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{{trope}}
The victim manages to get hold of his opponent's (usually the villain's) weapon, points it in his face but
Sometimes used as part of a [[Secret Test of Character]] for the villain to test [[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten|how evil the undercover hero really is]] without risking the possibly-undercover hero simply turning the gun on the villain.
Depending on how this is used, it can be a case of [[Did Not Do the Research]] that takes advantage of the audience's [[Rule of Perception|inability to conceive of what's not visible on screen]], as most handguns without loaded bullets will have a noticeable imbalance and difference in weight when compared with a fully loaded weapon. (This is [[Lampshaded]] quite often in most modern-day usages of the trope - a professional who is familiar with the weapon being used can immediately notice the difference.) In addition, the lack of a magazine in a pistol or of rounds in revolver chambers is clearly visible. Most automatics have the slide lock back on an empty magazine as well. Additionally, many automatic and semi-automatic weapons pre-load one bullet into the chamber before firing, so removing the magazine still leaves one live round in the chamber.<ref>Some handguns (like the FN 5-7) have a feature that prevents the gun from firing without a magazine, even if a round is still in the chamber.</ref>
To be entirely honest, the chambered bullet may be manually extracted and slide lock disengaged with but a thumb. More accurate works will actually display that. Ironically, the supposedly wacky comedy ''[[The Big Lebowski]]'' has it right in the single only-10-seconds-long gun scene of the movie, while many action flicks are epitome of [[Did Not Do the Research]] here despite having at least one firearm present in each and every frame. Generally, the empty magazine is what activates the slide-lock feature. When the last round is fired from the magazine, the slide will automatically lock back.
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A modern variant that avoids the obviously-lacking-bullets problem is that a character will reveal that they've removed the firing pin from the weapon.
Compare [[Not
{{examples|Examples}}▼
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' has Revy and Dutch doing this with one of Revy's guns at the end of the Nazi arc to the Nazis' [[Wide
* ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]'' has Henrietta doing this with one of the handlers' guns in order to reenact {{spoiler|Elsa}}'s tragic murder/suicide scene, [[Moe Greene Special|aiming the gun at her eye]] as {{spoiler|Elsa}} had done before pulling the trigger. This serves to scare the living hell out of her own handler, Giuseppe (and the audience, as the way the scene is intercut leads us to believe that she's trying to kill herself for real), until she opens her eyes and shows him the bullets, revealing that she had unloaded the weapon before pulling this stunt.
* Subverted in the anime of ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'', when Rally was given a gun [[Shoot Your Mate|to prove her loyalty]]. Since she was a firearms expert, she could tell the gun was unloaded...and played as if she was going to shoot the cop anyway.
** But only after [[Crowning Moment of Funny|angrily asking if they wanted her to club him to death]], provoking them to give her a bullet.
* In the [[Western]] [[Shojo]] manga ''[[Miriam (
* Subverted in ''[[Eat Man]]'', when a bad guy gives Bolt a gun belonging to another character. When Bolt pulls it out on him later, he brags about having removed all the bullets first. Bolt shoots him with [[One Buwwet Weft|another bullet]] he caught in his teeth earlier.
* Happens in the very first scene of ''[[The Daughter of Twenty Faces]]''. Chiko herself manages to pull it off by the end of the second episode.
* During a scene in the second season of ''[[Gundam Seed]]'', Flay (left in Rau's office after he {{spoiler|rescues her from being killed in the Alaska fiasco on a whim}}) gets a gun out of his desk and tries to attack him when he comes back in. Rau's response is to lecture her that attacking the one person with any interest in keeping her safe is ridiculous, especially when the gun's not even loaded in the first place.
* [[Black Cat (
* Happens in ''[[Break Blade]]'', in an unusually realistic case. The gun-pointer was a) a mech pilot, the wrong type of soldier entirely; b) using an unfamiliar model (and it probably helped that it was a quartz-firing gun, not a lead-firing one); and c) twelve years old. Her hostage (the queen, natch) played along, just to see how far she was willing to go (which happened to be all the way to pulling the trigger at an enemy she recognized).
