Finger Gun

"I was arrested for the illegal possession of an imaginary gun. I don't know what all the fuss is about, it only fires imaginary bullets!"

"Hand over the cash, or I blow you away with this finger."

— Jeff Macnelly, from an illustration accompanying a Dave Barry column

☞ Bang.

You've seen this before. A person imitates a gun with his hand. May be used for a Brandishment Bluff, when they pretend to have a real gun.

In an action series, a Friendly Sniper may help give the impression that the "gun" actually works. In more comedic series, the gun will actually fire something, resulting in a Finger Poke of Doom. A common target of Your Mime Makes It Real.

For more information, see Uncyclopedia. Please, please do not confuse with "Fingerbang", regardless of what South Park tells you.

See also Giving Someone the Pointer Finger and Implied Death Threat (when used to suggest being shot later). Stuffing the finger in a gun is Finger in a Barrel. See also Hand Blast for cases where some actual superpowered or magical ability is used. Actual guns built into the fingers belong under Finger Firearms.

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Examples:

Advertising

• This unused Xbox 360 commercial takes this trope and turns it Up To Eleven.

Anime & Manga

• Hild from Ah! My Goddess does a variant of this in one chapter of the manga, she puts her finger to her head in a finger gun shape and shouts "bang!" and collapses. She does this in order to extract a crystalized fragment of herself out of her body.
• Bakemonogatari: Meme Oshino does this once, putting his fingers to his head in the shape of a gun.
• Makima of Chainsaw Man has a devastating Hand Blast power that she uses by pointing her finger and saying "bang". She started using it after defeating the Gun Devil, suggesting it was one of her ever growing list of contracted devils' powers.
• Recurring motif with Spike from Cowboy Bebop. In fact, it's the last thing he does in the final episode.
• This is Lamba's primary weapon in Dangaioh. The Dangaioh itself lacks this but gains a Power Palm through her instead.
• One of the Contractors in Episode 23 of Darker than Black is shown to have this as her power. She uses it to send a rubber band through a car and precisely go through a man's skull.
• Death Note:
  • When L first meets the task force, he pretends to shoot them like this, saying that, if he were Kira, they'd be dead already.
  • In the jokier four-panel comics, he does this, then twists his hand round into an "L" shape.
• In Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta does this at one point. Considering who he is, it does work and is quite lethal.
• Chizuru from Dream Eater Merry does the finger gun a few times, saying "bang" while doing it.
• In Eden of the East, Kondo the detective does this in his Establishing Character Moment; a sniper shoots at his target just as he says "bang". Also during the climax, Akira does the same thing to the missiles as they're being shot down.
• Master Hades does this after he shrugs off Team Natsu's combined efforts in Fairy Tail, and since he's an exceptionally powerful wizard, his fingers can actually fire magic bullets. Naturally, he kicks the crap out of everyone with it, even as he starts having fun with it and shouting "BANG!" Hey, he was a guildmaster for Fairy Tail once. Old habits die hard.
• Gauron does this in Full Metal Panic! with his Humongous Mecha, which actually produces a Wave-Motion Gun effect. It helps that the machine is equipped with the Lambda Driver, which creates a powerful energy field directed by the pilot's imagination, thus the Finger Gun gesture served as a focus.
• GeGeGe no Kitarō: In most early incarnations, Kitaro actually shoots off his fingers against the enemies, leaving him with hollowed stumps until they regrow. In the later incarnations, he shoots a powerful blast of spiritual energy out of his index finger.
• Hiro from Inuyashiki uses finger gun motions to deliver very real killing blows. The most disturbing part is there's no visible projectile or sound besides him saying "bang" and he's able to use it from a distance where his victims can't even see him.
• Jigoku no Gouka de Yakare Tsuzuketa Shounen: To shoot his hellfire as more easily controllable bullets, Flare imitates a gun with his fingers to shoot off a rapid stream of small fireballs in an attack he dubs "Curse Fire Bullets".
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Battle Tendency: Santana absorbs the bullets that he was shot with by Nazi officers, and uses his fingers to blast them all to smithereens.
  • Stardust Crusaders: Jotaro's Star Platinum can extend its index finger to long distances with bullet-like speed and tends to make this pose when doing so.
  • Stone Ocean: F.F.'s Stand allows them to shoot plankton as a projectile, typically from their fingers. Later on, their fingers turn into the parts of a gun when they do this.
  • Steel Ball Run: Johnny Joestar's Tusk is a bit more literal than most examples, since his finger gun can actually shoot projectiles; namely, his fingernails.
