Guns Akimbo

Redefining "no-look shot" while at it.

"Give a guy a gun, and he's Superman. Give him two, and he's God!"

— Superintendent Pang, Hard Boiled, about Tequila Yuen

Is one gun just not badass enough? Try two!

As far back as the Westerns of the 1950s, The Gunslinger has often strapped on two pistols. Double-fisted firing of handguns just looks cool. Especially when the shooter hits two different targets with one noisy, confusing volley. Slow-mo leaping and dodging with Bullet Time effects not required, but helpful. Bonus points if the weapons of choice are fully automatic machine pistols, like Ingram SMGs or Micro-Uzis, and/or are held Gangsta Style.

This trope is a standard feature of The Western. Usually the two-gun fighter is just that much better than his opponents, that he can draw two guns in the time it takes them to draw one. In The Old West and The Cavalier Years, carrying two pistols was a practical result of long reload times. Combing this trope with Throw-Away Guns meant some people carried several guns strapped to their body to keep up a steady rate of fire.

In police oriented shows, procedurals and action media alike, this trope is largely a villain trait. The two-gun fighter is usually a destructive psycho with no regard for collateral damage, particularly Two Uzi Guy. Police characters and other heroes will usually be contrasted by using proper technique with a single gun, showing their discipline and concern for safety.

In stylized action media, especially Heroic Bloodshed movies and Anime, this trope is one of the primary elements of the art of Gun Fu. The two-gun fighter in these media is often very skilled, has Heroic Ambidexterity, can pick off multiple targets with pinpoint accuracy, use his guns as melee weapons and maybe do other crazy things one would not normally be able to do with a gun.

The style of shooting varies wildly with the user. A guns akimbo shooter might concentrate rapid fire on a single target at a time, simply doubling his output of bullets on the target by using two guns. He might instead track multiple targets at the same time, aiming in different directions or even behind his back. If he has automatic weapons, he may spray both guns wildly to saturate the area with lead. Overlapping with Throw-Away Guns, the character might simply draw a second weapon with his off-hand when his primary weapon runs out to save time in reloading, the classic "New York Reload."

The logical conclusion is to make the wielder Multi-Armed and Dangerous.

As one might expect, real life attempts at executing this go very differently. While it's absolutely possible (and has been demonstrated) to concentrate your fire on one target with two guns, tracking multiple targets at the same time is nigh impossible. The latter has been tried and tested exhaustively (including by MythBusters), and the consensus is that a human being cannot accurately track and shoot two targets in two different locations at the same time - though that doesn't necessarily dispel the Rule of Cool factor surrounding this trope. And said character might not be an ordinary human being.

Compare Dual Wielding, Sword and Gun, and Firing One-Handed. A popular way of achieving More Dakka. See also Gun Kata and Gun Fu. Like other fighting styles with multiple weapons, this may be a manifestation of Heroic Ambidexterity.

Not to be confused with the 2019 film of the same name, which prominently invokes this by bolting a pistol to each of a very unlucky Daniel Radcliffe's hands.

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Example subpages:

• Video Games

Other examples:

