The Gunslinger

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
This page needs some cleaning up to be presentable.

1. The description in the "General Fiction" section should be incorporated into the trope description, and the examples in that section should be moved to the relevant media sections.
2. The bare letters denoting types of gunslingers should be replaced with the names of the types.

I do not aim with my hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye.
I do not shoot with my hand. He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind.

I do not kill with my gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.

The hero that Guns and Gunplay Tropes are for.

It should be noted that for a while, guns and bullets were considered vulgar. Point, fire, they drop dead. This is so mundane that monsters and heroes who were cool enough became Immune to Bullets. After all, if it were that easy, the police would be able to deal with it.

However, certain genres have put the "cool" back into guns. It's all about style, so expect a lot of flourishes that wouldn't work in real life, such as using Guns Akimbo.

The Gunslinger is this hero. He or she[1] may be from The Western, Film Noir, Heroic Bloodshed or just plain scenery destroying action flicks. A wandering gunslinger is often The Drifter, one specifically out to do good is also the Knight Errant.

The Gunslinger comes in a few styles:

The Young Gun is a Gunslinger in infancy. You get double bonus points if your gunslinger is a girl. Also expect Marked Bullets to be used. Particularly skilled gunslingers may name their weapons -- whatever that implies.

For the eponymous Stephen King hero who epitomizes the trope, see The Dark Tower. Also has nothing to do with mechanical arms.

Compare Superhero Packing Heat, Samurai Cowboy. For a character with similar traits who uses longer ranged weapons, see the Cold Sniper and Friendly Sniper.

Examples of The Gunslinger include:

General Fiction

  • Pick a Western, any Western.
    • Especially and most impressively Lucky Luke. A Quick Draw who nails A and B perfectly.
      • To great comedic effect. His most famous trick is of course shooting his own shadow before it can draw. In the movie Tous a l'Ouest his shadow is visibly angry at being beaten to the punch once again.
      • Another animated example (from the 80s series) where recurring villain Joe Dalton throws a few coins in the air and shoots each of them to impress Lucky Luke, to which the cowboy replies by throwing a dollar bill in the air and shooting it...causing a hail of small change to fall on Joe's head.
      • In one of his first encounters with Billy the Kid, Billy tries to show off his speed by dropping a piece of candy and drawing his gun before it touches the ground. Lucky Luke then drops another piece, draws his gun, holsters it again, then catches the candy and eats it. Billy is visibly upset. It was his candy, too.