• One of the oldest examples is the 1988 film Kimagure Orange Road: I Want to Return to That Day, where in the ending, Hikaru points to the camera and does a finger gun gesture.
• Sieglinde Jeremiah of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid is able to fire quick bursts of energy by making this hand gesture. It doesn't do much damage, but it could disrupt an opponent's attack when aimed at their face as Einhart found out when she attempted to do a dodge and counter.
• Heero gives one to Zechs in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.
• Lockon Stratos of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 does this. It's also the last thing he did, before he died.
• In Moriarty the Patriot, Moran gives Billy a hard inspection from a distance trying to see Billy the Kid, famous quick-draw gunman in the sociable young man, only for Billy to quietly notice, turn, and give him pretend to shoot at him with his finger with a joking "bang!"
• In Naruto, when Suigetsu is introduced he puts his finger to Sasuke's head after sneaking up behind him to test his nerves... rather strange, considering the setting's Fantasy Gun Control. Later, it's shown to be an actual technique to fire a piercing water bullet: the Second Mizukage calls it the Signature Move of Suigetsu's clan, then Suigetsu uses the technique himself against Spiral Zetsu.
• Mana in Negima! Magister Negi Magi seems to be able to shoot small bursts of spiritual energy in this fashion (for situations when she somehow can't reach her handguns quickly enough).
• In One Piece, CP9 are masters of Rokushiki, one form of which is Shigan (Literally "Finger Gun") where they use this style of finger pose, but instead of firing anything, they stab people with their fingers, which become as powerful as bullets.
  • However, a couple variations do allow something akin to this. In his Leopard Zoan Hybrid mode, Rob Lucci performed a variation known as Tobu Shigan "Bachi" ( "Flying Finger Gun: 'Plectrum'"). A projectile version of Shigan that fires sharp compressed air bullets from the finger, it's implied that the claws from his Zoan hybrid form allows him to fire them. He even made a fiery version in the anime, created through friction.
  • Boa Hancock's Pistol Kiss technique allows her to blow a kiss from her fingertip like a bullet. She has a large-scale variation of this technique called the Slave Arrow.
  • Ace's fire gun and Franky's "Ouch Finger".
  • Donquixote Doflamingo's Tamaito is literally a monomolecular harpoon gun fired from his fingertips.
• In Episode 20 of Outlaw Star, Jim Hawking gives one to Gene Starwind while saying "Bang" after Gene complained about Jim sending Melfina to keep an eye on him when he wanted to go out alone for drinks.
• The Space Patrol salute in Space Patrol Luluco involves doing this while pointing up with the right hand, going with the overall gun motif of the series.
• Symphogear: Chris Yukine does this during her G season transformation. It became so iconic that she's often portrayed doing that pose in promotional art.
• In Trigun, Vash the Stampede uses his fingers to pretend that it's a gun in order to threaten the Villain of the Episode, and then "shoots" it off once the Mexican Standoff has ended. Though it should be noted he hid his finger under his clothes, making it look like a real concealed gun.
• Wild ARMs: Twilight Venom: This is done twice in the first episode.
  • First time it's subverted Loretta and Mirabelle to Kiel, using a bottle with cloth over it. Although Kiel looks around and strikes up a semi-friendly conversation with them.
  • At the end it's played straight, Cheyenne (even though he has his super-powerful ARM) uses his finger against the warden of the prison he was stuck in. Since the prison is a floating island (using magnetic rocks), this makes the Warden have his fear of heights take over, and end up falling off the cliff.
• In Undead Unluck, Andy and Victor use a literal version of this where their regeneration abilities to shoot off their fingers by damaging them and re-growing them rapidly with high pressure from creating new cells and blood.
• In the manga version of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Bandit Keith mimes Russian Roulette in front of Joey in this way as a way of referencing just how crappy he's seen his life get. Later on, when he threatens Pegasus at gunpoint, Pegasus smacks him with a Penalty Game which has him mime Russian Roulette again, lose, then dies, because Your Mind Makes It Real.
• YuYu Hakusho gives us a non-comedic version of the "gun actually fires" variant: the Spirit Gun. However, it averts the Finger Poke of Doom trope, since the Rei Gun requires a lot of the user's spiritual energy. Early on, Yusuke could only use it once per day, but later on, he could increase his limit through training and it also became a lot stronger and bigger as an result. Since it is his Signature Move, it's basically his most powerful one. Several characters do the regular version as well, including a particularly memorable one from Keiko.