Anime & Manga

• Justified by Briareos Hecatonchires of Appleseed. A heavily modified cyborg, Briareos is the only man to date that's proven able to handle his experimental Hecatonchires operating system that controls his cybernetics. Named for the legendary 100 armed giants of Greek myth, a Hecatonchires equipped cyborg could presumably operate an entire aircraft carrier by himself due to the incredibly advanced processing power it allows them. Briareos generally just settles for dual-wielding machine guns, or even quad-wielding when in his Landmate by holding two normal sized guns in his actual arms and two enormous rifles in the Landmate's.
• Aria H Kanzaki of Aria the Scarlet Ammo's nickname, Aria the Quadra refers to her preferred weapons are two pistols and two katanas, both dual wielded. Riko also fights in this style.
• Attack on Titan: The Anti-Human Suppression Squad dual wields pistols instead of swords, since their targets are other soldiers.
• Mey-Rin from Black Butler first showcased her weapon proficiency and Improbable Aiming Skills in the Book of Circus Arc by dual-wielding bolt-action rifles with relative ease, and then picking up another pair in rapid succession. Noa's Ark Circus members Peter and Wendy found out about this the hard way, the latter by way of a Boom, Headshot! One-Hit Kill.
• Kevin McDougall, a member of the Sweeper Alliance in Black Cat, wields two pistols. Although he looks like the most timid and helpless of the group (especially when he was injured by Shiki), he is actually one of the more dangerous and useful sweepers during the attack on the Big Bad's base. Using two guns, he's able to subdue multiple Elite Mooks at once. Mind that these Elite "Mooks" are actually very hard to kill, much less subdue.
• In Black Lagoon, this is why Revy, the main badass of the series, is known as "Two Hands." She not only wields two pistols at once, she also performs such feats as gunning down groups of enemies 180 degrees apart and reloading one weapon with her teeth while keeping up fire with the other, acrobatic leaps while firing, and more. Somehow, it works.
  • The liner notes to one manga volume acknowledge that Rei Hiroe basically went with Rule of Cool.
  • To make this even less realistic, she does this in one scene with rifles.
  • Mr. Chang, the head of Roanapur's branch of Sun Yee On, is even better at akimbo than Revy herself, and it's implied that he's the one who taught Revy.
  • The other main dual-gunners of the series are the maids of the Lovelace family, Roberta and Fabiola; Roberta by dint of her FARC assassin training and being one of the biggest badasses of the entire series, and Fabiola by dint of having been trained by Roberta herself. Fabiola in particular wields two Techno Arms MAG-7s (essentially oversized shotgun pistols) during her first shootout at the Yellow Flag and uses them and a China Lake launcher to completely annihilate her opposition.
• In Bleach, Starrk wields two guns when he releases his Resurrección. They fire ceros.
• Jo from Burst Angel can dual-wield a pair of Desert Eagles with pinpoint accuracy. Yes, she's just that badass. Made easier by being an Artificial Human created for combat.
• In City Hunter, Umibozu can do this with a M-60 machine gun and a bazooka. Justified due him being just that big, and even then he only does it when he's going all-out against multiple opponents.
• The issues with this get lampshaded in Chrome Shelled Regios when Sharnid gets a dual pistol version of his sniper rifle and comments that people who use two guns are either "extremely stupid, and just do it to look cool, or extremely skilled". He then claims to be in the former category.
• The Lancelot from Code Geass was already a master at Dual Wielding, but when it was upgraded into its Albion form, it started carrying around a rifle in each hand.
• In Corpse Princess, Makina's weapon of choice is a pair of MAC-11 machine pistols.
• Spike Spiegel of Cowboy Bebop fame occasionally uses two guns akimbo. Appropriately, in a possible subversion of the trope, every time he does this he is unable to kill his opponent fast enough to avoid being shot in return (invariably wounding his left arm and forcing him to continue the fight with just his dominant hand), save for one flashback sequence where we do not even see who he is shooting at.
• Kurumi in Date A Live does this with a flintlock pistol and musket. These are part of her time motif (representing the hour and minute hands of a clock, respectively) and can either be fired normally or used to channel her powers.
• In an extreme example, in Dead Leaves, Retro (briefly) uses three guns at once. There's also Triple Six and his two BFG 's.
• Genkaku from Deadman Wonderland does this... with his double gatling-gun electric guitar.
• Done fairly often in Digimon. Deputymon in 02 has this western style, and it gets better in the third movie. Later in Tamers, when we're introduced to Gargomon, he does this with two machine gun hands. Later, Beelzemon pulls this off once in Bullet Time.
• Riza, the resident Gunslinger of Fullmetal Alchemist does this on occasion. Havoc too, but he seems to favour the "New York Reload".
• Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Normally, Motoko uses a single handgun or rifle, supported with both hands. However, in the episode "BARRAGE" in the first season, she utilizes a Seburo M-5 handgun in each hand. These are not quite as impractical to wield as they fire low recoil armor-piercing 5.7mm rounds reinforced by her cyborg body and firing software, but the fact that she was fighting an Armed Suit made the attempt almost completely ineffective. After getting her left arm blown off, she single-handedly uses an anti tank rifle to make the pilot inside regret that he ever messed with her.
• Onizuka does this in Great Teacher Onizuka...but with a pair of light-guns while he's playing House of the Dead. He winds up getting a better score than anybody else thanks to this.
• Used not so exactly in Gundam, where there are any number of Mobile Suits mounting multiple ranged weapons - yes, including the "normal" sized ones, not just the even more heavily armed siege types - and that's not to mention bits/funnels/DRAGOONs capable of moving independent of the host mecha. Probably one of the most iconic examples is the Freedom from Gundam SEED cleaning house with its twin plasma cannons and twin railguns. In certain cases, the difficulty of aiming may be Handwaved or Justified by advanced targeting systems and Newtype / Coordinator powers.
  • The Wing Zero can pull this off with its twin buster rifles, which can also combine together to form one massive buster rifle.
  • In Endless Waltz, the Heavyarms pulls it off with two sets of twin-linked gatling guns.
  • Add also Gundam SEED C.E. 73 Stargazer: Blu Duel and Strike Noir both use a pair of "shorty" beam rifles (in other words, beam pistols). Meanwhile, Buster Verde carry two huge beam rifles that can be combine like Wing Zero's buster rifle mentioned above.
  • Gundam 00 is fairly fond of this one. Both Gundam Dynames and Cherudim Gundam akimbo a pair of beam pistols. Gundam Arios has two double barreled beam rifles (and a pair of beam gatlings mounted in each arm). Not to be trumped, Gundam Virtue and Gundam Seravee are both capable of using two beam bazookas at once. Gundam Zabanya (which succeed Dynames and Cherudim) can not only akimbo two of its 10 Rifle Bits, but also break them down to Pistol Bits for the same purpose.
  • In Gundam Build Fighters Try, a GM Custom attempts this with two GM Rifles during one of the tournament battles. It gets blasted by a beam rifle and falls over backwards dead.
  • The Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans takes this to the most extreme seen in the franchise. When two arms with one rifle each isn't enough, why not have four arms?
• The main character of Gungrave, Brandon Heat consistently uses two guns (crossed) once he Took a Level in Badass through training with Bear Walken. Fellow hitman Bunji Kugashira and antagonist Brad Wong do as well (the latter using decorative gold and silver revolvers), and all are insanely good shots. When Brandon is resurrected as the deadman called Beyond the Grave, he still dual-wields a pair of even bigger handguns, the Cerberus.