Anime and Manga

  • Train Heartnet from Black Cat combines elements from A, C, and D. He also practices Gun Kata.
  • Genjyo Sanzo from Saiyuki is definitely A, being able to shoot a seed implanted next to Gojyo's heart by Chin Yiso without hitting the heart. In Reload, he also managed to hit Ukoku with a pistol 3 times the size of his weapon of choice...which he had never fired before, not even once...while suffering from multiple broken bones.
    • Said pistol had belonged to another Gunslinger in the series, Gatto Nenehawk, who was a type B and used HUGE twin pistols.
  • Spike Spiegel borrows elements from C and D. Mad Pierrot is a type B.
  • Noir; Kirika has a near-mystical gift for firearms, accurately shooting without looking or while performing leaps, rarely if ever missing; she is explicitly type "A". As one fan review put it, "Kirika isn't a Ninja, she's a witch."
    • She's also a C, at least by Noir-standards.
  • The title character of Madlax also fits under A, though she ventures into Gun Kata territory (and thus C) during the final episodes.
  • Integra Hellsing from Hellsing is a skilled markswoman as well as wielding a sword. Heinkel Wolf also Duel Wields pistols. Seras Victoria and (to a slightly lesser extent) Rip van Winkle qualify more as Small Girl, Big Gun.
    • Arguably, Alucard fights with all three types of improbable gun tactic, as he has pulled a few trick shots in his time (including one in the first episode). However, none of that matters when you have enough power to kill gods and demons in horrible, horrible ways with little to no effort after seemingly being torn apart by their best attack.
    • Alucard is kind of unique in that he's one of the few gunslingers who has other ways (namely vampiric superstrength/speed, shapeshifting, and the hellhounds) to take out his enemies. He doesn't really have to use guns... but he sure does like to!
    • Seras Victoria, meanwhile, is a solid Type B. The Harkonnen (her Weapon of Choice) weighs well over 100 pounds, and can blow up an airship. And let's not talk about her wielding Guns Akimbo flak artilleries...
  • Samurai Gun, naturally, makes heavy use of this trope in its Steampunk Historical Japan setting. The main character, Ichimatsu, and by extent the other Samurai Guns, are a combination of Types A and C. Type Bs show up in several episodes of the anime, including a minigun-toting Implacable Man who is only fighting because it's the only way to keep up the supply of medicine he needs to keep his sick mother alive. The main member of the Anti-Samurai Gun Unit (in the anime, at least) is actually a blend of Types B through D; his primary weapon is a Steampunk Uzi, but he has the same bullet-dodging training as a Samurai Gun and once proves accurate enough to shoot his opponent's bullet out of the air.
  • Vash from Trigun embodies A, C, and D, as he tries to avoid gunplay whenever he can, but when he gets into it, nothing can beat him. His traveling partner Nicolas Wolfwood completes the set as the embodiment of B (with some C thrown in), complete with a combination rocket launcher/machine gun/shotgun/pistol rack in the shape of a cross.
    • The Bernardelli girls: Meryl Stryfe, despite packing 50 derringers under her cape, is shown to be an A, able to aim accurately on the run. Milly Thompson (who normally carries her huge Stungun under her cape) would be a B if not for the fact her weapon is less-lethal.
  • Black Lagoon is an anime with two Gun Fu experts who use two pistols at close quarters as well as a huge number of gunmen (and women). One of those totes around a minigun...
    • More specifically, Balalaika is type A, Roberta and Gretel are type B, and Revy is type C.
      • Eda, who we haven't seen fight much, appears to be a type D. For evidence, in the episode Calm Down, Two men, she's a faster draw than Revy, though not by much. That itself should be noteworthy, considering Revy's considerable skill.
        • And everyone leaves out poor Mr. Chang, who is a surgeon with types A, C and D.
  • Rally Vincent from Gunsmith Cats is most definitely a type A. More bizarre tricks with a pistol than you can shake a stick at.
  • Rushuna Tendo from Grenadier also combines A and C into a uniquely anime gun-style, and at one point engages in a full-scale Gun Kata duel with a rival in the final episode.
    • Rushuna also covers type D. While wielding one six-shooter, she has outshot a multi-barreled machine gun by not only shooting the bullets out of the air but hitting them so precisely they then blocked entire chains of other bullets.
  • All of the main characters from Gunslinger Girl.
  • While her guns are very small, Natsuki from My-HiME is definitely a type B (since her CHILD can fire missiles and incredibly powerful beams of ice.) Her Mai-Otome counterpart gets a personal BFG.
  • Depending on the weapon he's using, Gene Starwind of Outlaw Star alternates between A (pistols), or B (machine guns or rocket launchers)
  • Usopp in One Piece somehow manages to be a Type A without ever actually using a firearm (at least not one using traditional chemical propulsion).
    • Apparently, he inherits it from his father, who, while we never see being engaged in any particularly amazing examples, brags about being Type A all of the time.
  • In the anime Trinity Blood, most of the heroes gunsling quite a bit, particuarly the Guns Akimbo, M13 Jericho wielding android Tres Iqus who has all three styles pretty much nailed (given that Gunslinger is actually his callsign this isn't at all suprising).
  • In several displays of skill, Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist combines ALL FOUR of the above types. A is shown in her incredible long-distance sniping skill, while B and C are shown in her battles with the homunculi. Finally, D is shown in Roy's fight with Scar.
  • Mana Tatsumiya and Yuna Akashi of Mahou Sensei Negima. Mana is a combination of Type A and Type C: she dual wields Desert Eagles, which is perhaps only marginally made believable by her size and is so skillful with a sniper rifle that she can also use ricocheting to work around the fact that her targets are behind a wall, but in close-range combat she falls into Gun Fu mode. Yuna is an obvious Type D who uses twin pistols.
  • Teana Lanster of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S is a Magical Girl gunslinger who uses Type C. StrikerS Sound Stage X shows her adding some Type B to her fighting style in the form of Starlight Breaker. Force's Arnage is a solid Type B - Quad Gatlings, ho!
  • Ryoma from Peacemaker Kurogane.
  • Brandon Heat/Death Beyond the Grave from Gungrave: while during his human life Brandon preferred type A, C and D, super-human strength of his undead state allowed him to carry big enough guns (the Cerberus handguns and the coffin) to add type B to the list.
  • Daisuke Jigen from Lupin III is an expert shot who uses a custom .357 Magnum revolver to be Type A, C, and D. Because of his strength in an array of guns which include at times rocket launcher and sniper rifle (which he shoots from the waist in The Castle of Cagliostro), he also is Type B.
    • Lupin and Zenigata don't fall far behind, often falling under the Type C or D categories (although in the movies it's a running gag for Lupin's gun to get wrecked before he can fire).
  • Bleach: In a series that makes a spamfest out of swordsmen, Primera Espada Coyote Starrk breaks the mold as the series' first (and only) gunslinger, as his released form is that of a traditional wild-west outlaw equipped with a pair of guns. For the most part, he has exhibited types B and C, albeit in a x100 fashion.
    • Soi-fon's Bankai is a shoulder-mounted missile-launcher. Pure type B.
    • Oi! Have people forgotten Ururu? She beats Starrk as the first gunslinger by a couple hundred episodes! She's a type B.
  • Death the Kid is a combination. His usual style of a (literally) inhuman turn of speed, close-combat and Gun Fu falls under C, whereas Death Cannon and his other soul resonance attacks are B.
    • The Thompson Sisters themselves also fit the trope. While they're technically the weapons of Death the Kid, they've both shown the ability to fight using each other quite proficiently. Even more so now that Patty's become Liz's meister and Kid's possibly gone through a Face Heel Turn.
  • General Cross Marian of D Gray Man uses Innocence in the form of a revolver. He's a combination of Types B and C, and definitely qualifies as one of the most Badass characters in the series.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has Austin O'Brien, who pulls this off by firing trading cards from his duel disk, which doubles as gun. Said trading cards explode upon impact for some unexplained reason.
  • C.T. Smith from the short-lived manga Zombie Powder; he had types A and C in spades, with a splash of D due to his super speed.
  • Synthetic Human Zoichi Kanoe, of Biomega, exhibits all types, A through D, in any virtually every fight he's involved in.
  • Child Soldier Jonah from Jormungand is both A and D, which is quite unnerving to his mercenary teammates due to his young age. He also is not afraid to do a bit of type B when the situation requires it.
  • In Kino's Journey Kino is a formidable quick draw, often seen practicing it and later putting it to use with very effective results.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica has two Magical Girl Gunslingers. Mami Tomoe, who prefers Gun Fu with a supply of single-shot muskets, but finishes with a BFG. And Homura Akemi, who combines her gunslinging with lots of explosives and stopping time.
  • Ryo Saeba from City Hunter, a mercenary/bodyguard who has Improbable Aiming Skills with his handgun.
  • Sundance from Samurai Pizza Cats.
  • Switzerland from Axis Powers Hetalia is almost always seen with a gun.
  • Battle Angel Alita, though Alita very rarely uses a gun. There's a phase about book 5-6 of the manga where she gets one, but mostly she fights unarmed.
  • Believe it or not, in the OVAs, Wedding Peach had a gun!
  • Yoko from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann carries an over-sized, high-energy sniper rifle with her wherever she goes.
  • Akane from Kämpfer is normally a nice, quiet girl. Upon her transformation into a Kampfer however, her Badass side appears along with a gun, and then starts firing at pretty much everything in sight she decides she doesn't like.
  • Bisca from Fairy Tail is the female half of a gunslinging Battle Couple with Alzack. Neither of them seems able to admit their feelings for one another.
  • Maya from Burn Up W/Excess. Being a gun nut, she's so crazy for her weapons that she gives them names. Type B, given that most of her arsenal qualifies as "big guns".
  • In Shikabane Hime, Makina's weapon of choice is a pair of MAC-11 machine pistols.