Comic Books

• Daredevil: Bullseye likes to combine this with a Slasher Smile.
• The comic book Finger Guns uses this, though the gesture isn't used in jest. The finger guns can control people's emotions.
• The Losers: Jensen threatens a security guard with his fingers, claiming to be "dangerously telekinetic". Of course, none of the guards believe him, until Jensen says "bang" and the guard falls over. The rest of the security force surrenders and Jensen thanks Cougar, his sniper backup in the building behind him.
• A What If? comic, in which Spider-Man became an assassin, had him installing guns into his web-shooters; naturally, they were triggered with this pose.
• In the Grant Morrison comic St. Swithin's Day, a boy who has been planning the assassination of Margaret Thatcher, turns out to just intend to point at her and say "Bang!" As her security team tackle him, he reflects that it was Worth It just to see her scared.
• A Bronze Age Superman story has Terra-Man lure Supes into an Alternate Universe where magic dominates instead of science. Terra-Man's Doppelgänger there just shoots magical bolts out of his finger instead of using a gun.
• Mime from Watchmen does this in Doomsday Clock. Subverted. in Issue #3 he shoots someone with his "imaginary" gun and it actually works. How this works has yet to be explained.

Comic Strips

• In a Rex Morgan, M.D. strip in which Sarah Morgan imagines her dad as Dick Tracy, he and the villain do this, while a narrative box explains "Sarah's imagination is a firearm-free zone!"

Fan Works

• Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series:
  • It makes fun of the fact that guns were edited out and as a result it looks like characters are waving finger guns. "Don't move, or we'll shoot you with our invisible guns!"
  • Later Yami Bakura kills Zombie Boy with an invisible gun by pointing his finger.
• In Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily, Specter's Split Personality Easter forms this gesture when they switch out after Death Eye electrocutes them and then channels an electric attack that paralyzes Death Eye.
• Anyone manages to play this trope for drama. Earlier in the fic, Izuku clearly tells All For One that if he goes after All Might, he will burn his life. A few weeks later, during the Harbor Disaster, All For One grabs the chance to attack All Might, not taking Izuku's threat seriously. After Izuku almost kills himself to break the fight, he points a finger gun at All For One, silently promising that he'll make good on his threat. All Might lampshades that normally the gesture would look ridiculous, but now he just has to admire the audacity.