• In the Gunsmith Cats manga Rally Vincent manages to thoroughly debunk this technique (along with Gangsta Style) while moonlighting as a firearms instructor: "It's a throwback to old Westerns." The first multi-shot handguns were fixed-frame revolvers, which could only be loaded one round at a time (many of them didn't even use cased ammo yet, requiring powder and shot to be hand-loaded in each chamber) via a thumb-operated "loading gate", and on top of that, unloading the casings was just as much of a hassle: tip the gun upwards, open the loading gate, then pull on a metal ejector rod beneath the barrel to push out each casing. All optimized for lefties, by the way, because handguns at the time were designed for use by cavalry who would be holding a horse's reins or a saber in their right hand. To keep that hassle off the battlefield, shooters would thus carry multiple guns and load them beforehand, fire six rounds from one, then switch. "They only used them simultaneously in movies." She then proceeds to compare shot groupings by firing with two guns, then a two-handed grip. The two-handed grip gives her enough accuracy to cut a target in half. And by changing fifteen-round magazines just before she fires the fifteenth round from the first mag, she's able to fire thirty shots in as many seconds! Ironically, this actually gets her fired, since the shooting range owner's business model is cheap range time and selling lots and lots of ammo — teaching them how to shoot accurately means they buy less ammo.
• Alucard in Hellsing does this with two humongous pistols, a .454 Casull and a 13mm "Jackal". He can get away with it due having immense strength and reflexes because of his vampiric nature.
  • In another example, Seras Victoria takes this trope up to eleven against Millennium's blimp when it makes its assault on the Hellsing Manor. If one Harkonnen is overkill, what's two at the same time?
    • The two guns being fully-automatic, belt-fed, 30 mm anti-tank cannons!
• In Kurohime, the Sidekick Zero uses four guns, and combines this with improbably fast shooting and Improbable Aiming Skills to shoot the guns out of the hands of whatever mooks happen to be around.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Teana Lanster from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS does this with a pair of pistols that can become a pair of energy daggers for Dual Wielding. Justified in that she trained herself in ambidextrous shooting from a young age, and her mentor recognized this as her special skill and organized a custom-made dual Device for her.
  • Arnage of the Hückebein family from Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force uses two BFGs at once. Gatling Good plus rocket launchers combined in one weapon which she has twice. Both BFGs together forming a Wave-Motion Gun.
• The eponymous heroine of Madlax does this all the time, wielding a pair of custom SIG P210s into every gunfight. The accuracy issue is irrelevant when you consider that her gun dancing style frequently has her shooting people with her eyes closed while facing in a different direction.
• Klaus is portrayed with two guns fairly frequently in the art and omake of Maiden Rose but always seems to drop back to just one in actual combat.
• In Mazinkaiser SKL, one of the pilots, who specializes in Gun Kata, can pull this off with SKL's ranged mode, turning the unit's chestplate into two pistols. Which he uses to tear up the battlefield.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Mana Tatsumiya often dual-wields Desert Eagles when fighting in close range. These may or may not be airsoft replicas, however.
  • Yuuna also dual wields pistols at various points.
• Subverted when Neon Genesis Evangelion did it with Giant Robots. Asuka starts off her showdown with the 14th Angel firing one rifle, but with a bunch of weapons stacked behind her (probably a 7 Samurai Shout-Out). As she runs out of ammo, she progresses through (giant) machine-guns akimbo to (multi-shot) bazookas-akimbo. Unfortunately for her, it's So Last Season.
• Kirika does the "New York Reload" (empty one gun, then switch to another) version in Noir. Justified, as she's up against an absurd number of mooks and doesn't have time to reload.
• In a One Piece flashback, Genzo desperately fires two pistols at Arlong in an attempt to save Bellemere's life, but Kuroobi blocks all his shots and slashes him with a sword.
  • Later in the manga (and chronologically since it's not a flashback) Nico uses her Dos-fleur to wield four pistols at once.
  • In the 10th film, during their Big Damn Heroes moment, all the Straw Hats (minus Nami) bring out BFG and use them against Big Bad Shiki's forces. This is the only time we ever see Luffy and Zoro even carry guns. Not to mention how those who hardly fight with weapons, such as Sanji, actually using a weapon.
• Scanty of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt wields two revolvers. She's not terribly accurate, but then, neither is Panty when shooting at her. Note that in order to do this, due to the nature of the weapons, she has to wear two pairs of panties at all times.
• Mami in the third episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, with an entire arsenal of conjured flintlock rifles, which she wields Gun Kata style.
• Xanxus, once a Big Bad and now did a Heel–Face Turn in Reborn! (2004), implements a double gun wielding fighting still with two special guns that fire large bursts of his Flame of Rage. Oh, yes, he can really kill.
• Rebuild World: Deconstructed. Akira has an Imagine Spot about using two assault rifles. Alpha sees this via their Telepathy and scolds Akira that he'd need the extra strength that Powered Armor provides as Required Secondary Powers or else this would break his arms. After he gets some, Akira makes this standard, using some combination of assault rifle, anti-tank rifle, Grenade Launcher, or minigun. However, at one point, due to a new set of armor Akira bought being down for reprogramming mid-battle, Akira ends up using two rifles without the strength required and it mangles his arms so bad that even his Nanomachine Healing Potion doesn't stop the pain.
• Soul Eater's Death the Kid does this, holding both guns upside down and pulling the triggers with his pinkies. Kid is so obsessed with being symmetrical at all times that he literally will not fire unless he is wielding both guns. He is psychologically incapable of not using Guns Akimbo.
• In Strike Witches, Gertrude carries two heavy machine guns into battle. Then again, with her magic and Striker Unit, she's strong enough to do it, and her battle tactics seem to revolve around unleashing massive amounts of ammunition at close range to destroy targets.
• Succubus & Hitman: The signature weapons of the titular hitman, gifted to him by the titular succubus.
• Vash the Stampede in Trigun (A Cattle Punk setting), on some very rare occasions, uses two weapons at once.
  • In fact, since his left hand is a gun, and he carries his favored weapon in his right, he's basically dual wielding at all times, even if he doesn't usually use both at once.
  • And Knives once uses two world-ending beam cannons at once.
  • In the manga, one we get Wolfwood's best friend/nemesis Livio the Double Fang, who dual-wields paired guns that can shoot forward and backwards simultaneously.
    • Livio's alter-ego Razlo takes this trope even farther, having a cybernetic arm grafted to his back so that he can triple-wield three massive, six-foot steel cross Punishers.
    • Wolfwood also gets into this at least once with the pistols hidden inside his own Punisher.
• Tres Iqus from Trinity Blood uses two guns at the same time in a style reminiscent of Gun Kata. Said guns are Hand Cannons and he's extremely good at using them (given that he's an android, this probably qualifies as a Justified Trope).
• In World Trigger Satori Ken, the Arashiyama-team's sniper, prefers using two Sniper Rifles simultaneously.