Comic Books

  • Batman foe Deadshot is a villainous example of Type A.
  • Agent Graves and The Minutemen from One Hundred Bullets.
  • Lucky Luke fits types A and D.
  • The Saint of Killers from Preacher (Comic Book) is A (no matter how he shots, he will kill), B (infinite bullets) and D (apparently he doesn't even draw, he is instantly pointing at the poor guy who encounters him).

FBI Agent: So he drew on you and started shooting.
Sheriff Root: Ain't what I said. I said there was a blur and then shooting. I didn't see no draw.

  • Kid Twist from Runaways is the total epitome of A and D.
  • Described as equal parts scarecrow and zombie gunslinger, the Gunwitch is a silent undead golem with unerring marksmanship from Nocturnals. A Type A with strong elements of C and D.
  • Being a Vietnam War veteran, The Punisher mainly uses A (rifles) or B (machine guns and explosive launchers), but occasionally utilizes C (twin pistols) and even D (quickdraw with one pistol).
  • Stan Lynde's comic strip Rick O'Shay featured introspective yet deadly gunslinger Hipshot Percussion, types A and D.
  • The protagonists in Sin City all use guns. Hartigan is Type D since he usually draws and fires a single shot without having to move too much (he is pushing sixty with a bum-ticker, after all). Dwight is Type C. He usually has Guns Akimbo and does a lot of fancy footwork to avoid getting shot. Wallace is Type A, as evident by the fact that most of his shots are impossible to perform. At the end of his story, he shoots an entire warehouse filled with assassins before any of them manage to fire off a single round. Marv rarely uses a gun even though his is the most famous due to its name. From what we see, he's more of a quickdraw, Type D.
  • The Marvel Comics character The Two Gun Kid, being a displaced cowboy, is the embodiment of this trope in the Marvelverse, hitting both the A and D types.
  • Wynonna Earp tends towards C and D, with occassional elements of the other two.
  • Lady Mechanika is a Type A and C.
  • Ballistic in The DCU was a superpowered Type B. No one was too upset when he was killed off in Infinite Crisis.

Film

Fan Works

Literature

  • Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger of Stephen King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower series. As The Dark Tower is fairly realistic in terms of gunplay, Roland only exhibits types A and D. He never has enough ammunition to be a B type (and would probabley consider it to be obscenely wasteful), and is only a type C insofar as dual wielding (albeit briefly).
    • Considering he's using single action revolvers, and could only dual wield by thumbing the hammers, doing it at all is quite impressive.
    • Not to mention that the only reason he stops Dual-Wielding is because he loses two fingers off his right hand, and is rendered unable to hold a gun in that hand.
    • Susannah Dean in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Extra points for the fact that she has no legs.
  • The Last of the Mohicans. Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo) is America's first Gunslinger in literature, of Type A. On film, he's capable of Dual-Wielding -- frontier long rifles! And reloading a musket on the run. He can also pick off a running man at 200 yards with a muzzle-loader, and in The Leatherstocking Tales he does frontier William Tell tricks, including firing a musket-ball into another musket-ball which his compatriots had used to drive a nail into a post at 50 yards.
  • The Executioner. Mack Bolan has shown A, B, and even C tendancies at time, although not to a superhuman extent, as have his ripoffs homages like The Punisher.
  • Matthew Stark in Cloud of Sparrows is a somewhat more historically accurate version than usual. He's a dirty, coarse, violent man who nevertheless is good at heart. He's also able to out-reflex ninjas.
  • Shane of course.
  • From David Gemmell's Stones of Power series, Jon Shannow, the Jerusalem Man.
  • In War of the Dreaming, Pendrake (an expy/homage of The Shadow) is a type A and C.
  • In Hermetic Millenium, Menelaus is a type A and B, who uses a smartgun which he has programmed to deliver its payload more efficiently. Somewhat hilariously, Menelaus' gunslinging skills make him a valued "junior partner" for his law firmemployers...
  • Lewis Wetzel from Zane Grey's Betty Zane is similar to the Last of the Mohicans example: a trick shot who can drive nails with bullets.
  • Dusty Fog from J. T. Edson's "Floating Outfit" series is a very definite Type D.
  • Every Time Scout more or less by definition. Kit, Malcolm, Margo, and Ann all demonstrate this.
  • Holly Short and Vinyaya in Artemis Fowl. The latter requested for elecftric runs during a goblin rebellion despite not having to fight due to her desk job position. But the same desk job position gives her a lot of power. She didn't miss.
    • Aileen Ritter in the comic series is definitely capable of matching her male colleagues.
  • Trigger of the Seekers of Truth. She carries a rifle that can fire any ammunition grenade-sized or smaller.
  • Karrin Murphy from the The Dresden Files. She is a police officer after all.
  • Medea Bentacore in the Eisenhorn novels keeps her father's Glavian needle pistol on hand.
  • Back in the early days of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Han Solo had several run-ins with a professional gunman named Gallandro, a mercenary renowned for being the fastest gun in the galaxy. Exploits attributed to him include hunting down a crime family, single handedly hijacking a star-liner and forcing the Assassin's Guild to default on a contract (by hunting down and killing half of their Elite Guard).
  • In Chasm City, it was said of the protagonist that he could take out specific brain functions with a shot, making him a Type A. He laments to another character that he was never actually that good, but says he did come close.
  • There is a subversion in Mr. Midshipman Hornblower where Hornblower is oppressed by a bully and so engineers a duel with him, making sure he gets the choice of weapons. As his opponent is far better both with gun and sword, he simply randomizes the contest. Latter he is warned by his captain that getting through that with his honor intact is all very well but he is best not to try it again because everyone knows that all who are skillful gunslingers are bullies; why else would they get in enough fights to get any practice?