* ''[[
* Played with in ''[[Laputa]]'': In the depths of the flying city the young hero Pazu is facing down the villain Muska (one of the slimiest villains in film, right up there with Mother Iselin). Pazu has his big grenade launcher, had been given two shells, which we know he has already used. So Pazu's bluffing. Muska has his handgun leveled at Pazu, however, he lowers it, apparently falling for the bluff. But why? A real close look will show Miyazaki's attention to the details. The shot is looking over Muska's shoulder and we see his handgun with the hammer pulled down ... and it's obvious there's NO bullets in the chamber - having run out of bullets too!
== [[Comic Book]] ==
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** In an issue of ''[[G.I. Joe]] Special Missions'', Roadblock finds the guns that the terrorists have smuggled aboard a plane in order to hijack it. He disassembles the guns, removes the firing pins and reassembles them. When the terroists attempt the hijack, they discover they have non-functioning guns.
* In the "Palomar" series within ''[[Love and Rockets]]'' (the ''Duck Feet'' collection, by Gilbert), the trope is doubled: Chelo, the town sheriff, gives Tonantzín a pistol so she can sheriff while Chelo is sick. Tonantzín realizes Chelo wouldn't trust her with a loaded gun, and takes the town's other pistol from Chelo's desk instead. In a later standoff, Chelo reveals she knew this would happen, and had left the pistol in her desk unloaded too.
* In the [[X Wing Series]] comics, this happens twice in one arc. [http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/6130/blz19cx4.jpg Here], the Sullustan pilot tells the student that it's no use threatening anyone with an empty blaster - see the diode flashing? [http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/6171/blz13cb8.jpg Here], the Sullustan pilot and the students are on the same side and pull the trick on someone else. Perfectly legitimate in the first case, not so much in the second. Gade may not have been a soldier or anything, but he was a bit more familiar with weapons. But hey, [[Rule of Funny
* ''[[Whiteout]]''. The British spy taunts a killer using a [[Human Shield]] into pulling the trigger because she knows the extreme cold will prevent the pistol from firing. At least, she hopes it will.
* Derek Almond gets caught with a bullet-less revolver against the title character in ''[[V for Vendetta]]''. Whether V knew it was loaded or not is [[The Chessmaster|debatable]].
{{quote|
* In the ''[[Tintin]]'' book ''The Blue Lotus'', drug baron Mitsuhirato tries to shoot Tintin with an unloaded gun, and then stab him with a tinfoil knife. Before that, he tried to poison him, only the poison had been switched out too.
** In ''The Black Island'', two goons only remember that the gun that Tintin has turned on them isn't loaded after he ties them up. They start calling for help, thinking that he can no longer threaten them with an empty gun. He simply clubs them silent with the butt.
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* Expecting a double cross, Robidoux does this to Sasha in ''[[Wynonna Earp]]: The Yeti Wars''. It ends badly for her.
* ''[[The Flash]]'' does a variation in a ''[[Batman Adventures]]'' comic book which opens with a mugger demanding money from his victim and she asks "Weren't you holding a gun just a second ago?" while looking at his empty hand positioned as if he had a gun in his hand.
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[The Abyss]]''. The medic reveals he removed Coffey's ammo clip when Coffey is about to shoot Brigman. Justified because Coffey was suffering from a severe case of [[Shown Their Work|High Pressure Nervous Syndrome]] and most likely would not have noticed.