Art

• Older Than Radio: One youth in Eugène Delacroix's famous 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People is dual-wielding pistols.

Asian Animation

• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 24, when Sparky initially appears to demonstrate his skills with paintball guns, he wields two paintball guns and shoots with both of them at the same time.

Card Games

• Deadlands: Doomtown: "Gordo" Andrade, and later an action card to let any dude pull it off.
  Gordo: Two hands, two guns. It is as God intended it, no?
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Japanese art for Don Zaloog shows him with a pair of pistols. For censorship reasons, these were changed to a pair of knives, but his fingers are still in trigger positions. And he's still wearing a pair of bandoliers full of bullets...
  • Interestingly, when he appeared on Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, the guns were restored. Even in the dub.

Comic Books

• Agent Venom switches back and forth between this trope and the proper way to use a gun.
• The Avengers: Kang the Conqueror uses a dual minigun that's light enough to fire with one hand, preventing the need to dual wield, but he sometimes holds an additional gun in his offhand, because he can.
• Hush, a Batman villain, uses two handguns. It's his style.
  • Two-Face, in keeping with his obsession with duality, is also known to use two guns, bitch.
  • Post-resurrection Jason Todd frequently does this.
  • Black Mask use double handguns as his signature weapon.
• The Battle for the Cowl event has multiple people dressed up and claiming to be Batman. Jason Todd's "hat" is being the Batman who dual wields guns.
• In Combat Kelly and his Deadly Dozen, Psycho Party Member 'Ace' Hamilton would sometimes charge into combat wielding a submachine gun in each hand.
• Deadpool is frequently depicted using two guns◊. Of course, he also uses two katanas, two sais...I think maybe he really, really likes twos. Then again, he can also kill you with his bare hands. But how many hands does he have? TWO!
• Deadshot, a member of the Secret Six and the Suicide Squad, fights using dual wrist-mounted machine guns.
• The Falcon wields a pair of firearms in the Ultimate Marvel universe. A bit of Lampshading goes on when he fails to hit one of Galactus' heralds, and Misty Knight points out how difficult it is to aim while firing two guns.
• A frequent tactic of Jonah Hex.
• Kid Colt (2009): At the very start of the series, one of the men ambushing Colt during breakfast charges into the saloon with a pistol in each hand. He's almost immediately shot dead, and nobody else tries this approach during the series.
• The Marquis, aka Vol de Gaulle, in Guy Davis' comic uses two gattling gun-like Baroque-carved pistols to fight the "Devils" that may-or-may-not be plaguing the city, which he uses either akimbo or in combination with his sword.
• Casanova, Zephyr Quinn and Big Bad Newman Xeno all do this in Matt Fraction's Casanova.
• The Mighty Thor: When Skurge the Executioner made his Last Stand at Gjallerbru against the army of the dead, he wielded two M-16 assault rifles.
• Outlaw Kid: The titular Kid's trademark weapons are a pair of colt revolvers that once belonged to his father.
• The Saint of Killers from Preacher almost always used two Walker Colts together. After the job of The Grim Reaper was passed down to him, his new guns were forged from the old Angel of Death's sword, making them perfectly accurate.
  • And perfectly deadly - they could kill anyone, even entities who were technically immortal. If someone was already technically dead, they could survive, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch.
    • Garth Ennis has been quoted as saying it was a mistake to have the Saint shoot Cassidy early in the series; it was before he'd figured out what he was writing and there's really nothing and no one that can survive. It's not like those guys he kills later can be defined as biological lifeforms, and honestly, how would you explain that his guns can kill you-know-who but not a little undead vampire?
• The Punisher uses this trope frequently, as far as back in the cover of the first issue of his first series.
• In Red Robin Pru, a member of the League of Assassins who eventually deflects and joins Tim's information network, always enters fights with a blazing gun in each hand. She is incredibly accurate while doing so as well.
• Makita, a character from The Red Star, occasionally dual-wields pistols.
• Robin: Jaeger is almost always seen with a handgun in each hand while he's "hunting", to make his kills more cinematic than sniping his prey from afar.
• Scud the Disposable Assassin came factory-equipped with a pair of full-auto machine pistols, and knew how to use them right.
  • In one issue, Scud wields four guns at once. (Two in each hand, with his trigger fingers going through both guards.)
• Dwight from the Sin City story The Big Fat Kill wields two .45s, as does Hartigan at one point in That Yellow Bastard (both featured in the movie, by the way). Also, another Sin City story, Family Values, includes a double-Uzi assassination, which is a deconstruction, as the collateral damage caused by it is why Dwight and Miho go after the guy responsible.
  • At one point Dwight's .45s results in a Shout-Out to The Shadow.
• Twisted Dark: In the story "Paranoia", when a bunch of robbers break into his house at the end, Keith Conatser grabs two guns and wields one in each hand.
  • In Silent Night Marv wields two .45s.
• The reason the Two-Gun Kid is called that is because he, well, wields two guns. The prevalence of the trope gets some Lampshade Hanging in his Marvel Westerns one-shot where he discusses gimmicks with Old Man Svenson and claims this is his, only to be asked, "but don't all a' ya got two guns?"
• The Ultimates: Monica Chang favors wielding two pistols.
• Wild CATS Wild Storm: This is one of Grifter's favorite tactics. He will almost never be seen without a gun in each hand.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: Capt. Storm dispatched the crew members who helped him bury his loot, and therefore knew its location, by shooting them with two pistols simultaneously.
• X-Wing Rogue Squadron:
  • Typically characters will stick to one blaster at a time, though some will carry more than one around. Wedge is like this, but in Requiem for a Rogue he escapes and saves his rescue party while not only dual-wielding stolen pistols, but also crossing them◊.
  • The short Family Ties arc has Corran and Iella◊ pull a Big Damn Heroes moment on three members of Rogue Squadron who were having some trouble with thugs. Corran, like Wedge, even crosses his arms while firing at two different targets. They're part of Corsec - think police - so this is probably all Rule of Cool. It's worth noting that just a page later Corran holsters one blaster to try and make a sniper shot with the other, and when making an attack on more thugs, where they aren't rescuing anyone being held down, no one dual-wields.◊

Fan Works

• Blood and Honor: Vette carries two blasters and is rather proud of her skill with them. Though she typically uses both at once, she does switch to one on occasions when accuracy is important.
• In the Discworld tales of A.A. Pessimal, the trademark of Assassin Miss Alice Band, herself a Lara Croft Expy, is her use of two pistol crossbows held and deployed in the same manner in which Lara Croft holds her pistols. Alice, a barely-there canonical character, is developed much more in these stories as Assassin, adventuress, GayBlade and Stealth Archaeologist.
• In Fallout Equestria: Pink Eyes, there is a griffin mercenary named Henrietta who does this after she obtains her dead father's gun.
• In Fractured, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands crossover and its sequel, Origins, characters are fond of this trope, usually for More Dakka as the weapons wielded tend to be machine guns. That light things on fire. In Fractured characters do this because they are just that badass. In Origins everyone dual-wielding heavy machine guns has the excuse of mass effect-based weaponry and kinetic stabalizers.
• Zig-Zagged in the Doctor Who fanfic Gemini. Badass Normal Damien tries to dual-wield handguns and misses his shots, while Supervillain Captain June Harper dual-wields high-end assault rifles and makes her shots.
• Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami features Gratuitously British Watari doing this with a pair of "snipper" rifles. In an odd instance that is presumably a case of Rouge Angles of Satin, Dark "jumped out of a kimbo with guns".
• Pacific World War IIUS Navy Shipgirls has Nevada and her twin Single Action Army revolvers.
• Poké Wars features Dawn wielding twin .45 caliber pistols in Dawn of a New Era. In The Coalescence she wields twin pistols of an unspecified caliber. Justified because she gains Improbable Aiming Skills from the dampener removal.
• The Secret Return of Alex Mack: Sergeant Carlson is strong enough to use an M240G and an M32 at the same time. Possibly justified since he's firing on a group charging at him, and an M32 fires grenades, so precision is not essential.
• In Tales of a Reset Mind, Nico´s Joy uses two handguns, and she is actually quite good with them!