Live-Action TV

  • Criminal Minds has Elle Greenaway, Emily Prentiss, and Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, all of whom are incidentally very good shots (Emily is probably the worst shot out of all of them, but that's not really saying much, since the only time she's ever really *missed* was about thirty seconds after getting a concussion in a car crash) and look hot in kevlar. JJ once even killed an UnSub with a perfect headshot through a glass-paned FBI door. Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia has only held a gun once.
  • Mal in Firefly exhibits D to some (humanly possible) degree, gaining quicker draw and better aim the more pressure he's under. His two partners, Zoe and Jayne, tend toward A and B respectively, with Zoe providing the pinpoint accuracy and Jayne providing the Dakka.
  • MacGyver's arch-nemesis Murdoc appears a stereotypical black clad gunslinger (seemingly a Type D) in the Western All Just a Dream episode "Serenity".
  • Red Dwarf: Thees ees a chob for the Riviera Kid!(funny dance)
  • Farscape's Aeryn Sun. Especially impressive when compared to the male lead, who attempts to fire a gun only to have to throw it away as it explodes. Even after taking a few levels in badass, said male lead is nowhere near Aeryn's level when it comes to gunplay.
  • Mossad liaison Ziva David from NCIS. Always lethally skilled with firearms (and everything else up to and including Kleenex and rubber bands), in an episode she exhibited the ability to dual wield a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver (at 90-degree angles to each other, no less) in a shootout to protect a Federal witness in their hideout hotel. Result: two dead Mooks, dead via simultanious Pretty Little Headshots, and Ziva, not so much as scratched, calmly reholstering as McGee and the terrified witness crawl out of the hotel bathroom.
  • Kamen Rider has one for each season. Rarely two gunslingers. Usually, the rider has a weapon that can change into a gun.
  • Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue almost always resort to using their guns. In fact, they have more gunplay than the other teams. Justified due to the fact that it was a military operation, not some wizard, granting the rangers these powers.
  • Kid Curry from Alias Smith and Jones shot the gun from another gunfighter's holster before the man could draw.
  • The Lone Ranger tended to shoot guns out of bandits' hands with either hand.
  • Brisco County Jr. is an example of both A and D, demonstrating one and/or the other basically in every episode.
  • Wrangler Jane of F Troop, known to be the best shot at Fort Courage, which makes her closest to Type A.
  • Sarah Connor definitely qualifies for this.
  • Kara "Starbuck" Thrace of Battlestar Galactica is a pilot who is described in canon as the best shot in the Fleet, in or out of a Viper cockpit. She gets to show off plenty of both skills.
  • The only thing sexier than Samantha Carter on Stargate SG 1? Samantha Carter with a P90. Vala's pretty cool too, though she prefers zats and pistols.
  • Scully from The X-Files.
  • Doctor Who has River Song, who likes energy handguns, and once used them to threaten the Roman Army into helping her. Liz 10 also carries two Steampunk laser pistols.
    • The Doctor's full-time companions generally avoid guns, but some of them end up here anyway. Sarah-Jane demonstrated surprisingly good marksmanship for a reporter in Pyramids of Mars, Ace took out a Dalek with a rocket launcher (she aimed for the eyepiece), and both Rose and Martha have got in on this in the revival.
  • CSI: Miami's Calleigh Duquesne, resident ballistics expert.

Horatio: What do you get when you mix a six foot man with a three foot gun?
Calleigh: Hot flashes. But that's just me.

  • On MythBusters, have you ever noticed that when the build team is testing a gun myth, Kari Byron tends to bring the biggest weapon to the party?
    • Kari said in a behind-the-scenes interview once that, being a good Californian, she was very anti-gun before working with Mythbusters, and after their second or third gun myths special, she found that she had turned into a gun nerd along the way. She now privately owns several firearms of her own and never seems to be far away when they're testing gun myths on the show.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Kira Nerys joined the Bajoran Resistance at twelve. For the love of God, if you hope to survive an encounter with her, do not let the woman get her hands on a phaser!!! Otherwise you'll be even more screwed than you already are.
  • The Big Bad's henchgirl from Der Clown ? Payday seems to always carry a machine gun with her. And yes, she can shoot it better than any SWAT member.
    • Subverted by the heroine who tries and first fails to shoot the same type of gun. She even asks for a manual after she picked it up.
  • Ashley of Sanctuary. Her entire job is pretty much shooting things.
  • Wranger Jane from F Troop, who was noted to be the best shot in Fort Courage.
  • The titular character of The Rifleman
  • Booth on Bones.
  • Paladin of Have Gun — Will Travel is a classic type D.

Music

  • A man actually named The Gunslinger was a member of The Protomen.

