History Main / StunGuns

** Similarly, in one episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', we see Miles O'Brien [[DrivenToSuicide contemplating suicide]]. He cycles the phaser through about five yellow settings and then five red settings to what we can only assume is 'Maximum Kill.'

* [[spoiler: Manfred von Karma]] from ''AceAttorney'' uses a taser to knock out Phoenix and Maya

* ''{{Thief}}'' has the Gas Arrows, which do not do any damage but will instantly knock people unconscious, regardless of how alert they are. Given how incredibly useful this is in this game, they are quite rare.

* Weapons that render a person unconscious, or incapacitate without causing permanent injury, are rare in real life. The sad fact is that the amount of force necessary to knock a person out is almost as great as the amount of force necessary to kill a person, and it's very hard to hit hard enough to do the former without hitting ''so'' hard that you also do the latter.

* Since the premise is centered around law enforcement, ''MinorityReport'' shows off quite a few nonlethal weapons. The closest thing they have to a stun gun is a gun that shoots a huge shockwave of air powerful enough to [[BlownAcrossTheRoom blow people across the room]].

** In ''StarWars/{{Allegiance}}'', Mara Jade confronts a shady warehouse dealer who doesn't believe her when she tells him that he's not going to like the penalties for assaulting an Imperial agent. He orders his thugs to restrain her. One of them pokes her with the muzzle of his blaster just before firing; she twists around and uses the Force and some fancy moves to shoot all of the thugs, ending with the one who poked her, with that blaster, and aims it at the warehouse dealer. All very quickly.
--> "Stun settings," she commented approvingly as the triple thud of falling bodies faded away. "So Pirtonna wasn't nearly as ready to play all-or-nothing with me as you are. Smart man. Means he gets to live through the night. What do you think ''your'' odds are?"

* The [[ImpossiblyCoolWeapon Lawgiver MkII]] in ''Film/JudgeDredd'' has a stun setting. However, it's notoriously unreliable and, as a result, [[ScrappyWeapon highly unpopular]] among street judges. They also have access to "Stumm" gas grenades, that incapacitate people through nausea, vomiting and other unpleasant symptoms - essentially current CS grenades on steroird - that unfortunately kill 1 in every 250 people affected so are only used in serious riots.

* The [[ImpossiblyCoolWeapon Lawgiver MkII]] in ''Film/JudgeDredd'' has a stun setting. However, it's notoriously unreliable and, as a result, [[ScrappyWeapon highly unpopular]] among street judges.

* SPECTRUM-issue sidearms have a stun setting in the ''CaptainScarlet'' remake, which is a mild {{bowdlerisation}} from the original 1960s version. It's a ''mild'' bowdlerisation because they also have a clearly-marked KILL setting which appears to be the default, and the on-screen body count is not noticeably lower.

* LarryNiven's KnownSpace has mercy needles, slivers of [[InstantSedation anesthetic]] that dissolve in the bloodstream of whoever is shot with them.
* In LoisMcMasterBujold's Literature/VorkosiganSaga, stunners are standard issue for police or anyone else who might want to be able to shoot first and ask questions later. Hangover-like symptoms are a nearly universal side-Effect, and at one point something like "we don't have to worry about heart conditions with this lot" is mentioned, implying that there is a risk of causing more severe damage than intended.
** She also points out a problem with stunners: If they're all you've got, then you can be killed by an unarmed mob, since they won't be afraid of attacking you, and with sufficient numbers they can overwhelm you, and kick you to death. If you were carrying a lethal weapon, they wouldn't dare try it.

Subtropes include InstantSedation (especially in the form of firearms firing tranquilizer darts), StaticStunGun for the electric-powered variant and SonicStunner for the sound-based version.

** The Firaxis [[VideoGame/{{X-COMEnemyUnknown2012}} remake]] replaces the Stun Rod with the Arc Thrower, which must be researched first after performing an autopsy on an alien (which determines that their central nervous system is similar to ours). The Arc Thrower is not a melee weapon, but it must be fired at a very close range. The basic Arc Thrower only has a 70% chance of working, though, and you only get 2 shots with it per mission. Once you build the Foundry, you can upgrade the Arc Thrower to have a higher chance of stunning an alien (and also make it work on new types of aliens). The weapon is best used by the Assault class who have the Lightning Reflex ability, allowing them to dodge the first alien Overwatch shot (i.e. they can run up to the enemy and use the Arc Thrower without being shot).

*** Ronon's weapon also has various power settings, which at the lower end seem to act in a similar manner.

* Several anime (''LostUniverse'' and ''{{Gasaraki}}'' immediately come to mind) treat rubber and plastic rounds this way, as somehow enacting the InstantDeathBullet without the death, rather than just ''hurting''.

* The Dominators in ''Anime/PsychoPass'' have a Paralyzer mode for targets whose Criminal Coefficients are between 101 & 300. Anything above that goes into Eliminator mode.

* In the ''VideoGame/SplinterCell'' series, Sam's rifle fires a variety of knock-out weapons, including electric bullets, airfoil rounds (which work via [[TapOnTheHead blunt trauma to the head]]), and gas grenades.
** In ''Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory'', the captain of the ship in the second mission actually ''dies'' if you try to knock him out (presumably from a heart condition or something). It doesn't count as a kill in your mission stats, but if you look at his body in thermal vision you can see it cooling down to corpse temperature.

* Weapons called "Stun Rods" appear in the hands of late-game mooks in''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' and ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5''. It's a bit of a misnomer, though: in 4 they do about the same amount of damage as being shot in the face with a [[GatlingGood Gatling Gun]], and in 5 they instantly put you into [[ControlledHelplessness Dying status]].

* ''VideoGame/SWAT4'' features the full range of ''less lethal'' weapons at the disposal of major metropolitan police forces in the US, including CS grenades, Stinger grenades (fragmentation with rubber schrapnel), tasers, pepper spray, beanbag shotguns[[hottip:*: actually, beanbag ''cartridges'', but they're loaded into designated less-lethal shotguns painted green to avoid confusion.]] and paintball guns loaded with pepper balls. All this gear is ''necessary'' to achieve high or even qualifying scores, since every casualty, suspect or victim, counts against your final score.

* The already-absurd-in-many-ways Vin Diesel vehicle ''{{XXX}}'' takes this particular trope to an absurd degree, with the movie's version of Q giving Vin Diesel a gun with an assortment of incredibly expensive "specialized" ammunition with various bizarre functions, including a highly complex bullet that not only knocks out its target with a harmless tranquilizer but contains a blood-squib to create the flawless illusion of an actual shooting to any witnesses. Vin Diesel, of course, is almost immediately [[PlotTailoredToTheParty given the opportunity]] to use these in a staged assassination.

([[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment For the last time,]] RealLife equivalent: the T.A.S.E.R.[[note]][[TomSwift Thomas A. Swift's [[FunWithAcronyms Electric Rifle]][[/note]]).

([[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment For the last time,]] RealLife equivalent: the T.A.S.E.R.).