Films — Animated

• Superman vs. the Elite sees Manchester Black do this right when he used his powers to execute the Atomic Skull.

Films — Live-Action

• 13 Tzameti. A more experienced player in the Deadly Game of Russian Roulette taunts the protagonist with this trope as they wait to participate in the next round.
• Ballistic Kiss has an example that is Played for Drama. At the end of the film, protagonist Cat is being led out by Carrie after an intense shootout where he killed every single enemy, but upon seeing the cops gathered outside, he decides to stick his hand inside his coat, prompting the police to open fire on him. Turns out he’s actually reaching out for his glasses.
• Bangkok Dangerous 1999 begins with a little girl imitating shooting someone with a finger-pistol, Match Cut with Aom, the Professional Killer protagonist giving a target the Moe Greene Special. The scene is edited to look like the child's finger-gun shot out a person's eye.
• The kung-fu movie, The Battle Wizard, have the Yin Yang Finger skill, where practitioners using their chi can fire lasers from their fingertips while making a finger gun pose. In a movie set before invention of guns and lasers, for that matter!
• Mr. Bean does this in his first movie, Bean, at the airport. It catches the attention from the airport police officers which causes him to flee from them. After the chase, he was surrounded by six officers, with four at the front and two at the back. One of the officers told him to drop his weapon. He carefully places his finger gun onto the floor in front of the confused officers. This gets Bean into a heap of trouble, and David has to bail him out.
  • The tie-in book Mr. Bean's Scrapbook gives his side of the story: "I was arrested for the illegal possession of an imaginary gun. I don't know what all the fuss is about, it only fires imaginary bullets!"
• In Blackbeard's Ghost, the titular ghost has a physical presence, but is invisible to everyone except the protagonist. When he uses Finger Gun on some criminals, Blackbeard knocks them out, creating the impression that it actually worked.
• In The Brothers Bloom, Stephen makes a finger gun at Bang Bang, who mimes the bullet impact in her forehead and flicks the hanging bulb behind her, as if the imaginary bullet had passed through her skull.
• In Busty Cops due to the lack of a budget during the final showdown a cop had to go gunless and had to hold her hands as a gun. There's an incredibly fake spark when it fires.
• In Chronicle Andrew uses his telekineses to knock down a hoodlum, punctuating it by pointing his finger and firing.
• Crank doubly subverts the "it actually fires" aspect: Chev Chelios breaks the standoff by miming shooting one of the henchmen, who proceeds to fall over dead with a bullet in his head. It's later revealed to be a shot from some other people who are also enemies of the Big Bad.
• It receives a callback in Crank: High Voltage, with a man who Chev Chelios was interrogating at finger-point suddenly develops a bullet wound to the head. Chev then examines his finger with some surprise, as though it were an actual gun.
• A similar incident happens in The Dark Knight, with two kids in a car 'shooting' at a vehicle that's then blown up by the goddamned Batpod.
• Death Race. The masked man who kills Jensen's wife does this after leaving Jensen to take the fall. When an inmate in the prison Jensen ends up in makes the same gesture, it tips him off that his incarceration there is not a coincidence.
• Paul Kersey does this at the thugs at end of the first Death Wish movie in a freeze frame shot, signifying that his days as "Mr. Vigilante" are not yet over.
• Exaggerated in one scene of The Expendables 2, when Barney treats his Finger Gun as if it were actually his revolver, complete with cocking the 'hammer'; subverted when all the baddies he 'fires' it at fall over dead as though he actually shot them; then double subverted when it turns out all the bullets were actually fired by Friendly Sniper Billy the Kid.
• In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood's character does this to a passing car. He does it again to a group of thugs harassing his neighbour, then reaches back into his jacket and draws his real pistol. When he does it again at the end of the film it's actually just a lighter, but the gang can't tell in time, so they shoot him dead in front of dozens of witnesses seconds before the earlier called police arrive in the neighborhood, as he'd planned.
• "Shooter" McGavin in Happy Gilmore fires his finger at the hole when he sinks a ball as his douchebag calling card.
• In the epilogue to Holmes & Watson, Watson makes this gesture at Moriarty.
• Kate: Ani steps out into the road in front of the car of a Yakuza boss causing it to brake. When they start shouting at her, she points a finger gun at the driver and 'shoots'. Cue Boom, Headshot! She then points her finger gun at the man next to him and we see a green Laser Sight on his forehead right before Ani 'kills' him as well. Kate then appears firing a silenced laser-sighted submachine gun to kill off the rest of the boss's bodyguards.
• In the ending of Kill the Irishman, Danny Greene realizes he's about to be blown up by Italian mafia hitman Ray Ferritto. Deciding to Face Death with Dignity, he makes a Defiant to the End Finger Gun to Ferritto just as the car bomb goes off.
• In Legion, a cop does this while patroling the streets of L.A.
• In The Losers, Jensen eludes a trio of guards by pretending to have telekinetic powers, which he demonstrates by taking out two of the guards with his Finger Gun. The guards didn't know that his pal Cougar was watching.
• Zig-Zagged Trope in the Burt Reynold's movie Malone (1987). The villains suspect Malone is a Professional Killer after he beats up local thug Dan Bollard, so to find out they fill up his brother Calvin with beer, give him a gun and sic him on Malone to see what will happen. Malone is having his hair cut, and claims he's got a gun under the barber's gown, nudging it suggestively. Calvin says it's just his finger but when Malone dares him to find out the hard way, Calvin flees. Malone then reveals to the others in the barber shop that it is his finger after all. Outside the man who gave Calvin the gun taunts him for being a coward, so he charges back inside, gun blazing. Malone however has gotten to his coat that's hanging behind the door and removed the .44 Automag from his shoulder holster which he promptly uses to kill Calvin. The incident becomes a Brick Joke at the end of the movie. Malone has single-handedly destroyed the villains when he comes across the corrupt sheriff who was aiding them. The sheriff cowers away in fear when Malone makes a threatening move, only to reveal he's holding a Finger Gun.
• A staple of Marx Brothers movies is Chico using this gesture to play a staccato note or two on the piano.
• A variation in The Replacements (2000): When one of the players scores a touchdown, he does a victory dance that includes "shooting" his teammates with the ball. They all play along by falling down.
• Reservoir Dogs, the diner scene:
  Joe: I changed my mind. Shoot this guy, will ya?
  Mr Blonde: Finger Gun, *pew*.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World:
  • Kim does a mock suicide when viewing especially stupid things by pointing a finger gun at her head, making a "Blam!" sound, and falling over.
  • Also from Scott Pilgrim: the literal hand guns of the vegan police.
• In the film Serendipity, the bored sales clerk played by Eugene Levy does this in the warehouse. The director's commentary explains that this is quite out of the ordinary for a bored sales clerk, so he'd want to inject a little drama into the situation.
• Spectre: Bond Girl Madeline does this just before she falls asleep to warn Bond not to try putting the moves on her.
• In Star Trek (2009), Kirk "fires" his gun in sync to the firing of proton torpedoes during the Kobayashi Maru.
• In the first movie of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, a policeman is hiding in the dark subway tunnel, with the villains ahead on the hijacked subway train and a SWAT team behind. However nothing much is happening except negotiations, so while bored he points a finger at Mr Brown and pretends to fire it, only to get a nasty shock when a real shot rings out (fired by a careless SWAT member), leading to an exchange of gunfire.
• At the end of climactic scene in Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle pretends to be shooting himself with a Finger Gun when cops arrive.
• In Time Bandits, when Og is trying to escape from Evil, Evil uses his hand as an actual Finger Gun, pulling back on his thumb and forefinger as if they were the hammer of a gun and firing transformation blasts to turn Og into a half-pig.
• Transformers (2007) has an Autobot/Decepticon battle taking place over a crowded freeway. Cut to a car with two boys in it, pretending to shoot at the car next to them. Then the car they are aiming at explodes, followed promptly by two 30-foot tall giant robots engaged in a running gun battle charging by. Try not to guess whether the car they were pretending to shoot at actually held two more friends who were pretending to shoot back.
• Tuff Turf: While the teacher plays a documentary about gunfighters, bored students start shooting each other with finger guns.
• Warlock: The Armageddon: The villain literally shoots people with his finger to mock their prior attempt to gun him down with a shotgun.
• In Wild Thing, the 3-year-old protagonist fires a finger gun at his head when Leah asks him what happened to his parents.