Radio

Tabletop Games

  • Quite popular in the Necromunda setting. Among the House gangs, if you're not a Gunslinger, you're probably a Young Gun. You have rifle-wielding snipers for Type A, heavies who carry one of a variety of BFGs, or a melee fighter who dual-wields pistols or a pistol and close combat weapon.
  • The notorius Cypher of Warhammer 40,000 is well-known for wielding a pair of exquisitely crafted pistols (not similar; one is a bolt pistol, the other is plasma).
    • Not to mention outdrawing and killing one of Abaddon's Terminator bodyguards so fast that even Abaddon nearly missed it.
    • It's reflected on the tabletop too - he was the only character in the game that could fire both pistols twice in one turn.
      • Sisters of Battle (Witch Hunters) give us the Seraphim, power armoured ladies with jetpacks who dual-wield automatic microgrenade launcher pistols. Or, alternately, dual wield flamer pistols, or, if you really want to splash out, microwave pistols that can turn a super-heavy tank into slag. Their gun fu is so awesome that everyone around them feels just a little bit braver for having them there.
    • Most armies have got some characters specializing in gunfire:
      • Marneus Calgar, possibly, with submachinegun microgrenade launches strapped to his forearms. Definitely a Type B.
      • Maugan Ra is a Type B, carrying by himself a heavy machine gun that normal Eldar have to strap to an anti-gravity platform to lug around and is easily twice as effective as Shadowsun or Calgar when facing enemy infantry.
      • Commander Shadowsun also qualifies as a Type B, assisted by power armor, what with carrying two anti-tank weapons.
      • Dark Eldar tend towards the choppy end of the scale, but their Haemonculi can carry a device called a Hexrifle: a sniper rifle that turns the target into a statue.
      • The Imperial Guard have more than most due to their shooty nature, but special mention must go to Type D Guardsman Marbo and his sniper pistol, and Type B Gunnery Sergeant Harker, who carries a heavy bolter one-handed.
      • The Vindicare Assassin is a classic Type A, as he is at the moment the only model on the table that can single out a specific model in an enemy unit with a gun and blast a hole in his head, and carries special ammunition that lets him do things like make tanks explode with a sniper rifle. In Dawn of War, an infiltrated Vindicare Assassin is possibly the best secondary commander unit in the game.
  • It would be remiss not to mention 'Slick' Devlan of Inquisitor.
    • Don't forget the characters spiritual successors from Dark Heresy, the class of Scum hailing from Gunmetal City on Scintilla.
  • Anyone with Gun Schticks and/or a high enough Guns skill in Feng Shui is a Gunslinger in terms of this trope. Maverick Cops, Killers, and Ex-Special Forces guys are especially exemplary of the trope, but Spies, Gamblers, Magic Cops, Masked Avengers, Monster Hunters, Cyborgs and even Medics can qualify as well, along with any other archetype who spends XP on Gun Schticks and the Guns skill.
    • What type your gunslinger character generally is depends on what Gun Schticks you give your character. Trick Shots prefer Eagle Eye, Shoot Weapon, Sabotage Shot and other schticks that allow them to perform crazy feats of accuracy. Vaporizers generally go for Carnival of Carnage and 10,000 Bullets to maximize the mook slaughter, along with Cover Fire, Bullet Storm, Lightning Reload, Who Wants Some, and a good automatic weapon capable of More Dakka. Woos can use pretty much any schtick out of the books, though Both Guns Blazing, Carnival of Carnage, Slow Mo Vengeance and others are primarily used by them. Quick Draws, as per the name, generally buy up lots of Fast Draw in order to act ahead of everyone else in a given sequence.
  • One of the more common character types in Deadlands. Some hucksters (called 'hexslingers') combine magic with gunplay to give them an extra edge.
  • The aptly named advantage "Gunslinger" in GURPS makes you into a type A, C or D.
  • There's a Gunslinger O.C.C., in the Rifts megaverse. Specifically, they can be any combination of A, C, or D. In-game fluff describes them as assassins, hitmen, and mercenaries who specialize in close combat and dual-wielding pisols. They also have a psychic equivalent, the Psi-Slinger.
  • Exalted has entire martial arts styles centered around dual-wielding badassery. Well, okay, you're really wielding pocket flamethrowers, but still...
  • Pathfinder now has the Gunslinger class, which uses flintlock pistols and muskets (and whatever else Paizo comes out with once playtesting is done). Gunslinger characters have a resource called Grit which is used for pulling off crazy gunslinging stunts and is replenished with daring deeds, as the Gunslinger is not just a class about shooting things but a class about being really ballsy while you shoot things.
  • Heroscape has several according to their bios, but only Deadeye Dan has actual effects that make him this. He's a type A who has two abilities: one which gives him a half chance to deal one damage (which is deadly to characters with one life and high defence) and the other which gives him a one tenth change of instant killing anyone.