* ''[[Battlefield Earth (
* In the 2002 version of ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]'', after the villain accidentally confessing to murder, the policeman loads him into the wagon with [[Leave Behind a Pistol|a single shot pistol as "a courtesy for a gentleman".]] The disgraced villain, facing a lifetime of slow torment in prison, puts it in his mouth and... click. Cue the protagonist's final taunt:
{{quote|
* In ''[[
** Reversed in ''[[
* Smith (Richard Burton) confronts [[The Mole]] at the end of ''[[Where Eagles Dare]]'', but [[The Mole]] has a gun pointed at him. No problem: it was arranged he would have that gun, and the firing pin has been removed.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
** In ''Die Hard with a Vengeance'', John gives his gun to [[Samuel L. Jackson|Zeus Carver]] aboard Simon Gruber's boat. When Zeus encounters Simon, he attempts to shoot, but it's not working. So Simon takes the gun from Zeus and shoots him with it instead.
* Another instance of Bruce Willis is in ''[[The Fifth Element]]'', where he convinces an incredibly jumpy mugger that he first has to press the glowing yellow button on the side of his weapon (otherwise very flashy, including being double-magazined, spike-encrusted, and endowed with an extra wide Muzzle of Doom) to load it. After the mugger does so (which actually DISABLES the mugger's weapon), Korben Dallas draws his own pistol and takes the mugger's weapon away to add it to his collection.
* John Woo's ''[[The Killer]]'' has the title character doing this to his handler Sidney in an awesome scene in which he demands the money he was promised in order to have Jenny's eyes fixed and the name of the guy who had him ambushed at the beach following the job he did to raise that money. Sidney has been persuaded by the [[Big Bad]] to kill him rather than give him the money, and the briefcase that was supposed to hold the money has nothing but worthless paper inside. When he puts his weapon down to open it, Sidney grabs the gun and points it at him, at which point the Killer starts laughing. Sidney pulls the trigger, only to have it click on an empty chamber, and the Killer reveals that he unloaded it when he shows Sidney the bullets, just before pulling his ''other'' gun on him.
* Tommy Lee Jones does it in ''[[
* In the [[Mexican Standoff|three way final showdown]] of ''[[The Good, the Bad
* In the movie ''[[Shooter]]'', Bob Lee Swagger demonstrates that his rifle (planted by the bad guys, and seized by the FBI) could not have been the one used in the assassination because, before he left his home, [[Properly Paranoid|he replaced the firing pin with one that didn't work as a security precaution.]]
* In ''[[FX
* ''[[The Crimson Rivers]]'' : Max Kerkerian, cop, dramatically puts down his gun and badge to goad an aggressive skinhead into a fistfight. "There, no more cop." As the fight starts going badly for him, the skinhead tries to threaten Max with his own gun, only to get his face thoroughly broken. Max then shows him the magazine, which was in his pocket the whole time.
* In the film ''[[In the Line of Fire]]'' Clint Eastwood's character while working undercover is told to shoot his partner who's been identified as a Secret Service agent. He does so, knowing from the pistol's weight that the gun is empty. Afterwards his partner asks: "What if there'd been a bullet in the chamber?" Clint has no answer to this.
* In ''[[Mad Max]] 2: The Road Warrior'' the gyro captain is held at shotgun-point for a considerable part of the movie, only to find to his disgust that Max's shotgun was empty all the time. {{spoiler|In a further irony, the shotgun cartridge which Max eventually finds turns out to be a dud.}}
* [[The Bourne Series|Jason Bourne]] pulls this on a fellow assassin in ''The Bourne Supremacy''. The victim even mentions that the weapon "felt a little light."
* In the film ''[[Taken (
* Used in reverse {{spoiler|as part of a ''suicide pact'' no less}} in the movie ''[[Murder
* Reversed, and combined with [[You Have Failed Me...]], in ''[[Push]]''. The [[Big Bad]] makes one of his minions shoot himself in the soft palate by telepathically convincing him the gun is empty.
* In the old Humphrey Bogart movie ''We're No Angels'', three convicts (the main characters, long story) are being threatened by [[Big Bad|the villain]] who tries to pull a gun on them - but one of the convicts (a thief and safecracker) hands him the gun, saying "Here, I cleaned it for you." The villain snatches away the gun and crows with victory. The same convict then says "Oh, I'm sorry...I also cleaned the bullets," revealing a handful of same.