Jokes

• Chuck Norris once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger by yelling "Bang!"

Literature

• Julius Root is armed with a fake finger in the first Artemis Fowl, which shoots a sedative syringe with the knuckle being the trigger.
• The Everything Box: The Fallen Angel Qaphsiel has a habit of making a finger gun and saying "Bang" when he blows people up with his mind, though it isn't necessary for the power to work.
• A rather cute exchange between Tycho and Wedge involves one of these in Legacy of the Force.
• In a lighter moment in Modesty Blaise, Action Girl Modesty gets in a finger-gun battle with a pair of small boys.
• In the Percy Jackson and the Olympians book "Battle of the Labyrinth", Percy plays a game of Rock–Paper–Scissors with Briares, the Hundred-Handed One. Briares cheats by throwing paper, scissor, and rock all at once, but Percy defeats him by forming a finger gun and saying "gun beats everything". It was a trick his stepdad taught him.
• In Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, when the School Play is being rehearsed without props, the Minutemen are forced to mow down the Redcoats by pointing their index fingers at them and saying "bang, bang, bang."
• Jay 'Popinjay' Ackroyd in the Wild Cards series has the power to teleport other people or objects (but not himself). Normally, for his power to work he use his hand as a Finger Gun and 'shoot' at his target.

Live-Action TV

• The Adventures of Superman had Superman (as Clark Kent) jab his finger into the back of a mobster, who assumed Clark had pulled a gun on him. He actually said to the crook that it might be just his finger, and the gangster replied, "I know steel when I feel it."
• A Running Gag on All in the Family had Edith telling a long involved story full of digressions while Archie pantomimed killing himself to avoid having to listen to the rest of it. One of these had him carefully "loading" his finger followed by "shooting" himself in the head.
• In one Barney Miller episode, an alcoholic robber accidentally tries to hold up a store with this because he was too drunk to actually put his hand in his pocket first. The clerk called the cops once he was finished laughing.
• Blake's 7: In "Warlord", bored Federation guards are shown doing this to drugged citizens passing by them on an elevator. They soon gravitate to shooting people with real guns just for kicks.
• The third episode of Case Closed's drama spin-off, Challenge Letter to Kudou Shin'ichi, involves a case where Ran's mother Eri makes a finger gun at a defendant in court — and said defendant is struck and killed by an actual bullet. Eri proceeds to act as if she really did shoot her with her finger. Of course she didn't, but touching the real weapon by accident prompted her to act as if the finger gun was real.
• In a first season episode of Cougar Town, Jules uses a finger gun on her head and uses her other hand to mimic the other side of her head getting blown off. In Season 2, finger gun "suicides" (and murder-suicides) become rather common.
  • Then there's the "truth guns" where people put a Finger Gun to someone's head which forces that person to tell the truth. Eventually, it gets overused to the point of a Mexican Standoff.
• Used in a demonstration for an episode of CSI.
  • In "A Thousand Days on Earth", The Heckler at a comedy club does this to threaten the comedian after the comedian makes a joke about abortion.
• They end up firing real bullets in Danger 5. "Who needs a gun, when you've got imagination!"
• Liddy, the crooked cop in the fifth season of Dexter, aims his finger at a random kid in one scene just for the hell of it.
• Get Smart. Max does this; naturally it's an actual gun disguised as a finger. Unfortunately it's only got one shot, which Max uses up with a warning shot to demonstrate that it really is a gun.
  • Later Max demonstrates he has one of these and the CHAOS agent says it's now unloaded. Max claims it's a two shot version — and proves it by firing the second shot.
• The last on-screen hell banishment in the live-action adaptation of Hell Girl involves Ichimoku Ren blowing a hole in the target's chest with a finger gun.
• Heroes had a character who had this power, it was strong enough to make glasses shatter. He only appeared in a flashback episode, as Sylar tore his skull off, then incorporated the power as the famous method he used to get to people's brains: slowly raking a finger gun across their skull. Before then he always bashed their heads in and cut open their head, afterwards he could do so just by pinning them down long enough.
• Nice twist on How I Met Your Mother: Robin finger-shoots herself in the head, and Barney next to her wipes her imaginary brains off his face.
• Judge John Deed: A defendant does this to the jury from the dock, to try to intimidate them.
• In Justified when Big Bad Quarles points his left hand at you it is actually a very serious threat. He has a spring-loaded sleeve gun strapped to his left arm and when his arm is in that position he can have a real gun in his hand in the blink of an eye. When he is pointing his hand at you he is actually considering if he should shoot you for real.
• The number of times this happens in Kamen Rider Ex-Aid is downright hilarious. Taiga Hanaya, who uses the Shoot-Em-Up game Bang Bang Shooting for his base form, uses a finger gun — with a spoken "bang" — so many times that any time someone is trying to spoof him, that's what they'll do.
• In The Lost Room, the Weasel briefly tries the old "hand stuck in pocket to mime a hidden gun" routine on Detective Joe Miller to coerce him into giving the Key back; Joe not only sees right through the routine and yanks the Weasel's hand out for all to see, he doesn't even have the Key anyway, having lost it to Kreutzfeld in the Collectors' vault.
• In Luke Cage (2016), villain Diamondback trolls an idiot underling by miming shooting him with a finger gun, but it turns out it's misdirection, as he used slight-of-hand to draw a real pistol with his other hand, and hip fires it. The misdirection makes it seem for a split second like he shot him with an imaginary gun, which freaks out his other underlings.
• In episode 46 of Mimpi Metropolitan, when Juna comments that filming a scene with Alexi felt like a war, Alexi responds by trying to shoot Juna with finger guns.
• An episode of The Office ended with a Mexican Standoff, including no less than 8 finger guns when Michael, Dwight, Andy and Pam got a little too caught up in a murder mystery game.
• One Piece (2023); Shanks starts his standoff with Higuma's bandits by aiming a finger gun at them when they take Luffy hostage. One of the bandits decides to call his bluff and charges, at which point Shanks "pulls the trigger" and Lucky Roux, standing behind him, shoots the attacker with a real gun.
• An On the Lot entry film, Die Hardly Working, takes this to the ludicrous extreme.
• Person of Interest: Martine does this to John Reese as an Implied Death Threat while walking away from their Mexican Standoff in "The Cold War".
• Real Men: Hopeless suburbanite John Ritter tries to use a finger gun to cover super agent Jim Belushi during a gun fight. Ritter comes to believe that the finger gun works when Belushi coincidentally fires at the same target. Later, an enemy is so surprised by the finger gun that he backs into a sharp stick and dies. Finally, the Big Bad is shot by a minor character who was believed to be dead, leading Belushi to believe it works.
• An episode of Spaced features two epic finger gun battles, even throwing imaginary grenades and knives into the mix. The second fight has the two main characters engaging in a fight with some kids trying to mug them, and getting away while the muggers were playing dead. Finger-guns are Serious Business.
• In Star Trek: The Original Series, Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Harry Mudd pretend to kill Scotty with these as part of a plot to Logic Bomb the robots in the episode "I, Mudd"
• Quark pulls one in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Little Green Men". As part of their attempt(s) to get out of government imprisonment, he threatens to shoot his "hostage" Nurse Garland:
  Gen. Denning: With your finger?
  Quark: With my death ray.
  Denning: It looks like a finger to me.
• When Mike tries to convince El to talk to adults for help in Stranger Things, she refuses, but her limited vocabulary means she's only able to say that "bad things" will happen. As she's already seen Benny get shot for helping her but doesn't know the word for "gun", she mimes a finger gun and fires it at Mike's head. This is enough to get the point across.
• Supernatural.
  • Subverted. The angel Zachariah does this to Sam, who promptly falls down with a broken leg.
  • Played for laughs when Crowley is giving a rant about how every demon who works for Lucifer is looking for him, "...AND HERE I AM, TALKING TO SAM AND DEAN WINCHESTER, UNDER A SPOTLIGHT!" (points finger gun at streetlamp overhead, which explodes)
  • Played with in "Hunteri Heroici" when a Psychic-Assisted Suicide is carried out by someone pointing a finger at the gun-wielding villain, who then turns the gun on himself.
• Veronica Mars: Veronica uses this at Sheriff Lamb in the pilot episode.
• In Warehouse 13, a policeman mimics shooting himself in the head this way.