Video Games

  • Samus Aran of Metroid, as well as her Zero Suit incarnation.
  • Ein alias Phantom from Phantom of Inferno.
  • Inspector Tequila Yuen, of Hard Boiled fame, demonstrates three styles with his Tequila Bomb attacks in the game-only sequel Stranglehold:
    • The Precision Aim (type A) is a sniper shot performed with any gun that can take someone out at long ranges with pinpoint accuracy.
    • The Barrage attack (type B) allows you to rock and roll on full auto, tearing scenery and mooks apart.
    • The Spin Attack (type C) takes every mook in your general vicinity out in true cinematic style, and as an added bonus, you get the doves flying in slow-mo while you're at it.
  • 10000 Bullets is chock-full of these. Expect plenty of Gun Fu. Somewhat necessary in that you can die quite easily even in stage one.
  • John Marston in Red Dead Redemption, arguably a Type-A and a Type-C in that he can shoot a man's hat off or gun out of his hand and also enter bullet-time "Dead Eye" mode for those extra-tricky shots.
    • He is also a master of the Quick Draw and often finds himself using a mounted machine gun, making him qualify for all four.
  • The Appropriately named Gunslinger boss enemies in City of Heroes qualify as Type-A's. How good are their trick shots? These Badass Normal soldiers can knock down and set on fire the most powerful player-controlled superheroes and supervillains in the game.
    • Thugs Masterminds have access to a few pistol attacks.
    • The Dual Pistols powerset features type A attacks and a couple of type B attacks such as firing bullets in the sky so they rain down on enemies.
  • The Metal Gear Solid series has an example of each. Revolver Ocelot is a Trick Shot, Vulcan Raven is a Vaporizer, and The Boss is a Woo. Snake himself is a Quick Draw, but it almost never comes up.
    • The Boss is C and B. Look at The Patriot: a rifle with the barrel cut short. Size of a pistol, power of the rifle, and infinite ammo. Yes, the infinite ammo part is canon. And yes, she takes full advantage of it. She also takes away your gun, takes it apart, and hands you back the pieces.
  • Jr. from Xenosaga plays this trope straight, wielding Guns Akimbo in the Type A style. His special attacks tend to involve ricocheting bullets off coins to the point in one of his moves, he throws more than a dozen coins, fires a single bullet, and the bullet bounces off every coin hitting every enemy.
    • Billy in the Spiritual Predecessor Xenogears is another Gunslinger, mostly Type A style or maybe C depending on playstyle. He is also one of the best healers in the game by virtue of being a priest or training to become one.
  • Ramiro Cruz from the Total Overdose video game is a type C, able to run off the sides of walls, slow down time and do all sorts of cool stunts.
  • Sundown from Live a Live is a Type B (see his ultimate attack, Hurricane Shot, which fires more bullets than any four revolvers should ever be able to carry). Of course, he's ALSO a Type A (Multi-Counter, which animates as him turning his back to the enemy and shooting through his poncho as a counter to almost any attack, and Pierce Shot, which hits all enemies in a line). In universe, Sundown is also a Type D, as he's described as having "an arm as quick as lightning" (Neo Shot Storm, which can hit up to around six times, all before his opponents can react). Mad Dog, from the same game, is also a Type A, as all of his attacks are essentially trick-shots.
  • Dante from Devil May Cry blends all four types together - A with near-flawless accuracy and Offhand Backhand shots, B with crazy rate of fire and a variety of explosive weapons, C with his superhuman agility and D with the ability (both in and out of cutscenes) to draw quickly yet still fire accurately. Of course, he has a Style explicitly named Gunslinger that enhances his firearm moveset. Nero aspires to reach the same level of competence, but isn't there yet.
  • Created by the same person who created Devil May Cry, Bayonetta takes all 4 types to truly outlandish degrees. From regular hand guns to shot guns to ROCKET LAUNCHER TONFAS, and so many other weapons, Bayonetta is currently one of the most insane examples of the gunslinger in video games so far.
  • Vermilion from Battle Arena Toshinden is a type B, carrying a peacemaker in one hand, and a shotgun in the other.
  • Noel Vermillion from the BlazBlue series is a textbook Type-C.
  • Reaver from the second Fable game is type A and D. Makes sense, considering that not only is he the Hero of Skill, but also that by the time you see his fighting skills in action, he's had hundreds of years to practice his shots.
    • Your player character itself is a type A, as maxed skill lets you hit from any distance, and kill with one shot.
      • The Time Control spell lets you move toward the C and D types by dropping a pack of bandits before they have time to get their guns out.
  • Boktai, anyone? Both Django and his spiritual successor Aaron use Solar Guns, drawing from all three schools. In Aaron's case, the Witch is the Trick Shot, the Ninja is the Woo, and the Bomber, Dragoon, and Knight suit the Vaporizer fine.
  • Dr Peace in No More Heroes wields a pair of golden revolvers.
    • And Helter Skelter in the trailer and opening has a nice set of guns, too.
  • All the main characters in the Wild ARMs series, but Wild ARMs 3 gets special mention since everyone in your party is a gunslinger.
  • Star Ocean: Till the End of Time has Maria. Her marksmanship works very well with her ability to manipulate matter and energy.
  • The Heavy from Team Fortress 2 suits Type B perfectly. More Dakka, indeed.
    • And also The Sniper. Shooting someone through the head to smash a bottle held by the guy standing behind him, causing him to misfire and blow up the building they're standing in? Classic A all the way.
      • Given his reaction, and the previous scene showing that the first guy was the target, that was probably an fortuitous accident.
    • Which type the other characters can be generally depends on the player's particular style. The Scout lends himself to a type C playstyle, while the Spy is best off as a type D.
    • Don't forget The Pyro, who gets to switch weapons more quickly when he/she has the Degreaser equipped, allowing him/her to be a type D quickdrawer....with a shotgun!
  • Carth Onasi in Knights of the Old Republic and Atton Rand in the sequel both have elements of types B and C, stretching into type D during some cutscenes.
  • The Kid in Bastion is a combination B and D with dueling pistols (With a side of C in that he dual wields.), being capable of drawing, locking on and emptying both guns into anything essentially as fast as you can click. One special attack moves into A territory. He also gets bonus points for reloading solely by Gun Twirling.
    • Use of the Scrap Musket can put him squarely into type B, particularly with the special attack unloading around half a dozen shots in rapid succession. From a single-shot, muzzle-loading, shot-firing musket. There's also the Army Carbine and the Fang Repeater, the latter of which is A and B thanks to a high rate of fire and homing projectiles when appropriately upgraded.
  • Haken Browning from Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Endless Frontier (whew, that's a mouthful) is a combination of types C and D.
  • Gilder from Skies of Arcadia is a definite Type C. His first S-Move is even called 'Gunslinger'.
  • Max Payne is Type C. Really, all that was missing from the game's bullet-time antics were the frickin' doves.
    • On the occasions the player gets to take control of her, Max Payne's Mona Sax shows why she's notorious as a cleaner. Her default weapon is a Desert Eagle (which can be dual-wielded) and her sniping rifle of choice is a Dragunov.
  • There's a whole class of these in Ragnarok Online, with any one of the types available depending on how you build one up and what weapons you use.