* In ''[[The Thin Man (
* ''[[Tremors]]''. The Not So [[Crazy Survivalist]] refuses to give a gun to [[Jerkass]] kid Melvin Plug ("I wouldn't give ''you'' a gun if it was World War Three!"). Minutes later when Melvin balks at making a run for safety, he apparently relents and hands the kid a revolver, much to his delight. Melvin is less overjoyed when he pulls the trigger and finds out it's empty. Bonus
* ''[[Muppets
* ''[[Boggy Creek]] II: And the Legend Continues'': Professor Lockhart reveals he removed the ammo from Crenshaw's shotgun.
* ''[[Mitchell]]''. Subverted, in that baddie Walter Deaney claims he randomly keeps guns loaded in the gun locker, trying to disguise the fact ''none'' of them were loaded.
* ''[[Fugitive Alien]]''. The Captain never keeps bullets in his gun, which makes it easy for him to overcome Ken when he grabs it out of his holster.
* Double subverted in the second ''[[Smokey and
* In ''[[Star Trek IV:
* In ''[
* Early in ''[[Point of No Return]],'' the still rebellious reluctant hero (Bridget Fonda) attacks her handler (Gabriel Byrne) and disarms him. She points the automatic at her unflinching handler, who merely looks at her calmly, and pulls the trigger. After {{spoiler|the pointless click, he takes the gun away from the stunned hero, and punches her, causing her to fall down. He then says something like "Lesson one: Never chamber the first round," and shoots her in the leg.}}
* [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] by V in ''[[V for Vendetta]]''.
{{quote|
'''V''': No. What you have are '''bullets''' and the hope that when your guns are empty I am no longer standing, because if I am, you'll all be dead before you've reloaded. }}
* Something like this happens in ''[[Ninja Cheerleaders]]'', where it's noted that the crossbow Kinji holds has a single bolt...which is promptly used on Det. Harris. It's unexplained how the titular cheerleaders got past Kinji, given their sudden drop in skill later on.
* During the long cat-and-mouse battle that makes up much of the movie ''Cracker Jack'', the hero's gun is wrestled from him by one of the bad guys, who predictably taunts him with "Any last words?" The hero's response: "Only eight bullets per clip, son." ''Click.''
* [[Playing
* Subverted in ''[[In Bruges]]''. Ray disarms the man trying to rob him and he finds out it's only loaded with blanks. He still manages to {{spoiler|blind him by firing a blank into his eye, though}}.
* ''[[The Matrix]]'', during the final fight of the original movie between Neo and Agent Smith.
{{quote|
'''Neo:''' So are you. }}
* ''SWAT''- When the hero and the big bad are fighting over a gun, the magazine falls out. The hero gets control and aims it at the villain, who taunts him holding the magazine, and the hero remarks "one in the chamber". While it might count as a subversion for the viewer because the audience would be expecting more typical hollywood gun rules, its pretty doubtful that the villain would think the gun is empty given that the pair are both former special forces and SWAT.
* Employed in ''[[Bloodfist]] VI'' when the hero hands his gun to [[The Mole]] and then turns his back to her.
* In ''[[The Net]]'', after Jack takes his gun from Angela, yet doesn't realize that it's empty (she removed the clip) until he tries to shoot it, again, begging the question of why he didn't notice the weight difference.
* ''[[Deja Vu]]'': played with at the climax: agent Carlin takes the magazine out of his gun and when it slide-locks, {{spoiler|he sticks a single bullet into the chamber, making his gun look empty to the terrorist and allowing him to get close enough for a single [[Boom! Headshot!]].}}
* Twisted gloriously in ''[[Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever]]'', After Gant's kid is stolen by Sever, the agent who was watching over him was handed a gun and told to blow his brains out. He decides it'd be better used to shoot Gant. It doesn't work because {{spoiler|the gun's been modified to shoot backwards, so if he'd actually tried to suicide he would have been ok. Instead he got shot in the face.}} One of the (very) few good moments in the movie.