Music

• This forms the climactic battle in the video for "Country Song" by Seether (in a western setting with the band dressed as cowboys). After his band-mate is shot down, the lead-singer does a brief Skyward Scream before pulling out an invisible Gatling gun, mowing down everybody left before being abducted by aliens. The video takes place in the imagination of a little boy, and everybody involved are merely toys.
• The David Bowie video "I'm Afraid of Americans" uses finger guns as a recurring motif, which culminates in Trent Reznor shooting a car with working pantomimed machine gun.
• The signature hand gesture of Run the Jewels is a finger gun pointed at a fist.

Professional Wrestling

• At Survivor Series 2005, after Triple H defeated Ric Flair, he mimed shooting Flair while gloating.
• Kenny Omega often does the finger gun gesture during his entrances and matches. This is one of the many things Jim Cornette criticizes him for.

Radio

• In an episode of The Goon Show, two army officers discuss a recent incident with the show's moronic protagonist Neddie Seagoon:
  "During that last German attack, all he did was point his finger at them and shout, 'bang, you're dead'."
  "Perhaps he had run out of ammunition?"
  "No! I inspected his finger, and it was fully loaded!"

Tabletop Games

• Battletech: Some models of Powered Armour too bulky to have hands requires the user to make a finger gun as a way to fire weapons mounted on it.
• To combine this and This Banana is Armed, take a look at the Shards of the Exalted Dream Sidereal Charm "Holistic Bullet Methodology".

Theater

• The Complete History Of America Abridged uses index-finger-and-thumb guns in a couple of scenes, including the one where Adolf Hitler "hands" his pistol over to Rock Fury, Super GI.
• Critic's Choice:
  Parker: It ought to be part of the unwritten law; any man who catches his wife with a typewriter—pow!
  (He fires his forefinger, then blows the smoke from its muzzle and holsters it)
• In Hadestown, Hades uses finger guns to emphasize his points in "Chant (Reprise)" as he lectures Orpheus on their shared marital struggles.
• Prima Facie: Tessa points her fingers akin to guns as she destroys a witness with four brutal questions, she metaphorically "killing" the prosecution's case.

