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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''Zeus:''' You call in that code right now or I'll blow your sick ass into the next world.
'''Simon Gruber:''' Well, if that's what you gotta do.
(click...click click...click)
'''Simon Gruber:''' (calmly takes gun, releases safety) You've got to take the safety catch off. (Shoots Zeus in the leg) See, that works.
|''[[Die Hard]] III''}}
If guns are featured in a movie, and someone inexperienced takes to using one (the [[
In the first case, the character being held up might use it as a ruse to try to wrong-foot his opponent. Usually in this instance the character at gunpoint is a veteran, his savvy attitude being contrasted to his inexperienced opponent. It is ''extremely'' rare for the opponent to call his bluff; instead he will usually tilt his gun and look down to check if the safety is on, letting the other person get the drop on him. Note that in this case the safety need not actually be on; all that's necessary is to trick the guy holding the gun into checking.
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In [[Real Life]] though, some of these would be hard to pull off. The person on the other end would have to have a keen eye and knowledge of the particular weapon to notice the position of the safety at a distance. If bluffing, he would have to be sure the person with the gun wouldn't check by pulling the trigger. Finally, most firearms which employ a manually disengaged safety are designed so the safety can be disengaged in a heartbeat by a swift movement of the thumb. Even an untrained shooter can flick it with their thumb while squeezing the trigger. This is an intentional feature of many assault rifles, shotguns, hunting rifles, and pistols, as soldiers, hunters, and policemen all have legitimate reasons for wanting to be able to carry a weapon on safe yet still be able to perform a "snap shot." The AK-47 and variants are a notable exception, as their very awkwardly placed selectors do make quickly disengaging the safety difficult, especially for right handed shooters.
When the safety has been deliberately left on in case the weapon gets stolen, the person stealing it may find [[It Works Better
The inverse sometimes shows up in movies where a gun ''is'' fired with the safety on, presumably to keep actors from death by blank. This annoys gun nuts; the appropriate special effects hide the phenomenon from other viewers.
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Somewhat subverted or at least tongue in cheek referenced in ''[[Gundam Seed]]''. Two characters are in a stand off with Athrun, an experienced soldier and ace pilot holding a knife and Cagalli, his temporary "prisoner", having snuck his gun away from him while he slept, which Athrun'd told her he'd kill her if she tried to do. The standoff breaks with Athrun charging with the knife just as Cagalli loses her nerve and throws away the gun because she doesn't want to shoot him, even to save herself. We hear a gunshot...and then the scene cuts back to the gun lying on the ground as Athrun angrily demands why she'd be stupid enough to throw a gun with the safety left off. Later referenced pretty much exactly in an exchange between Kira and Mu as they chase down Rau Le Creuset.
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*** It makes for a bit of [[Fridge Brilliance]] when you realize that Kira for the most part would never want to use a gun as he probably can't shoot someone without accidentally killing them. Every shot he fired with it ends up being wasted because he had convinced himself that killing is wrong... in a war.
* Done in the ''[[Battle Royale]]'' manga, in a flashback: a guy holds a revolver to Shogo's girlfriend's head, and demands that Shogo drop his gun or else he will shoot her. Shogo casually says, "You're not going to shoot her -- the safety's on," causing the other guy to check to see if that's true, and Shogo uses the opening to shoot the guy in the face. He then remarks: "Idiot. Revolvers don't have safety catches."
* A very well done example in the ''[[
* In ''Orguss 02'', used by the series' [[Magnificent Bastard]], Manning, who notes as he's being tied up by the series' naive hero Lean that 'you can't fire that gun without a bullet in the chamber. Next time, pull the bolt first.' Lean ''himself'' provides an inversion, realising the Derringer his companion Naturuma has repeatedly pointed at him isn't loaded, reminding her that a professional soldier might recognise this immediately.
* In [[Hentai]] anime / manga ''Kamyla'', the main character escapes from confinement because she sees the mook's gun having safety on, and beat him up.
* ''[[Eureka Seven]]'' featured Holland using this trick and then punching away the gun.
* An interesting variant of this crossing with [[It Works Better
** {{spoiler|Jodie}} successfully puts the gun's safety lever on during an episode about a bus-jacking. The other guy found out too late.
== Comic Books ==
* In ''[[Batman
* Done hilariously in an old ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' comic, where Snake Eyes' old master, pretending to be a simple chef, deals with an attempted robbery by a young teenager. First he points out that the safety is on in the boy's gun, and when the boy takes it off, he grabs the gun's slide, pops out the bullet from the chamber, drops the clip off, and then offers to buy the empty gun from him for $100, dropping it in a crate full of empty pistols!