* Used by [[Guile Hero|guile]] [[Anti
* ''[[The Beach]]''. {{spoiler|The Thai marijuana farmers pull this trick on Sal -- they hand her a gun which they say has a bullet in the chamber and tell her to execute Richard; if she does her community will be allowed to stay. She pulls the trigger and nothing happens, causing her [[Villainous Breakdown]] and the instant disintegration of the community, which is what the farmers wanted in the first place.}}
* Morgan does this to a bounty hunter who is after her at the start of ''[[Cutthroat Island]]''. After bedding him, she steals the balls from his pistols.
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* ''[[Blackwood]]''. Eduardo has Blackwood at gunpoint until Blackwood holds up a handful of bullets. Subverted later when it's revealed that those were Blackwood's bullets and Eduardo's gun was loaded the whole time.
* Billy the Kid does this to a bounty hunter in the first ''[[Young Guns]]'' movie. Pretending to be awestruck by the bounty hunter's boasts, he asks if he can touch the gun with which the hunter plans to kill Billy the Kid. The bounty hunter hands it to him, and Billy secretly unloads it before handing it back. Billy then reveals his true identity. The bounty hunter tries firing several times with the empty gun before Billy shoots him down.
* In ''[[The Lost World]]'', Nick shows his displeasure with hunting by pulling the bullets from Roland's elephant rifle ammo while he's not around. When Roland attempts to kill the T-Rex that attacks the camp, he finds that his rifle is useless and the dinosaur proceeds to [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|kill a number of men.]]
== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[The Culture|Iain M. Banks]], ''[[The Culture/Use of Weapons|Use of Weapons]]'', an assassin arrives at a king's house, while he's being taunted, the king pulls a gun and tries to fire. The assassin off handedly shows him the bullets and says "It works better with these."
** Banks [[Playing with a Trope|plays with this]] in ''[[Against a Dark Background]]''. The villain steals Sharrows gun and spare ammo, removes the magazine and gives it back. Sharrow realizes that gun has been unloaded, however she doesn't know if he remembered to check the chamber until she tries to fire {{spoiler|he didn't}}.
* [[Tom Clancy]]'s ''Executive Orders'' subverts this: The Secret Service agents guarding the President want a sleeper agent to try and kill him, but ''don't'' replace the bullets with blanks, as he'd notice. They simply tap out the gunpowder. They explain it, and even ''mock him'' by pointing out the cute little noise the primer makes.
* In [[John Scalzi]]'s ''
* ''[[
* The [[
* Happens in Simon R. Green's [[Nightside]] a lot. The main character, John Taylor has a gift that enables him to find anything: an often neat trick is to find the bullets of a loaded gun in his hand. Whilst the mook is pointing said gun at him. When confronted by multiple mooks carrying assault rifles, his hands literally pour bullets. On occasion, he has threatened to do the same trick; but with their ''internal organs''.
** He does this with a couple of guys' filling and bridgework while investigating the loss of the Hawkwind.
* In Mickey Spillane's ''The Twisted Thing'' a murderer pulls this trick on [[Mike Hammer]], no less, by slipping out the magazine of his Colt .45 when giving him a "welcome back" hug. Mike didn't have the chamber loaded for safety reasons.
* Many ''[[Star Trek]]'' novels have used a depleted phaser for the same effect. For example in the Double Helix novel featuring Picard and [[Star Trek: New Frontier|Calhoun]], Picard steals' the [[Big Bad]]'s energy weapon and points it at him; the [[Big Bad]] goads him to shoot...and the blaster has no power. Cue jailing sequence.
** Often, phasers or disruptors can be deactivated by remote, as a security precaution in case the wrong person ends up with them.