Video Games

• In Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp, Grit's CO Power cut-in graphic shows him pointing his finger at the screen as if he's firing a revolver, befitting of his status as The Gunslinger.
• Battlefield V has it as an Easter Egg weapon complete with special animations and sound effects.
• Several in the Borderlands series, namely the psycho on the cover of the game, and bandit lords Krom and Flynt. Taken Up To Eleven in Episode 4 of Tales from the Borderlands, when Rhys (disguised as Vasquez) ends up having a massive gunfight with the accounting staff of Hyperion... all with imaginary guns, grenades, and even an imaginary knife throw. Hyperion takes their imaginary guns incredibly seriously. So seriously that if you refuse to play along, or fail the QTEs, they will pull out real guns and kill you. This becomes Chekhov's Skill in the final episode. Gortys's ultimate Humongous Mecha form draws combat data from her pilots. When controlled by Rhys, because of his skill at finger gun fights, she gains the ability to actually fire blasts of energy from her fingers.
• This is how the eponymous Cuphead and his brother Mugman attack; they snap their fingers in a gun motion and fire little energy pellets with various properties. These are not Finger Firearms because the boys don't actually have guns in their hands — their old mentor Elder Kettle gave them a potion that allowed them to fire these shots as a means of helping them while they try to sort out their Deal with the Devil.
• Beating Dead Space 2's Hardcore mode earns the "Hand Cannon." It is a red foam finger. The primary fire is "bang bang," and the secondary is "pew pew pew." The weapon's description is "Real space. Real terror. Real foam." When Isaac points and fires, he actually says "bang bang" and "pew pew." The Hand Cannon obliterates Necromorphs quite nicely.
• Devil May Cry 5: Dr. Faust's default attack is Dante shooting Red Orbs out of his fingers while doing this. Unlocking Irregular Full Custom and using it to unequip all guns causes Dante to point finger guns at locked-on enemies.
• Disco Elysium: Siileng the street vendor points and shoots finger guns as part of his laid-back, cool guy nature, and with enough Composure, the Detective can be inspired to do the same. The "Finger Pistols (9mm)" thought that this interaction unlocks gives you a slight boost to Suggestion when your hands are empty, and lets you pull them out during several conversations.
• The Doom mod "HAND" (available here) replaces all of the weapons (apart from the super shotgun) with these. Naturally, they all work like normal weapons.
  • Another Doom mod, Russian Overkill, has this as the melee attack for one of the three player characters. He mimes the action of firing a gun (either a shotgun, a pair of revolvers, or a machine gun, depending on the inputs made)-which actually fires real bullets that kill monsters.
• Earthworm Jim: The sequel gives Jim literal finger guns as an alternate weapon to his blaster. They function as a spread shot as bullets come from three of his outstretched fingers.
• In Dawson's Cinekill in Eternal Champions: Challenge From the Dark Side, the Dark Champion challenges him to a showdown. The Dark Champion's weapon is a finger gun... which he loads with the bullet from Dawson's gun. He turns out to be faster on the draw.
• Exterminator, an obscure arcade game released by Gottlieb in 1989, involves up to two players controlling disembodied hands, shooting at incoming bugs with finger guns or squashing them if they get too close.
• Subverted in Fallout 2. No projectile comes out but Algernon reacts like one did. Not a good idea if you value his services.
• Rin fires her signature Gandr spell this way in Fate/stay night.
• Aquila does this in Final Fantasy XI's Wings of the Goddess storyline. It fires. He kills three out of nine Cait Siths with it, and potentially your party when you come to fight him.
• In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the animation for casting magic spells by the Trickster class involves the caster making finger gun gestures.
• When Anzu Futaba was transported from Cinderella Girls to Granblue Fantasy, she somehow got the ability to point at foes and yell "Bang!" to deal actual damage.
• In A Hat in Time, Hat Kid gets into the proper mood for stealth sections by keeping her right hand held up while making a finger gun.
• In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, one of Deadpool's moves has him shouting "BANG BANG BANG!" like he's using a finger gun whilst firing two pistols making the very noise he's imitating.
• This is Ocelot's signature mannerism in Metal Gear.
  • In Metal Gear Online, players who draw Liquid Ocelot have access to his unique Guns of the Patriots weapon, which is a Finger Gun. He points it at enemies and says "bang", and locks their weapons for a few seconds.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Liquid Ocelot utilizes this once he takes down the army surrounding him.
• Overwatch:
  • This is one of D.va's favorite gestures. Her default highlight intro has her defiantly shooting a finger gun at the camera before doing a Badass Arm-Fold. She also has a cool life-like spray featuring her aiming a finger gun.
  • Tracer has a "Finger Gun" emote of the "goofy greeting" variety.
  • Baptiste does this during his “Konpa Dance” emote, complete with a giant ear to ear smile on his face as if he’s having the time of his life.
• In Pokémon Sword and Shield, the final evolution of the Water-type Starter, Inteleon, does one when using its Snipe Shot attack.
• The cover of Rose Guns Days Season 1 has Leo doing this gesture. He also does it at the end of the opening… and shoots a real bullet from it apparently.
• Like the above Cuphead, this is Shyna's main attack in Silhouette Mirage, snapping her fingers in a gun motion and firing energy blasts of either Silhouette or Mirage energy depending on which way she is facing at enemies.
• Master Hand from Super Smash Bros. can fire up to three missiles in a row from its finger guns. Luigi also does the Finger Gun in one of his taunts, but with no effect. This is also one of his victory animations, too.
• In Team Fortress 2, the Heavy Weapons Guy has this as one of his taunts, and it can insta-kill anyone unlucky enough to be in his line of fire.
  "POW! HAHA!"
• Pathos of Telepath Tactics does this in her Character Portrait, though only with one hand.
• Reisen from Touhou Project was shown doing this (kinda...) in official art, and thus it became her personal gesture in Fanon. She also actually shoots bullets this way in the Fighting Game Spin-offs. Of course, they're not actually bullets, it's magical danmaku.
• Gabe Cunningham of Trauma Center (Atlus) does this, most likely as a Shout-Out to Cowboy Bebop.
• When Flowey goes One-Winged Angel in Undertale, one of his attacks is bringing up giant photo-shopped hands that fire explosive fingers with his head on them.
• West of Loathing has this as an option early in the game. If you haven't found a ranged weapon yet, but try to do a ranged attack during a fight, your character will point their finger at an enemy and shout "Pew!", which actually does damage comparable to an unarmed punch.

Web Animation

• ASDF Movie:
  Mugger: (pulls gun) You get mugged, kid!
  Kid: (turns and gives him two finger guns) No, you're getting mugged!
  Mugger: Aah! How the hell does that even work?!

Web Comics

• Jupiter-Men: In addition to throwing fireballs by punching while wrapping his hands with fire, Arrio can shoot much smaller bursts of fire by making a finger fun gesture.
• Ronin Galaxy: Cecil holds up a thug with his fingers instead of a real gun. Which he then proceeds to punch him with.
• Sleepless Domain: During the fight in Chapter 1, Tessa points a finger gun at the monster and quips "Bang." before unleashing her finishing blast, obliterating it instantly. Later on, Undine makes the same gesture during her own moment of Heroic Resolve, making a Call-Back to Tessa's one-liner as she uses Tessa's power to save her newfound partner.