  • Call of Duty: World At War has an achievement named 'Gunslinger' for performing some Type A marksmanship. At the end of one level, you must snipe an enemy General about a hundred yards away trying to escape a battle. While normally you have a sniper rifle for this sort of thing, the achievement is only gained if you use a pistol.
    • Another Type A achievement in the same level is gained for clearing a street of enemies without reloading - only problem is that the street has seven soldiers and an attack dog, and your rifle has a five-round magazine.
  • The nameless Gunslinger from the point-and-click PlayStation and PC game Silverload. He does not fit neatly into any of the types because he's controlled by YOU, plus the fact you have limited ammo for the shooting scenes. Good players can turn him into a Type A/D.
  • Rubi Malone of Wet is a Type A/C Gunslinger who likes to do acrobatic Gun Fu combined with up-close and deadly katana work.
  • One of the three skill trees for Mordecai in Borderlands is called Gunslinger, and focuses on pistol and revolver skills. The highlights are getting shots that do 100% more damage after a kill and occasionally getting a free bullet.
  • Pleinair and Asagi in Disgaea.
    • In the second game, there's Rozalin and the Gunner class, the third has Salvatore and the Gunslinger class, and the fourth has Vulcanus.
  • From the Final Fantasy Series
    • Barret Wallace and Vincent Valentine from Final Fantasy VII. Barret is a type B mostly while Vincent is a type A and type D but sticks to using only one gun rather than two, though thats due to the armored gauntlet on his left arm. Your Mileage May Vary on whether Vincent counts as a proper Gunslinger or just a guy with a gun, since he doesn't have any special moves that use it in the original game. If you accept everything in The Complication of Final Fantasy VII, then he could count, but his main power is still Voluntary Shapeshifting.
    • Irvine Kinneas who can be many different types on depending on the ammo type he uses and Laguna Loire who is a Badass Normal who is a type B with his signature machine gun.
    • Between Final Fantasy X and its sequel, the protagonist Yuna morphed from a White Magician Girl messiah to a Stripperific Gun Slinger with an attitude to match. She was probably closest to type C.
    • Balthier is mostly a type D.
    • Lightning pulls off enough trick shots with her gunblade to qualify for type A. One of her normal attacks is shooting an enemy mid-backflip. Sazh isn't nearly as skilled at using guns as the other entries, but has some elements of B and D.
  • Commander Shepard of the Mass Effect series falls into every category if you play as the Soldier Class; Adrenaline Rush allows Shepard to hit nearly any point of an enemies body (Type A), The Revenant has an insanely large ammo clip and will completely obliterate anything in it's path (Type B), Shepard, as previously stated has Adrenaline Rush which slows down time to a crawl allowing for completely domination in CQC (Type C), which will also allow Shepard to kill enemies before they're even aware of his/her presence.
    • If you're a tech/combat class, your main gun is the sniper rifle, letting you pull of some Alan Quatermain Type A shots.
    • As far as supporting characters go, Garrus is a mix of Type A and Type D (during his Establishing Character Moment he shoots a hostage-holding thug without harming the hostage, and without looking), Legion and Thane are Type A, and most everyone in the second game can pull off some amount of Type B due to submachine guns as the standard weapon.
  • Raul Tejada, Type D. Completing his quest a certain way will get him an outfit/perk that lets him shoot even faster.
  • Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura allows the player to act as a Type B (with firearms with enough firerate) and/or Type D (with a long range rifle or handgun, especially if you play in turn-based mode).
  • Saica Magoichi from Sengoku Basara, being basically a Walking Armoury, can fulfil most of the above roles, but is closest to Type B. She commonly carries around a magnum, a shotgun, a tommy gun and a heat-seeking rocket launcher (detonation charges or air support optional) and uses a combination of them to blow her enemies to bits.
  • Lucca of Chrono Trigger combines this with Drop the Hammer.
  • Any female character in Valkyria Chronicles has a portrait shot in the Personel tab showing them in dramatic poses with guns. Props go to Sniper Marina who after a succesfull snipe-shot loads her gun onto her shoulders and tosses off a bond-one liner.
  • Sis, SIE and Scarlet from Alpha Protocol.
  • Tanya from the Command & Conquer: Red Alert series, who has a lot of fun killing enemies. She also packs C4 for blowing up buildings and ships.
    • C&C has other examples as well. In Tiberian Sun's campaign, there was Umagon, a mutant Action Girl who was available in certain missions. In Tiberium Wars, Nod's Commando was a Femme Fatale with an invisibility suit and dual lasers. And in Red Alert, the Soviets countered Tanya with Natasha, a Cold Sniper who could also call down airstrikes.
  • Iji with her universal gun.
  • Maria from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time sports guns, some kung fu, and the ability to manipulate matter and energy with her mind.
  • Interestingly, Mira in Knights of the Old Republic 2 is the only female party member in the entire series who specializes in ranged weapons instead of melee weapons, despite this articles opening quote. Technically, she can be equipped with other weapons like most party members including a lightsaber if you turn her into a Jedi, but she's always most efficient with a blaster or two in hand.
  • Lara Croft carries a pair of pistols in addition to her...other assets.
  • Iria Animi of Tales of Innocence mashes it up with Guns Akimbo and the White Magician Girl.
  • Rubi, the main character of Wet dual-wields all of her guns.
  • Bayonetta. She takes Guns Akimbo Up to Eleven, by using four guns in combat. How? She straps two extra guns to her Combat Stilettos.
  • BloodRayne has countless Throw-Away Guns. Though they aren't Rayne's main attack in BloodRayne 2, she has a nice pair of blood guns that (without Hand Wave) cover the typical arsenal.
  • Bea from Lunar Knights is the only female of the Three Gunslingers. Her weapon of choice is the Witch. There are other female Guild members who use standard-issue Solar Guns based on the Knight as well.
  • In Jak and Daxter, we get Ashelin, Tess, Taryn, and (post-Adrenaline Makeover) Keira, though only Ashelin actually shoots anything.
  • Anne in Jurassic Park: Trespasser uses a variety of guns and, because there is no HUD, counts the number of rounds remaining in the weapon out loud.
  • Most girls who have been playable characters in the Contra series. Namely Sheena Etranzi, Lucia and Krystal. Sayuri doesn't count.
  • Chiyuri Kitashikawa from Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream. Justified, she's from outside Gensokyo and can't use magic for her Bullet Hell, only a science and technology-based substitute.
  • Aya Brea, the heroine of the Parasite Eve series. She's also got some deadly magic to back her up; in the sequel one of her spells is to simply boost the power of her gun's bullets.
  • One of the targets hunted by Jango Fett Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a gunslinger named Longo Two-Guns. His gang occupies a town on Tatooine, resulting in a level not unlike an old western movie.
  • Grit in Advance Wars would appear to be this, being the indirect combat specialist (though even the direct combat units use guns...) of the series, and he even carries a gun in his portrait. His mannerisms seem to be based on a Western hero.
  • In Guild Wars 2, half the classes can use guns, but only the Warrior (with rifles) and the Thief (with pistols) really fit this trope, which usually overlaps with The Musketeer after weapon-switching gets unlocked.