* In ''[[Star Wars
** Happens twice in ''[[Luke Skywalker and
* A variation happens in ''[[Matthew Reilly|Area 7]]''. The resident [[Dumb Muscle]] ambushed Book and Juliette; but he stopped for a [[Pre
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[Warhammer
*
* At the climax of Desmond Bagley's thriller ''The Vivero Letter'', the hero faces a mob boss armed with a revolver at close range, and notices there are no bullets in the chambers on either side of the barrel. Though not experienced with firearms, he thinks that the cylinder turns when the trigger is pulled, and bets his life on there not being a variety of revolver in which this ''doesn't'' happen. He ignores the mobster's gun, and attacks him with a machete, leading to a [[Sword Fight|hand-to-hand duel]] in which his [[Chekhov's Skill|training in sabre fencing]] gives him [[Incredibly Lame Pun|the edge]].
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** Played with in ''[[
{{quote|
** In ''[[
* In ''[[Terminator]]: Salvation'', Williams leaves her gun unattended while resting at an abandoned building. A bunch of thugs steal it and threaten her with it. She then tells them it would help if it was loaded, before attacking the guy holding it.
* Played with in one of the ''SERRAted Edge'' novels by [[Mercedes Lackey]]. During the final fight scene, an evil elf casts a spell on one of the heroes that deactivates the ammo in his gun. She then ignores that hero, because his only weapon is the gun, and, well, see the trope name. Too bad she'd never learned about speedloaders.
* In S.M. Stirling's ''Island in the Sea of Time'', Walker breaks into the town arsenal and steals all the firearms when he makes his run for Europe. But when he gets out to sea, he finds out that Alston had removed all the firing pins and stored them separately.
* In Alistair MacLean's ''When Eight Bells Toll'', the hero's love interest is being coerced (her sister is a hostage) into helping the bad guys. When she pulls a gun on him but can't bring herself to shoot, she tearfully tells him he shouldn't have trusted her so much; she '''might''' have shot him! He pats her shoulder, says, "You really don't believe that," and '''doesn't''' mention that he filed the gun's firing pin so it couldn't have gone off no matter what she did.
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[The Andy Griffith Show]]''. Barney Fife never keeps bullets in his gun.
** Because Andy won't let him.
* ''[[Lois and Clark]]'' episode "Stop The Presses" - bad guy Ethan has kidnapped his brother Eric to make him help kill Superman. At one point Eric fights back and grabs the weapon they stole from the Pentagon and points it in Ethan's face. Ethan keeps telling Eric he's not man enough to do it. Eric pulls the trigger and, as in the description, nothing happens. Ethan gloats, "I disarmed it" and shows Eric the part he removed.
* In the ''[[
* Happened at least once in ''[[
** Also on the episode where John returns to Moya to find pirates have taken over and Scorpius has escaped. So, John sets up an ambush with Scorpius and gives him a huge rifle to do so. Not surprisingly, Scorpius discovers the rifle isn't loaded. His reaction is priceless: [[Sarcasm Mode|"Thank you, John."]]
* ''[[Lost]]'' has done this a couple of times: once, Sayid stole Rousseau's gun, unaware she'd removed the firing pin. Another time, Jack took a gun from Locke and attempted to shoot him, to which Locke replied, "It's not loaded."
** Subverted in another episode. A lackey encourages Michael {{spoiler|to go through with committing suicide by gun. It doesn't work, multiple times; the lackey claims because the island wants Michael}} alive.
* On ''[[
* [[Cool Old Guy]] Sam Axe on ''[[Burn Notice]]'' does this to an enemy with his own gun, working under the (correct) assumption that the enemy would steal his gun and turn it on him. This is also why Sam brought two guns.
* In ''[[Dollhouse]]'''s 13th episode, "Epitaph One", {{spoiler|Iris has an unknown other person inside her head - she sees the machine as the way to get out into Mag's body, and pulls the gun that she was given earlier by Zone, trying to kill him. Turns out the gun was empty, and since she's in the body of an 11- or 12-year-old, Zone and Mag have a pretty easy time restraining her and wiping her.}}
* Subverted in ''[[White Collar]]''. Neal tries this by pickpocketing the clip from the suspect's gun, but she points out that there's still one bullet already in the chamber.