Web Original

• Climate Town: After introducing himself as "unconventionally unattractive and a climate science and policy master's degree recipient" Rollie makes finger guns and unenthusiastically pretends to be shooting up the ceiling in celebration.
• When The Nostalgia Critic, Linkara and Spoony teamed up for their Alone in the Dark (2005) review Spoony had to resort to this because he didn't have a signature gun like those the two others had.
• In Gym Class by Olde English Comedy, a Finger Gun fight breaks out during gym, complete with gunshot sounds, blood, and most of the cast ending up dead.
• In Rollplay: Swan Song, Wilbur Higgins III or "Higgs" is known for doing finger guns at people. At one point, he combined finger guns with his crew mate Erik's Psychic Powers to scare off a cruiser full of Space Pirates.
• In a Rooster Teeth short showing "bloopers" of previous shots, one such blooper has one of the guys doing this to a co-worker, and accidentally shooting him with live ammunition. The first guy then turns it on himself, with the same results.
• In the SCP Foundation's discussion page of SCP-682, there's a joke termination log wherein "Dr. Djoric" simply enters 682's cell and repeatedly finger-shoots it by shouting "Bang! Bang! Bang!". This successfully kills 682, to the exasperation of the 05 Council.
• Uncyclopedia refers to this as a handgun, though we already have a trope with that name.
• Whateley Universe example: the supervillain Pointer has telekinetic powers, and prefers to blast people with a Finger Gun style. In "Ayla and the Birthday Brawl" he manages to take out nearly half of Team Kimba.

Western Animation

• In Bob's Burgers episode "Into The Mild", Gayle's play includes an incident in which Delta Burke winked and made finger guns at her.
• In Challenge Of The Go Bots, GoBots tend to fight each other by firing lasers from their fingers.
• In the Dexter's Laboratory episode "World's Greatest Mom" when Dexter's mother, accidentally imbued with superpowers from one of her son's inventions (thanks to Dee Dee, as usual), deals with a bank robber during a trip there. Subverted that the robber's fingers are the guns, but also exploited that Mom thought he was another customer that rudely cut in front of her.
• Goofy finger-guns himself in the head after missing an easy putt in the Classic Disney Short "How to Play Golf." Yes, it goes off. And yes, he only gets singed.
• This trope gets spoofed rather viciously on Family Guy. Turns out Paris has a lot of mime on mime violence.
• An episode of Futurama features the characters playing a virtual game of laser tag, in which the Finger Gun is the primary weapon. Fry at one point even uses a "Fist Shotgun", "cocking" his wrist with his other hand and unleashing a laser blast.
• Inspector Gadget has a gadget for every finger, including a laser on his pointer finger.
• In Johnny Bravo during the episode the titular character partakes in a marathon, the guy with the start gun uses this trope instead, pointing in the air and shouting "BANG!" and results in smoke rising from his fingertip. He stares confusedly at his finger while a dead bird falls from the sky.
  • Also in the pilot episode, the mugger sticks up the gorilla with a finger gun. Johnny does the same to the robber when confronting him.
• In an episode of Justice League Unlimited, Lex Luthor trades bodies with The Flash, and while rampaging around The Watchtower points a Finger Gun at a JL staffer, threatening to "vibrate right through and scramble [his] brains".
• Kaeloo:
  • In "Let's Play Air Pockets", Stumpy makes one of these and threatens to shoot everyone unless Kaeloo gives him back his video game which she took away.
  • In Episode 65, Kaeloo makes these when impersonating Mr. Cat.
• Looney Tunes: In "The Daffy Duckaroo," Daffy is being chased by Indians, so he points his finger at them and makes spitting noises.
  Daffy: We don't use real ammunition, folks...we save all that for the Army!
  • In "An Egg Scramble," robber Pretty Boy Floyd is holed up in a building where police are firing live ammo. Pretty Boy uses his finger and makes machine gun noises.
• The Al Brodax version of Popeye used this trick once where he used his pipe against the back of outlaw Suicide McBride (Brutus) who thought it was a gun. When in jail:
  Suicide: Hey! Where'd did you get a gun?
  Popeye: (holding up his pipe like a gun) I didn't have no gun. I just used me little finger! Bang! Bang!
• An episode of The Real Ghostbusters had the spectres of the Earps doing this instead of having ghostly revolvers.
• Rick and Morty: In "Unmortricken", this is done quite literally with Evil Morty, who shoots his finger into Rick Prime's head, allowing him to tap into Rick Prime's implants and deactivate all his failsafes.
• South Park:
  • When the boys are playing police, they use Finger Guns. When they are deputized by the real police and sent in to bust a meth lab, and later to take down the leader of a drug ring, they use Finger Guns as well.
  • The name of their Boy Band "Finger Bang" is revealed to be a case of Innocent Innuendo when they perform a song while shooting finger guns and singing "Finger bang! Bang bang!"
• Steven Universe: In "The Question", Ruby points her fingers and says "pow" shortly after getting the idea to be a cowboy.
• In the Tex Avery-directed cartoon The First Bad Man, when his real gun runs out of bullets, Dinosaur Dan uses his own finger as a gun instead.
• The Season 1 finale of Total Drama Island has a more realistic use of this. While being forced to listen to Harold's long and boring speech about beavers Noah pretends to shoot himself with a Finger Gun, even making a bullet sound to go with it.
• In the Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production episode "World Wide Wabbit", after breaking out of prison, Yosemite Sam realizes he doesn't have his guns, so he decides to use his fingers like this. Later when he threatens Bugs, he finds out that he can actually fire bullets from his fingers when he accidentally shoots himself in the foot.

Real Life

• Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is fond of this trope. The opposition likes to react to negative news with "Do some finger guns and it'll probably get solved".
• The logo of the Hangzhou Spark of the Overwatch League features this.

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