy and Rubin!", from back when it was a comic, lampshaded a since-forgotten subtrope of this, where the heroes charge straight at villains who miss them with every shot:

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** Since, unlike guns, wands can do more than just kill, there's a ''Harry Potter''-specific corollary to this trope, which we shall define thusly: "the more deadly and/or permanent the curse is, the less likely it is to hit its target."

** Also Dawlish is easily dispatched by Hagrid and later by Augusta Longbottom the latter requiring him to be sent to St. Mungo's despite being a fully Qualified Auror. It's become a running gag that every time he appears or is mentioned, he gets hexed or something similar.

* In the pilot episode of ''[[NCIS]]'', the would-be-terrorist brings a machine gun to bear on Gibbs... firing it single-handedly, starting from the hip and going up. The distance he misses by is almost the width of the Air Force One corridor they were in. (Gibbs, by contrast, puts 2 rounds from a semi-auto square in his chest, dropping him to his knees, followed by a third to flatten him. Game over.)

** Truth In Television: firing a fully-automatic weapon from the hip, especially if you don't have expert trigger control, will result in the vast majority of your shots going into the ceiling. There is a reason they invented the three-round burst setting. Gibbs, on the other hand, is an expert marksman firing a pistol at short range, and is also actually ''using the sights'' instead of hipshooting like some Hollywood idiot, and so can reasonably be expected to hit a man-sized target three out of three. Especially since he's using a proper Mozambique Drill. (Two quick shots anywhere into the torso to turn the target into a stationary object, then one carefully-aimed shot to finish him off.)

{{quote|'''Robert Wisdom''': Hire burned spies and blind gunmen. [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]] }}

* On the [[Syfy]] series ''[[Warehouse 13]]'', this was brought up as the agents had target practice. Steve said something to the effect of "It's not this difficult to fire a ray gun in movies" to which Pete replied "Actually it's very difficult to fire a raygun in the movies. The stormtroopers hardly hit anything."

* An episode of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' ("Homer of Seville") is a stark example: After Homer becomes a famous opera star, a fanatic of his attempts to kill him after being rejected. At one of his performances, Marge is able to stop the would be killer with her own poison dart. Then Chief Wiggum gives the go ahead for the Police Department snipers to fire. Each sniper fires multiple times—none of the shots hit her. She even looks at her watch for a moment.

** Another episode has a hitman storming the retirement castle with an assault rifle to kill Grampa and missing every shot before a nurse drives him off.

* Most police officers in [[Superhero]] series. Surely ''some'' police officer would think of just shooting Joker as soon as he shows up and giggles. (Especially given that he's a known cop-killer and mass murderer.) Granted, killing him would [[Joker Immunity|kill the series]] but most of [[Batman]]'s enemies are not bullet-proof. Theoretically, it would take just one person with a good shot. (Or an NRA member.) In an episode of ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'', Batman himself realizes that he's been very lucky in avoiding death, and wonders aloud if The Joker, Two-Face, or "some punk" will get lucky someday.

** In many episodes, thugs armed with Thompson machine guns will fire nonstop at a hero or innocent and still miss every shot. True, the Thompson has horrible accuracy, but when the target isn't moving, has no cover, and is up against a wall....

** Hold up the Thompson doe not have horrible accuracy. Sure its no sniper rifle but the thing was designed for clearing out trenches so at least some of your shots with it will hit as long as your within 50 yards or so of your target.

* Nobody on ''[[The Boondocks]]'' ever gets hit by bullets (unless their name is Gangstalicious).

** Very much [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] when a gang tries to execute Gangstalicious and shoots him up at point-blank range... only to ''still'' miss every shot prompting this exchange:

* In one episode of ''[[The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', Sonic is made sheriff of an old-western town and is set up to participate in a shoot-out with some of Robotnik's robots. However, Sonic reveals that he's a real poor shot - he can't even hit the broad side of a barn! It takes some quick maneuvering for the hedgehog to take out his foes.

* Lampshaded in an episode of ''[[American Dad]]'' where three [[Triads And Tongs|Chinese Mafia]] members fail to hit Stan. One remarks on how unlikely it is that they'd all miss, and another says that not killing people is his New Year's Resolution.

 

== Real Life ==