{{quote|
* ''[[
* Near the end of Season 5 of ''[[
** Something similar happens at the end of Season 8, when Jack gets [[The Lancer|Cole Ortiz]] to defect and assist him in saving [[The Mole]]. After agreeing, Cole demands a weapon, which Jack provides him. Then, upon preparing to [[Storming the Castle|Storm The Warehouse]], Cole goes to chamber a round, and... Jack does actually give him bullets though.
** In Season 4, Dina Araz agrees to work with CTU to bring down [[The Mummy Trilogy
** Season 3: [[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten|The Salazars order Jack to kill his partner]], Chase (who has no idea what's going on). Jack pulls the trigger, but the gun is empty. Jack never reveals if he could tell the gun was empty or not.
* One episode of ''[[Monk]]'' has Monk, Stottlemeyer, and Stottlemeyer's fiancee held at gunpoint by a suspect. Stottlemeyer tricks her into firing a shot into the air, then reveals he took the bullet magazine. The shot she fired was the one in the chamber.
** In one episode when Monk was working at a wal-mart like store, Monk needs to get a gun to stop the bad guy from leaving. The two idiots working the gun section give him a gun, but not the bullets. Monk then points the gun at them and orders them to give him the bullets. Fearing getting shot, they give him the bullets.
* On ''[[Law and Order: Criminal Intent]]'', the normally-infallible Detective Goren informed a the murderer that her gun was empty. She responded by firing a shot into the air. Unfortunately for her that one in the chamber was the only one left.
* In the first season finale of ''[[True Blood]]'', the killer does this with Sookie's shotgun. Sookie manages to get some use out of the gun, hitting him in the head with it.
* In the pilot film for ''[[Due South]]'', Constable Fraser mentions early on that due to legal complications (Canadian law enforcement officer working in Chicago, with no authority or jurisdiction in the city outside of the Canadian Consulate), he carries a [[Chekhov's Gun|sidearm]], but no bullets. During a fight with a hitman later on, the bad guy grabs Fraser's gun and immediately tries to shoot him with it, only for the hammer to click down on an empty cylinder.
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** Also brilliantly subverted in the first episode. Jane has confronted the killer, outlined how he's proved his guilt, and the killer pulls a gun. Jane just smiles and says "Oh, please, did you really think I'd [[Batman Gambit|set up such a brilliant trap]] only to leave you a loaded gun?" Then he pats his pocket, and you can hear the bullets clicking. The killer goes to check the mag...and Jane throws something at him and runs away, since he did ''not'' manage to empty the gun before the killer got to it.
* On ''[[Human Target]]'', Chance and a Russian spy are [[Mexican Standoff|holding each-other at gunpoint]]. Previously, they both bumped into each-other before Chance revealed he knew she was a spy.
{{quote|
'''Chance:''' ''"Because I don't like to shoot unarmed women. Company policy. Feeling a little light there by the way?"''
'''The Spy:''' ''(checks her gun) "Took my clip but put my gun back. Impressive. Didn't even notice. Did you?"''
'''Chance:''' ''"(checks his gun) Nicely done."'' }}
* In the ''[[
* Done on at least one episode of ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]'', when loveable conman Dennis Stanton tricks a murderer into revealing himself as being able to commit the murder despite totally burned hands by using this trope.
* Shows up in an episode of ''[[Cheers]]'' when an upset Frasier Crane confronts Sam in his office with a revolver. Sam is quick to point out that "...there are no bullets in those little holes there." after Frasier tries to prove his resolve.
* Conrad does it to Mad Dog Morgan in an episode of ''[[
* ''[[Burn Notice]]'' did the tampered-firing-pin version when Michael handed a gun to a mark to convince the mark to kill the hitman he'd hired to kill Michael's client-of-the-week. The gun fails to fire, prompting the two to turn on each-other.