Films — Animated

• The titular hero, erm, Anti-Hero of Boogie favours using dual pistols in various shootouts.
• In the CGI short movie Azureus Rising, the protagonist uses a pair of automatic machine pistols, first against a Mook Squad, and then later a single very large and dangerous opponent. Slow-mo leaping and Bullet Time dodging are in full effect.
• The titular assassin from CGI short film The Box Assassin is known for inexplicably popping out from boxes to kill people, but if he was known for two things the second would be having a silenced pistol in each hand while doing the first.
• Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children features Yazoo, who gets bonus points for utilizing his Gun Blade, Velvet Nightmare, along with that of his brother Loz. Yes, Gunblades Akimbo.
• The Three Caballeros: Panchito has his two guns that he loves to shoot, but this being Disney, he isn't actually allowed to shoot at anyone, so aiming isn't usually a problem.

Films — Live-Action

Creators

• Older Than Television: This was the signature move of silent movie cowboy hero William S. Hart. He does it in Hell's Hinges (1916), does this when, filled with righteous anger, he charges into the dance hall that doubles as the Big Bad's headquarters. He does it in The Bargain when he robs a crooked casino of the money lost at its roulette table.
• This trope is a staple of Heroic Bloodshed films, especially those made by John Woo, who was inspired by his love of westerns.
  • John Woo's first use of Guns Akimbo happened during A Better Tomorrow, where Chow Yun-Fat's most memorable character, Mark Gor, blows away a restaurant full of bad guys to avenge the betrayal that got his friend Ho sent to prison.
  • In the sequel A Better Tomorrow II, Chow does it again - once during the motel shoot-out and during the siege on the mansion.
  • Heroes Shed No Tears, which was made prior to A Better Tomorrow but was released soon after ABT's success, also featured this trope and laid the groundwork for his later Heroic Bloodshed movies.
  • The final showdown of A Better Tomorrow III, a prequel to the first two movies which was directed by Tsui Hark instead of John Woo, had Mark wielding two M-16s in Guns Akimbo mode.
  • The Killer (1989) has Chow do it again during the three main action scenes - the restaurant massacre, the house shoot-out and the siege on the church. At one point, he wields a submachine gun and a shotgun.
  • City War, a film starring Chow but not directed by Woo, had Chow alternating between an Uzi and dual pistols in the final shootout.
  • While John Woo didn't direct The Replacement Killers, he did produce the movie, and Chow Yun-Fat was still the star. At one point during the movie, Chow Yun-Fat used at least six Berettas, discarding one pair when he was out of bullets and pulling out another pair to continue kicking ass. In the first Stranglehold trailer, this part of the movie was homaged by Woo himself with Tequila.
  • In the teahouse shoot-out that opens Hard Boiled, Chow fires two guns while sliding down a bannister.
  • The Corruptor stands out as one of the few movies where Chow Yun-Fat doesn't rely on Guns Akimbo. The only time he wields two guns is because he already had his backup weapon drawn and only kills one guy this way. He even uses the same service weapon throughout the movie — and he reloads it! Mind, the film is a much more straightforward crime drama compared to many of Yun-Fat's other movies, with only a pinch of Heroic Bloodshed thrown in for flavor.
  • Castor Troy the Big Bad of Face/Off, whose even wielded a pair of golden .45s during the opening shootout of the movie.
  • Also appeared in Mission: Impossible II when Ethan Hunt goes Guns Akimbo with a pair of Berettas.
  • Also used in Broken Arrow (1996) during a gun fight in a copper mine.