== Film ==
* A particularly egregious example is in ''[[
* In the beginning of ''[[The Fifth Element]]'', Korben is confronted by a crazed robber with a rather nasty-looking gun. Korben informs him that the safety's on, but is even helpful enough to point it out to him and give him a chance to flip the switch. Cue the subversion, as the poor dumb criminal has just ''de''activated the gun, and Corben pulls his own weapon on him and takes it.
** It helps that the guy is obviously a drug addict in desperate need of a fix. His hands were visibly shaking, as Korben immediately noticed.
* Possible subversion in ''[[
** {{spoiler|There is probably some degree of retained memory though, as later in the movie the characters start experiencing a bit of ''déja vu''}}.
* In the ''[[James Bond (
** Type 2 in ''[[
* ''[[The Rock (
* ''[[Shoot
* This happens to One-Round, the [[Dumb Muscle]] member of the gang in the 1955 version of ''The Ladykillers.''
* Early in the John Woo ''[[Broken Arrow (1996
** Proving that however hot a bomber jock he is, Hale is not a "gun guy". When a revolver is pointed at you, it's easy to tell if it's loaded or not - just ''look at the little holes in the front of the cylinder''. If each one has a bullet looking back out at you, you can safely assume the thing will go ''bang'' if the trigger is pulled. (For people who actually know firearms, this scene is a guaranteed groan-inducer.)
*** To be fair, that would require a little more forethought than he probably had a chance for at the time while being arrested by a park
* [[Terminator|Terminator Salvation]] - Blair's gun gets stolen, and when somebody tries to use it against her she tells him. "You forgot to chamber a round." Whether it was true or not didn't matter because it bought her enough time to get the jump on him.
* When Experience pulls the rifle on Tucker in Black Sheep, Tucker points out the safety is on, and after a few minutes of directions to the safety, she gives tucker the gun to turn the safety off. As he hands it back to her, He yanks it back with the quick response: "Yeah, right."
* In [[Big Trouble in Little China]], Jack has a little bit of trouble plugging a mook until his partner reminds him to take off the safety...
* A cool variation in ''[[Damnatus]]'', where an enemy mook gets a hit in on [[Technopath|tech-priest]] Oktavian and uses the opening to pull a gun. The gun fails to fire. A now-recovered Oktavian explains "Machine empathy..." and whacks the mook with his power axe.
* Played with in ''[[Fierce Creatures]]'', first successfully to disarm a gunman then, while explaining to someone that the safety was on all the time it ventures into [[I Just Shot Marvin in
* There's a rather strange example in ''[[District 9]]'', where mercenaries are conducting a raid on a shanty. From a gun-mounted view of an assault rifle, it is clearly visible that the selector is set on safe when the mercenary is taking point on a raid.
** Perfectly justified. No soldier worth their uniform would take the safety off until the last moment. Waving around an assault rifle in all the exitement with the safety off is a recipe for disaster even in the hands of a trained professional.
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** Seen again in ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]''. At the very end of the movie, Polly Perkins points her camera(which has only one shot left) at Sky Captain and shoots. He just looks at her and says, "Lens cap."
* Delivered straight in ''[[Strange Days]]'', when Mace tricks a thug pointing a gun at her by muttering "Safety's on." He blinks. She punches.
** Actually... she adds insult to injury by disarming him and then [[Pistol
* Perhaps the ultimate example is the [[Cool Gun|Lawgiver 2]] in [[Judge Dredd]], which electrocutes any non-Judge who tries to fire it. It's also a subversion, as the one person who attempts to lampshade this gets shot - turns out the man he's addressing ''is'' a Judge.
* [[Black Sheep]] has an example where a woman who was very anti-gun points a rifle at the other two protagonists, threatening to shoot. One of them points out that the safety is on, then when she can't fix it, he takes the gun, sets the safety to
* ''[[Snatch]]'' has a variation, when Bullet-tooth Tony points out that the guns being wielded by his would-be attackers have the word 'replica' written on them, while his has the words 'Desert Eagle'.
** [[BFG|"Point Five-Oh"]]
* Inverted in [[Star Trek: First Contact]]. Picard is disarmed by a 21st Century native who flips out at him and admits that while she doesn't know how a phaser works, she'll start pushing buttons if Picard doesn't do as she says. Picard calmly does as she wants, and once he finally gains her trust and is handed the phaser back, Picard points out that the phaser was set to maximum and would have vaporized him if it had gone off.
** Fun bit of trivia: during this scene, you can see a red light briefly flash on the front of the phaser prop. [[I Just Shot Marvin in
** Played straighter in the novelization, where, after getting the phaser back, Picard observes that the weapon was on the ''minimum'' setting and comments that if she'd fired, it have "given [him] a rather nasty rash."
