Little Useless Gun: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A character treats a small firearm with contempt. The firearm will likely be physically small and will probably fire small-caliber ammunition, which is considered by some users to be weak.

** The justification for her choice of weapon seems to be that, in accordance to this trope, it's treated as a nonlethal weapon due to its small caliber. Thus, she can use it with impunity and not worry about deaths or serious collateral damage (which is a reasonable concern for an insurance representative). Her partner Millie uses the opposite approach, a huge stun-gun whose slugs spread out in to a cross pattern to reduce stopping power. This would similarly be potentially lethal in real life, but in the work it just knocks people over. At one point she knocks over a truck by shooting it twice.

* Subverted on ''[[Black Lagoon]].'' While Fritz Stanford is bragging about the enormous handgun he plans to use to kill Revy, she's loading her regular handgun, a custom-built 9mm Beretta, and shoots him before he can finish speaking. Before she finishes him off, she tell him that "if you can hit your target, pretty much any gun will do the trick."

 

== [[Comics]] ==

 

== [[Film]] ==

{{quote| '''M:''' This damn Beretta again. I've told you about this before. You tell him -- for the last time.<br />

'''Armourer:''' Nice and light -- in a lady's handbag. No stopping power. [snip]<br />

* In ''[[Kiss Kiss Bang Bang]]'', Gay Perry has a tiny Derringer that he refers to as his "faggot gun," because "it's only good for a couple of shots and then you gotta drop it for something better". Given the film's penchant for subversion, the little gun ends up being quite fatal.

* Invoked in ''[[Back to The Future]] Part III'', where Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen threatens Doc with a derringer specifically because it will make his death slow and painful, mentioning a guy who took ''two days'' to die of his wounds.

* In ''[[Tremors|Tremors 4]]'' an Eastern dandy shows up in a Nevada mining town, and prefers to use one of these, even when confronted with giant burrowing worm-monsters. (It's an additional joke in that the man's [[Identical Grandson|previously-seen descendant]] is a rifle-toting [[Crazy Survivalist|survivalist]].)

* In ''[[In Bruges]]'', Ray steals a Smith & Wesson Model 60 from Eirik and shoots [[Eye Scream|him in the eye]] [[Combat Pragmatist|with a blank round]]. When Ken comes to kill him and prevents his suicide, he compares weapons with him, lamenting that he has "a bloody girl's gun".

* In ''[[Boondock Saints]] II'', Romeo is given a .22 caliber pistol on his first vigilante mission as a form of hazing.

* Inevitable in [[Tabletop Games]] that don't have bleeding rules. Low-caliber guns have the worst damage of any weapon on a typical gun list.

** In ''[[GURPS]]'' the .22 Derringer has almost no chance of killing someone unless you shoot them a ''dozen'' times<ref>or hit them [[Subsystem Damage|in the brain]]</ref>, although an incredibly lucky shot could be dangerous.

** Averted by many other factions, digital weapons (that fit on a finger) are very much effective and in use by Inquisitors and nobles.

* ''[[Shadowrun]]''. Light and holdout pistols did Light damage, which on average resulted in one box of Physical damage. Characters could take 10 boxes of Physical damage before they even started to bleed out, and could take a number of additional boxes equal to their Body attribute before finally dying. In other words, to kill someone with a small pistol you'd have to hit them 10 times before they were even at risk of dying, and even then death wasn't inevitable if any form of healing were available.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** However the complete silence of the .22 makes it great for assassinations since if you can find a dark corner to hide in you can kill a target in the middle of a crowded room without anyone noticing, and the combination of high critical rate, high accuracy, and low AP cost means that you can take down an unarmored target with headshots almost as easily as with your big hand-cannons. Not to mention that it's the only gun that you can take in places where weapons are forbidden without a high sneak skill. The 9mm is still useless once you can find anything else.

* ''[[Hitman]] Contracts'' has the [[SG 220]], a pistol with a seven round magazine and almost no stopping power. It is, however, very quiet.

** ''Silent Assassin'' also had the Makarov and .22 pistols, both of which had little stopping power. Of course, if you ''need'' stopping power, [[Stealth Based Game|you're a bad player.]]

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** Another, showing a scene from [[Show Within a Show|McBain]] portrayed [[Da Chief|his superior]] attempting to get him to surrender his [[Hand Cannon]] for something smaller. Mc Bain asks how he is supposed to avenge his partner with a pea shooter. When the chief tells him he is supposed to do things by the book, he shoots it, quipping "Bye, book".

* Parodied in the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' short "Drip-Along Daffy", where burly outlaw Nasty Canasta is felled by a wind-up toy soldier whose tiny rifle packs a surprising amount of heat. Had Canasta [[Tempting Fate|not picked it up and raised it at face level to laugh at it]], he might have gotten off easy.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==