Individual films

• In this amateur film (appropriately, an entry to the Stranglehold Short Film contest), the hero pulls off Guns Akimbo with flintlocks. Lots and lots of flintlocks.
• Shown fairly realistically in the cult film Angel (1984), about a teenaged prostitute who is being targeted by a serial killer. In the climax, right when she is about to be murdered by the killer, her friend Kit Carson (played by veteran actor Rory Calhoun) lights the killer up with his twin .45 revolvers. Played straight in that he only shoots one gun at a time, cocks and aims his guns carefully, and does not stop firing until he's sure the man isn't getting back up (but he is very careful not to empty his pistols, just in case). Justified in that Kit is an experienced street performer specializing in showing off his skill with his pistols, and he has decades of experience.
• Assassins: Assassin Miguel Bain frequently dual-wields pistols on his missions.
• The Assignment (2016): Frank wields guns in both hands multiple times during the film.
• Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones, although very briefly during his fight with Obi-Wan.
• Mike Lowrey from Bad Boys (1995).
• Ballistic Kiss is an arthouse Heroic Bloodshed film starring Donnie Yen as a Professional Hitman, and he gets to use dual pistols in several shootouts.
• There's a scene in Billy Bathgate where mobster Dutch Schultz (Dustin Hoffman) is showing off the pistol skills of his bodyguards Lulu and Irving. Dutch asks Billy which of them is the best. Billy thinks it's Irving, because he aims with a single pistol and therefore is more accurate. But Dutch points out that's mostly useful for when you can set up a hit in advance. Lulu, who blazes away with two .45's, is more useful for circumstances when you need to throw out a lot of lead quickly (e.g. when you're being attacked).
• The Black Hole. The security androids on the USS Cygnus not only have a laser in each hand, the lasers themselves are a twin barrel model with one laser above the handle and one below. Fortunately for our heroes they're lousy shots.
• The Blade series features this frequently. When Blade isn't killing vampires with his blades, he's usually dual wielding pistols or customized sub-machine guns. Whistler gets in on the act too when rescuing Blade, busting through a wall wielding a pair of MP5s and delivering a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner. In Blade II, aside from Blade, Scud is shown dual wielding a pair of Desert Eagles when investigating a noise outside his van, Nyssa wields a pair of machine pistols, and Reinhardt tops them both by wielding a pair of Berettas with huge blades built into them! In Blade: Trinity, both Abigail Whistler and Hannibal King occasionally dual wield revolvers, Abby's being regular guns and King's being heavily customized versions.
• Used frequently in The Boondock Saints. Il Duce challenges all three saints with a brace of six handguns, firing them in pairs and then tossing each pair aside when empty. The Saints themselves always have a gun in each hand whenever they attack. In the first film they each had a pair of suppressed Beretta 92's, trading them in for custom Desert Eagles in the sequel.
• In The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne does this near the end of the film, when he nails a mook and strips him of his weapon. It doesn't seem like he intends to use it, but then he's "surprised" by a second gunman, and improvises by firing the second pistol upside-down, with his little finger, because he doesn't have time to readjust. Justified in that he fires at a single target at point blank range, so aiming is not an issue.
• Bury Me High: Ngyuen uses dual M16 machine guns in the final shootout.
• The Butcher: The titular Butcher uses dual Berettas during his shootouts. Gold-plated Berettas, to be precise.
• Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. Madison Lee fires two golden Desert Eagle .50 Action Express both simultaneously and Woo Style (they are chambered in .50 Action Express as you can see in a lot of close-ups on the muzzles). Not that there was any recoil distracting her, by the way. Still not enough? There's a Mongolian earlier in the film dual-wielding belt-fed machine guns in full-auto mode.
• Cherry Falls: After the fall fails to do the killer in, Deputy Mina comes to the rescue with two handguns.
• It's not a John Woo film, but City War does have Chow Yun-fat in it, and in the final shootout he alternates between an Uzi and twin Berettas.
• The Crow has two such instances of Guns Akimbo. The first has Eric Draven himself going both-guns-blazing against Top Dollar's entire gang at his boardroom in the movie's biggest shootout, and the second has Eric and Officer Albrecht battling it out against a two-gun-wielding Top Dollar and his Dragon at the church where Sarah was taken.
• Commander Rocafuerte tries to fight Cruz Diablo this way but hilariously fails.
• Turns up in a scene in the remake of Dawn of the Dead; the character possibly has an excuse, considering at least one of his legs is broken and he is being frantically dragged through a sewer just ahead of a pursuing swarm of zombies. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't help, and he dies.
• During the shootout that leads to his cryo-imprisonment, Sgt. John Spartan does this with a pair of customized Super Blackhawks in the novelization of Demolition Man. Also plays into his cowboy image, as the Blackhawk is a high-end revolver, where you'd expect an LAPD SWAT officer to be shooting semi-automatic. In the same scene in the film itself, he does carry a pair of Berettas, but only uses them one at a time with the second pistol being a backup when he loses the first one. However, he does briefly use a pair of pistols during the film's climax.
• El Mariachi in Desperado, who draws two Rugers from his sleeves in order to blow away an entire bar full of bad guys. Even moreso in the sequel, when he dual wields a sawed off shotgun and a sub-machine gun during a shootout!
• In the film version of Ender's Game, the titular character jumps into the Battle Room, grabs a floating stun gun from the enemy army as well as his own and uses them to knock out a number of enemy soldiers. He even does a typical John Woo-style spin with guns pointing in different directions, although, by that point, he's been hit and his suit frozen. Later, Petra does this to take out 12 soldiers of two armies.
• In Equilibrium, John Preston wields dual pistols and is quite literally untouchable by mooks. In an early scene, he jumps into a crossfire and stands calmly (then again, with emotions held under check he can't quite panic or anything) in one place while the opposition fires away with automatic weaponry and fails to hit him. The film attempts to explain this by inventing a fighting style known as Gun Kata, which teaches its practitioners to seek out locations in a fight where there is minimum probability of getting shot at and it's not "behind cover"). In a later fight, Preston reloads by a mechanism that inserts fresh magazines into the guns from his sleeves.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's Eraser climaxes with Kruger tearing an oncoming truck to pieces with two of the film's signature railguns firing on full auto. To give an idea of how absurd this is, the rifle-sized weapons (and their distinctive x-ray scopes) are only used in the rest of the film to snipe at targets right through walls.
• Enter the Eagles have Martin using dual pistols in his shootouts, notably when forcing villains Hussein and Karloff to back down, both at once.
  • Michael Wong, who plays Martin, does the same thing in The Blood Rules two years later, during a shootout against police officers.
• Barney Ross in The Expendables frequently wields a pair of Kimber .45's which he fires and reloads at rapid speeds.
  • In The Expendables 3'', Yin-yang uses twin Berettas which allows him to take down multiple enemies, but only in a Deleted Scene.
• Max Dire from Full Eclipse is in a werewolf action/crime-thriller but he duel wields pistols like he just leaped from a John Woo movie.
• The Game Changer, being a Genre Throwback to old-school Heroic Bloodshed cinema, has it's protagonist, Jie, kicking ass using twin pistols, using them to take names in multiple shootouts. At the end of the movie when Zi-hao raids Boss Tang's mansion, he use twin pistols as well, apparently in memory of the deceased Jie.