* In ''[[Tucker and Dale Versus Evil]]'', the sheriff suffers a fatal accident in Tucker and Dale's cabin. One of the panicking college kids takes the sheriff's gun and tries to kill Tucker and Dale, but fails thanks to the safety. Dale ''[[Too Dumb to Live|helpfully points this out to him]]'' while Tucker gives him a look that just screams "What the hell is wrong with you". Fortunately for Tucker and Dale the kid ''[[Too Dumb to Live|points the gun at his own face]]'' while trying to disable the safety, [[I Just Shot Marvin in
* {{spoiler|Billy}} pulls this on {{spoiler|Gale}} in the finale of ''[[Scream (
{{quote|
** She gets a [[Take That]] back, however:
{{quote|
== Literature ==
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* [[Matthew Reilly|Ice Station]] uses a type 2. Shane Schofield gives his ally James Renshaw a pistol, who then uses it to hold up [[Big Bad|Barnaby]]. Barnaby just laughs and pulls out his own gun because Renshaw didn't chamber a round. Renshaw decided to run before he was shot.
* At [[The Climax]] of the [[Tom Clancy]] Ryanverse novel ''Patriot Games'', after the [[Big Bad]] is taken into custody, one of the Marines that joined Ryan on the would-be escape ship points out that if John had really wanted to kill the terrorist, he'd have had the safety off. As a part of the "Green Machine" legacy himself, Ryan would be more than familiar with the safety of the pistol he was holding.
* In [[
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** An amusing variant appears in ''[[
{{quote|
** Inverted in ''[[
* In one of the stories making up Joe Haldeman's ''All My Sins Remembered'', agent Otto McGavin confronts a bureaucrat who pulls a blaster on him. They're technically on the same side, so McGavin snarls something along the lines of, "Put that stupid thing away before you electrocute yourself. You've got the selector on 'recharge.'" The bureaucrat looks down at the gun (if I remember right, it didn't even '''have''' a 'recharge' setting), and McGavin takes it away from him.
* Appears back in 1966 in the ''[[The Wild Wild West (TV series)|The Wild Wild West]]'' episode "Night of the Deadly Bubble", where the female professor thinks West is an intruder, but West knows she won't shoot him because the safety's on.▼
▲== Live Action TV ==
* Not really a gun, but in ''[[
▲* Appears back in 1966 in the ''[[The Wild Wild West (TV)|The Wild Wild West]]'' episode "Night of the Deadly Bubble", where the female professor thinks West is an intruder, but West knows she won't shoot him because the safety's on.
▲* Not really a gun, but in ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' [[Magnificent Bastard|The Master]] scuppers a plan to hold him at laser-screwdriver-point by setting it so [[Loyal Phlebotinum|it only works for him]]. He is then able to steal it back and [[Kick the Dog|nick the protagonist's mother with it.]]
** And played straight on the Doctor's end as he went up against the [[Big Bad]] in the finale issue of IDW's ''The Forgotten'' miniseries.
* In the ''[[Due South]]'' episode "Free Willie":
{{quote|
'''Willie''': Why? I got the gun.
'''Fraser''': Cause you don't want to hurt anyone, and because if you don't, you might end up hurting yourself.
'''Willie''': (reluctantly hands him the gun) Well you know you're lucky cop. 'Cause I coulda shot you right through the heart.
'''Fraser''': I don't think so, because that would require knowing how to take off the safety. }}
* ''[[Chuck]]'': Chuck is supposed to get Sarah out of a locked freezer by shooting out the lock, but the gun doesn't work. Then Sarah tells him to take the safety off.
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* From ''[[Leverage]]'':
** This happens in the pilot, "The Nigerian Job":
{{quote|
'''Eliot:''' Did you do it? You're the only one that's ever played both sides.
'''Nathan:''' Yeah, and you seem pretty relaxed for a guy with a gun pointed at him.
'''Eliot:''' Safety's on.
'''Hardison:''' Like I'm gonna fall for that.
'''Nathan:''' No, no, actually he's right. The safety is on.
''Hardison looks down to check, and Nathan grabs the gun.'' }}
** Similarly, in "The Girls' Night Out Job", Sophie tells a thug pointing a gun at her that the safety is on. While he's checking the gun, Tara comes up behind him and breaks a vase over his head, commenting that the safety was off. [[Badass Boast|"Not to a grifter."]]
* In the first season ''[[The Man
{{quote|
'''Napoleon Solo''' [''slowly walking towards Pepper'']: Alright then, better shoot and get it over with. [''Pepper fumbles with the pistol, which does not fire. Solo disarms her''] You see, the safety catch is on; it limits the range of the weapon considerably. }}
* The captain pulls this on Ken in the [[
** Although laser weapons would need safeties for the same reason conventional firearms have them.
** The same applies to Stan in an episode of ''[[Lexx]]''.
* In an episode of
* ''[[Castle]]'': The murderer is cornered by Beckett while holding Castle hostage at gunpoint. After uncovering the murderer's motive, Castle knocks him down and wrests the gun from him. Beckett tells him he could have been killed, and Castle replies that the safety was on the whole time.