* In ''[[
* ''[[
* The early-'60s detective show ''Checkmate'' had an episode where an ex-convict who blamed forensic scientist/psychologist Dr. Hyatt for his extended stay in prison planned to murder the doctor. At one point, Dr. Hyatt remembered there was a pistol he'd been given for ballistic testing in one of the drawers in his laboratory. When he finally had a chance to get his hands on the gun, though, it turned out the would-be killer, [[Hidden Depths|far more intelligent and perceptive than he'd seemed]], had searched the room while the doctor wasn't looking ... and removed the bullets.
== [[Radio]] ==
* Comedy pair [[Hudson and Landry]] had a skit with a pair of old prospectors. One assumes he caught his partner cheating him and draws his revolver. The partner is unimpressed as they ran out of bullets decades ago.
== [[Theatre]] ==
* In William Gillette's ''[[Sherlock Holmes (
* Subverted at the end of ''[[The Bat]]''. The Bat, with [[Handy Cuffs]] on, grabs a revolver from another character and tells everyone to put their hands up. Cornelia refuses to do so, and says that she took the bullets out of it. The Bat throws the revolver down, and is quickly covered with a different revolver while Cornelia picks it up, breaks it and lets the loaded shells fall on the floor. "The first lie of an otherwise stainless life!"
== [[Video Games]] ==
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** Inverted in Fallout 3. Mel, a randomly encountered, and rather pathetic, highwayman, will try to rob the player with a sawed-off shotgun. With a high enough Perception stat, you can point out that his gun "doesn't look loaded."
*** This is actually a reference to [[The Road Warrior]] when Mel Gibson's character, Max, threatens someone with an unloaded sawed-off shotgun.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In one scene of ''[[Megatokyo]]'', [[Dark Magical Girl|Miho]] repeatedly disarms Dom first by stealing his gun from his hand, then by stealing the bullets. ''From the gun in his hand''.
* In ''
* In ''[[
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In an episode of ''[[Batman:
** Similarly done in the ''[[Batman Beyond]]'' movie: ''Return of the Joker'', when Joker pulls the trigger on a scared mook and a bang flag pops out of the gun. Joker says he was only kidding. {{spoiler|Then he pulls the trigger again, which shoots the bang flag into the mooks chest. "Oops, no I wasn't."}}
*** Given that this is a relatively routine Joker "joke" you'd think new lackeys would catch on, when the gun pops out that flag, run and zig zag.
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** ...also saying "Okay! Don't shoot!"
* A variant of this trope happens in ''[[Justice League]]'' when the Flash uses his [[Super Speed]] to take the power supply off the Ultra-Humanite's [[Death Ray]] while he wasn't looking.
** Since [[The Flash]] enjoys being a dick to villains, he'll find a way to use this when there's no actual ammo. In an early episode, he super-speed pats on [[
*** A similar thing happens in ''[[Justice League:
== [[
* It is standard operating procedure during prisoner transfers for the officers to leave their guns unloaded for this very reason.{{verify}}
** Not at the prison or jail here. The prisoners all get manacled and the manacles and handcuffs are all chained together so they sort of shuffle around everywhere. The guards all carry loaded firearms and any prisoners being taken out of a secure area are escorted by multiple guards.
* There's a kind of gun with a grip that senses how you hold it and can recognize its owner. If anyone else pulls the trigger, it won't fire.
** Still in testing stages, unfortunately. At the moment it sometimes doesn't work even for the intended user.
*** Biometrics aren't there yet, but there are pistols made by Armatix that will only fire if the pistol is being held by someone wearing a wristwatch that is paired to the firearm. They have partnered with Anschutz to release a line of target rifles that use this technology as well.
** There's also a ring that disengages a magnetic safety on a revolver. Without the ring the revolver won't fire.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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