• In Gang of Roses, Chas prefers to fight with a massive Hand Cannon in each hand. Zhang Li also does it, but only in the final fight where she is massively outnumbered.
• Holtzmann dual wields a pair of proton pistols during the final battle in Ghostbusters (2016), complete with Bond One-Liner.
• Ghost Dog from Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai does the alternating-shots version, when infiltrating his boss' Jersey Mafia hideout.
• Multiple times during Ghost Town (1988), Devlin enters the fray with a revolver in each hand, blazing away indiscriminately. Of course, in these situations he is generally more concerned with creating mayhem than accuracy
• The Baroness from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra seems fond of this. Although when using ballistic weaponry rather than scifi "pulse pistols" she realistically fires them two-handed.
• God Of Gamblers Return has a moment where akimbo Berettas are reloaded in mid-air! That's that way to subvert the reloading problem!
• Goodfellas features Tommy "Two Guns" DeVito, just like the real person, Tommy DeSimone.
• In the film Grosse Pointe Blank, both hitmen (played by John Cusack and Dan Ackroyd) employ this technique.
• Enforced Trope in Guns Akimbo, in which the main character has both hands bolted to pistols so he can't drop them and then forced to join a Deadly Game. Of course, this causes problems for mundane tasks like getting dressed, going to the bathroom or opening doors.
• In Guns, Girls and Gambling, The Blonde, The Cowboy and Little Person Elvis all like to wield a pistol in each hand in combat. The Blonde and The Cowboy are devastating shooting like this; Little Person Elvis less so.
• Hero (1997) has Takeshi Kaneshiro using dual Mausers in the final shootout, which he carries at least nine in his Badass Longcoat.
• A Hero Never Dies: Being director Johnnie To's attempt to emulate John Woo, the final battle had its protagonist Jack shooting up a nightclub full of enemies in this manner.
• High Noon: Psycho villain Colby rushes into the barn blazing wildly with two guns. The marshal picks him off neatly with one gun.
• Hitman: The main character uses his trademark twin pistols, and many other characters use twin weapons as well, up to a villain's usage of twin RPDs.
• Appears a lot in Hot Fuzz. Then again, it's a comedy. For an example of how silly it gets, one character fires two pistols while riding down the street on a motability scooter. Slowly. Then there's the part where Nicholas Angel (briefly) dual-wields pens. Notably, when Angel's character does fire two pistols at once, he doesn't hit anything until he puts one away and takes an aimed shot with the other gun.
  "Ever fired two guns whilst jumping through the air?"
• In The Immortals, several of thieves wind up wielding a a gun in each hand during the running firefight through the nightclub. Most notable is Billy, who has a large revolver in each hand while staging a rear guard action for the rest of the crew.
• Chuck Norris famously wields a pair of Micro Uzis in Invasion USA.
• Will Smith in the film adaptation of I, Robot takes this to the nth degree by pulling both pistols out of his jacket, aiming, firing, and utterly obliterating his target while riding a motorcycle.
• James Bond, unique action hero that he is, almost never uses two guns simultaneously. The only example is in the film Tomorrow Never Dies, where ends up dual wielding an SMG and his Walther P99 while running through Elliot Carver's base. It looks... a little silly.
• In Jeremiah Johnson, the titular Mountain Man dual-wields a pair of percussion hunting rifles to thwart an ambush.
• Seen in Kate during the Storming the Castle finale, where the protagonist dual-wields handguns.
• Killer Angels and its sequel, Devil Hunters, have characters dual-wield firearms in numerous shootouts. The second movie memorably have Michael Chan using twin pistols to kill a dozen mobsters before finally getting shot and killed.
• "Benny the cop" from Kopps does this repeatedly in his daydreams.
• Bruce Willis' character in Last Man Standing does this throughout the entire film.
• In The Last of the Mohicans Hawkeye shoots two flintlock Kentucky longrifles and hits both targets, while running, no less.
• In The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, The Dwarf carries a pair of double-barreled sawed-off shotguns that he wields Guns Akimbo.
• Type 2 is used to practical effect by one of the mooks in The Last Stand to temporarily fend off Frank Martinez and Sarah Torrance.
• The final mansion gunfight from Legacy of Rage has the hero Brandon and his bespectacled sidekick using dual pistols, Uzis, or a combination of both. It allows them to kill a mansion full of mooks within minutes.
• Subverted in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Tom Sawyer, who's otherwise an excellent shot with his Winchester, often attempts to bring down enemies by unloading twin revolvers at them simultaneously. However, he never actually hits anything when he attempts this, and every time he tries it in front of Allen Quatermain, he is berated for "shooting like a bloody fool".
  Quatermain: Very American. Fire enough bullets and hope to hit the target.
• Left for Dead: Clem has a fondness for fighting with a pistol in each hand, firing both at the same target.
• Riggs and Murtaugh do this during the shootout in the subway in Lethal Weapon 3.
• In Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, a mook bursts into the Big Bad's office with two pistols pointed upwards, but it doesn't end well for him because the Big Bad is already pointing a shotgun directly at him.
• Lone Hero: Bill, in his role as town marshal in the Wild West, does this while shooting it out against the trio of bank robbers. In the climax, John does it for real in his running gunfight against the biker gang; wielding a Colt SAA in each hand.
• Bruce Willis does this in Looper, firing two FN-P90s at once (shooting from the hips, no less) when he takes on the syndicate. It's every bit as ridiculous and awesome as it sounds.
• Dennis Hopper as Mad Dog Morgan dual wields two shotguns.
• Mad Max: Fury Road has the Bullet Farmer start shooting akimbo urging brothers Heckler & Koch to sing. This in no way affects his accuracy, since he's blind at that point.
• The Maiden Heist begins with a Daydream Surprise with Christopher Walken dual-wielding pistols to stop a gang of nefarious art thieves.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • The Falcon uses a pair of submachine guns in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In later appearances, he alternates between this or a gun in one hand and some kind of wrist-mounted blaster.
  • Avengers: Infinity War has a uniquely bizarre case of this during the battle at Wakanda. Bucky Barnes, on seeing a talking, cybernetically-enhanced raccoon blasting away at the enemy, picks him up with one hand to give him better visibility while firing his own gun one-handed.
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, Skurge dual wields M-16 assault rifles fighting against Hela's undead soldiers to keep them from boarding the ship evacuating the Asgardians.
• Taken to the extreme in The Mask when Stanley draws a whole weapons arsenal including rocket launchers out of Hammerspace with his two hands. Taken to the ridiculous extreme when they all turn out to be "Bang!" Flag Guns. He even manages to twirl them all.
• The Matrix:
  • Neo dual-wields pistols at several points in the first film, though again his being in the Matrix meant his strength was far higher than humans could normally have. In one sequence, he fires dual silenced 9mm pistols using subsonic ammunition; the relative lack of recoil would make this slightly more plausible than most other forms of Guns Akimbo. He even switches off which one he's aiming down at certain points.
  • Mouse dual-wields automatic shotguns in a Last Stand when cornered by the police/agents, using custom designs that are apparently meant for this since part of the weapon wraps around the user's forearm.
  • Trinity, Morpheus, and Seraph all dual-wield during the battle in the Club Hel coatroom.
• In The Mechanic (1972), Charles Bronson's character does this.
• In Mercenaries, Raven usually wields an automatic in each hand. In the motor pool, she quick draws both of them and simultaneously shoots the men sitting either side of her; without looking at either one of them.