{{quote|
'''Castle''': Where's the fun in that? }}
* Used in ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' season two episode "The Good Wound". Reese points this out to someone holding a gun on him, and it distracts them long enough for him to draw his own (although not long enough for him to shoot).
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* In the second episode of ''[[The Walking Dead]]'', [[Meet Cute|Andrea threatens to shoot Rick]] for bringing a hoarde of "walkers" to their location. Later, he advises her to take the safety off next time, and even gives her a quick lesson in handling a gun.
* An interesting subversion happens in an episode of ''[[21 Jump Street]]''. Hanson, posing a student, is being threatened by another student (named Ronnie) with a gun. He is saying things such as, "you could end up dead". The gun is cocked and incredibly close to Hanson's face. After the student is satisfied and begins walking away, the following exchange takes place:
{{quote|
'''Ronnie''': The safety don't work, man. Never did. }}
* Happens in an episode of ''[[Quantum Leap]]''. Sam is being held hostage by a woman he's been charged to protect (although, the person he's leaped into is really in cahoots with the bad guy, and the woman has just found out). Subverted in that it is Al who tells Sam that the safety is on. Since he is a hologram and the woman can't see him, he can examine the gun closely and at length. Also, the woman checks by actually trying to fire the gun, which doesn't work, and then [[Throw
* A variation happened in one episode of ''[[Adam-12]]''. Malloy chases a guy armed with a shotgun over a hill, only to find the shotgun leveled at him. Then the guy gives up. Turned out he left the safety on and pulled the trigger so hard it ''broke''.
* The reason Stella wasn't shot by Frankie in ''[[CSI: NY]]'' 'All Access'. Frankie didn't know enough about guns to take the safety off.
== Video Games ==
* Played straight twice in the ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' series; in 1 when Snake meets Meryl he tells her she doesn't have what it takes to shoot him, ending with "You haven't even taken the safety off, rookie." <ref>
** Which does not really make sense, as assault rifles aside from an AK-47 variant have the selector switch located where it can be deactivated in no time, thus allowing a soldier to carry it on safe yet still take a snap shot.
** In 4, he snatches Johnny Sasaki's gun away after almost exactly the same lines after the less experienced soldier visually inspects his [[Rare Guns|XM8]]. Since the XM8 was designed to evoke muscle memory from years of training with the M16 family, and it's almost impossible to pass even rudimentary military training without being able to tell the safety's position by feel, this succeeds in making Johnny look like an absolute moron.
** Naked Snake does this to Ocelot twice in the third game; the first time, his Makarov jams because he's tried to load it improperly, and the second time, because he's used to pistols with bigger magazines, he doesn't realise that his new [[Revolvers Are Just Better|Single Action Army]] [[It Works Better
** Hideo Kojima, the main man behind all the MGS games, has never shied away from a great deal of Artistic License when it comes to all things military. Each and every one of these scenes would cause a soldier to go down as the biggest moron in his unit's history, even if he were a private. It may work in the narrative of the series, but gun-savvy players can't help thinking that Ocelot, Meryl, Johnny, and even Snake are outright ignorant about tools they supposedly use daily.
* The mugger who keeps pestering you in ''[[Deja Vu]]'' repeatedly forgets to take the safety off, meaning you can score a punch to the nose and make him scurry off. The first few times, anyway...
** This is particularly strange, because the mugger in ''[[Deja Vu]]'' is clearly threatening you with a revolver, which would lack a safety.
* An inversion happens in the original ''[[Max Payne (
* Subverted in ''[[Brass Restoration]]'': Ryo invokes this against {{spoiler|the bookstore owner}}, who then fires without hesitation. Turns out that that was exactly what Ryo was
* Subverted in ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'', during the Tough's first encounter with Doyt Gyo and Haban, where their weapons failed to work. When Kevyn points out that all Haban did was use [[Tractor Beam|field-effectors]] to jam the safeties on all the guns, Tagon curtly points out that their mil-spec weapons didn't ''have'' safeties. "Oh. Well, they do now." "That's not subtle, that's showing off!"▼
== Web Comics ==
▲* Subverted in ''[[
== Western Animation ==
* The Monarch of ''[[The Venture Bros]]'' is once shown telling an anecdote about when Captain Sunshine, a superhero, had a gun to his face, but the Monarch noticed he didn't touch the safety. The Monarch then claimed he was [[Immune to Bullets]], and when the gun didn't do anything, the Captain Sunshine ran away and has thought he was invulnerable ever since.
** ''[[Brick Joke|Three seasons later]]'', Captain Sunshine appears on the show, still believing the Monarch is invulnerable.
* An episode of ''[[Men in Black (
== Real Life ==
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]
[[Category:Stock Phrases]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
|