Web Comics

  • Gordito from The Adventures of Dr. McNinja wields Guns Akimbo with Improbable Aiming Skills—enough skill to earn the respect of the McNinja family. His late father, The Amazing Flying Shooting Juan, was even better.
    • The Amazing Flying Shooting Juan's greatest trick deserves some explanation:
      • An audience volunteer picks a card without giving Juan any hint which one.
      • The whole deck is thrown into the air as Juan leaps from a high platform into a small water tank.
      • On the way down, he shoots the volunteer's card out of the air.
      • The shot propels the card into an entirely different part of the city and into the leg of a person.
      • The person shot is knocked into a police station, at which point they are identified as the person who looted the volunteer's apartment some time ago.
  • In Schlock Mercenary the eponymous amorph is undoubtedly a type B.
    • Kathryn Flinders is type C/D. She says she was fifth in her class in pistol qualification. Also, both a martial artist (that's how she was introduced) and can make a good use of heavier weapons as well. How fast she is? When a guy was about to shoot her, she kicked the pistol out of his hand, in the time it took his weapon to fly as far as an arm's length she finished drawing and raising a holdout, and then killed him with a headshot before he could react. Also, she can do this with either hand and half a dozen times in quick sequence..
  • One of the protagonists (names are never mentioned) from Gone With the Blastwave is a straight type A. Check these examples.
  • SDC's Jessica has no supernatural powers, but she has a magical gun.
  • Homestuck's Jade Harley is an expert markswoman, and has her Strife Specibus allocated with the Riflekind abstratus.
    • On the Troll side, we have Eridan Ampora, who wields an energy rifle from the back of a flying seahorse, and is VERY proud of his gun.
  • Soli of The Meek.
  • Divi from Honey And The Whirlwind has a magic/alchemy gun.
  • The Dreadful: Many characters, it being a Western style webcomic.

Web Original

  • This Trope is the claim to fame for Pico of Newgrounds.
  • Ballistic, a superhero from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe is said to be the best shot in the world with a handgun, and qualfiies as a Trick Shot, a master of Gun Fu, and is absolutely a Quick Draw.
  • Hive, of the Whateley Universe. Looks like a 17-year-old blonde. Shoots like a 50-year-old master sniper.
    • Or Eldritch, looks like a young woman, shoots like a psychotic heavy-weapons range instructor; Generator might qualify too depending on your definition of 'girl', Loophole is quite proficient with her .45 handgun, and Bladedancer is secretly training with guns to surprise her opponents, while Bunker specializes in explosive ordinance (Girl With Bazooka)... considering the setting and the fact that training is readily available it's not uncommon to come across a girl that packs a gun or at least is proficient with one.
  • The bounty hunter Moira Quicksilver in The Endless Night, also a distinct example of Guns Akimbo with her two pistols Righty and Lefty.
  • The Armada Marines of Damsels and Dirigibles, an AlternateHistory.com production, and a lot of the other female characters.
  • Tex from Red vs. Blue is the only competent soldier of the entire cast.

Real Life

  • Annie Oakley. Legend has it that she could pin an ace of hearts card to a tree, walk twenty yards away, then shoot the heart right out of the center.
  • The White Tights of urban legend, an Amazon Brigade of blonde, white-clad sniper women with a hate-on for the Russians.
  1. (guns are an amazing gender equalizer... the person who said that God created men and Colt made them equal forgot to add women into the phrase)
  2. Shooting Barbossa just as Will breaks the curse in the first, shooting an powder barrel in the second, shooting Davy jones' chest out of his hands in the third