• In The Mummy, it's common for the American characters to dual-wield revolvers. However, this is only used in situations where there are an overwhelming number of enemies, negating the need for accuracy. When facing several riders bearing down on him, in fact, Rick O'Connell (the main character, played by Brendan Fraser) empties two revolvers at them...then drops them and draws two more. However, he never fires simultaneously (another possible advantage being that he can more easily cover a wider angle).
• Ned Kelly (1970): Mick Jagger as Ned Kelly uses a pair of Colt revolvers
• Nite Tales: The Movie: In "Karma", Dice bursts into the bank wielding a gun in each hand and immediately starts using them.
• The Outlaw Josey Wales: Josey packs no fewer than four cap and ball revolvers about his person, and uses them in pairs either mounted or on foot. Having four pistols showed a nod to practicality - since reloading a cap-and-ball revolver was a bitch, some gunmen would take a few extra pistols to reduce the need to reload in the heat of battle.
• The title character of Pistolera wields a pistol in each hand during many of her gunfights.
• One of the robbers in Police Academy 6: City Under Siege wields two guns, although he only uses one at a time and is an amazing shot. In one scene, he is dual-wielding a pistol and an SMG.
• In Predator when Dillon is getting ready to go try to avenge Mac's death, he is initially carrying a single sub-machine gun. Dutch tosses him a second one which he then wields akimbo.
• In The Professional, Leon uses two pistols when attacking the ESU officers sent by Stansfield to kill him and Mathilda.
• Several characters in The Quick and the Dead, notably Herod and trickshooter 'Ace' Hanlon. In the climax of the movie, Cort does this with Winchesters.
• Resident Evil Film Series:
  • Alice wields almost everything akimbo. Over the course of the series, she wields semi-auto handguns, revolvers, sub-machine guns, and even sawed-off shotguns akimbo (she does have enhanced strength though). Even when forced into melee combat, she swaps over to Dual Wielding fighting batons or kukri knives!
  • In Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Carlos wields a pair of Desert Eagles, LJ wields a pair of gold-plated Desert Eagles, and Jill Valentine uses guns akimbo briefly as well. These are all trumped however by the monstrous Nemesis, who wields a chaingun and rocket launcher akimbo.
  • In Resident Evil: Retribution Jill Valentine fires two Skorpion machine pistols while Fast-Roping out the back of an Osprey gunship, which leaves one wondering how she manages to brake her descent.
• The Revengers: During the Last Stand at the survey camp, Chamaco leaps out of the trench with a revolver in each hand, firing at the Comanche. Done somewhat realistically, as he is alternating which gun he fires, rather than firing both at once.
• Before he becomes RoboCop (1987), Murphy engages in a vehicle-to-vehicle gun battle with Boddicker's mooks, during which this trope appears. (Lewis is driving the patrol car while he's firing both their pistols out the passenger window.) Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs as he only manages to hit one mook, once, non-fatally. Every other shot misses badly. Notably, he doesn't attempt the maneuver at any point in his cybernetic existence, when he could conceivably pull it off thanks to software-enhanced Improbable Aiming Skills.
• Jack la Roca, the protagonist from Route 666, is fond of this trope.
• In the 2000 version of Shaft, Shaft, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is shown wielding two guns in a shootout.
• In Shane, the eponymous gunfighter is a firm believer in carrying one gun as sufficient for his needs and proves it in how quickly he kills a sinister gunfighter who carries two.
• Jake (portrayed by Kevin Costner) in Silverado is The Western's style painted in broad strokes. Lightning draws, blind trick shots, and two guns at the same time.
• In Silver Lode, Ballard briefly uses this for holding a large number of people at gunpoint at close range at the same time. He tucks one of them away when he makes a run for it, only using one gun at a time while firing.
• The movie Sin City features several characters dual-wielding various weapons, the msot prominent example being Dwight McCarthy, who like in the comics dual-wields .45s.
• The Ax-Crazy, Redneck, Neo-Nazi Tremor brothers from Smokin' Aces frequently use akimbo weapons. The most notable of these is when the biggest Tremor brother wields a chainsaw in one hand and a DAO-12 revolving shotgun in the other.
• Tobias Beckett of Solo: A Star Wars Story is introduced wielding two blasters during the Battle of Mimban.
• John Harrison AKA Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek Into Darkness with two BFGs.
• Captain Picard's dual-wielding in Star Trek: Nemesis threatens to rival Bond's in terms of the silly factor.
• Stranglehold has Jerry Trimble kicking ass and taking names using dual pistols.
• In Suburban Commando, Shep Ramsey is infiltrating the Big Bad's ship while dual-wielding blasters. He fires them one after another, before switching to another weapon.
• In Swordfish, Gabriel dual wields a pair of handguns in the car chase scene when he shoots at the attackers at both his sides.
• In The Terminator shortly after delivering his famous "I'll be back." catchphrase, the cyborg then rams a car into the police station and then proceeds to massacre the officers with a shotgun and an assault rifle. Justified by the fact that he is a literal killing machine; Improbable Aiming Skills aren't so improbable with a literal grip of steel and a CPU brain.
• Subverted by Bryan in Taken, in keeping with the movie's very grounded and pragmatic approach to combat. He acquires two pistols in the climactic gunfight, but instead of going akimbo, he tucks one of them into his waistband and doesn't draw it until after the first gun has been emptied and discarded.
• In Tall Tale, Pecos Bill carries a pair of Merwin Hulbert revolvers which he usually dual wields. Similarly, Calamity Jane has a pair of Colt revolvers which she exclusively fires in this fashion.
• Parodied in Taxi Driver in a shot where the protagonist draws his .44 Magnum in his right hand and his snubnose revolver in his left. The barrel of the former is longer than the entirety of the latter.
• In Tomb Raider, Lara uses her signature dual pistols (see Video Games examples below), with a couple of neat reloading gimmicks. In the Cold Open in her training room, she has spare magazines on swivels on her belt, so she can drop the empty mags and then push the guns onto the fresh ones. In the Cambodian temple, she wears a backpack with paired magazines on a rack, angled so that all she has to do is sweep her empty guns backward at the right angle, and the fresh mags slide right into place.
• In Tombstone, Doc Holliday confronts one of the Cowboys (Mooks who wear red bandannas) and pulls a pistol on him. The man says that Holliday is so drunk (which he clearly is) he's probably seeing double. Holliday then pulls out a second pistol with the other hand, points both of them at the guy, and says, "I have two guns... one for each of ya." He then proceeds to spin both guns in opposite directions.
• Training Day: Because of the more realistic setting and action portrayed in the film, the fact that Alonzo Harris, a cop, advances on a group of people shooting at him while firing two pistols, one of which is sideways, reveals late in the film that he's Ax-Crazy.
• In Transporter 2, The Dragon is a psychotic, scantily clad chick who dual-wields fully automatic laser-sighted Glocks.
• Tropic Thunder Done with two full sized M-16s that were hidden under a cloak until it became clear that an attempt at infiltration had failed and it was time for More Dakka. Concludes with an Ass Kicking Pose AND a One-Liner. I'm a LEAD FARMER, motherfucker!
  • Those guns were full of blanks, though. No one would give actors live ammo.
• In both versions of True Grit, Rooster Cogburn takes the reins of his horse between his teeth so he can charge towards the enemy firing a pistol in one hand and a lever action rifle In this instance, he's going for pure intimidation factor and hoping to terrorize some of his numerically superior enemy into fleeing.
• True Lies has Arnold dual-wielding a pair of Uzis. It's quite awesome.
• Marion from Undead not only uses this technique, but takes it Rule of Cool by at one point throwing the guns (he catches them again, so that doesn't really qualify for Throw-Away Guns) and using the nearest cop's trigger finger, and later doing it while hanging by his spurs from a doorway. Then again, Marion's an Improbable Weapon User.
• Casey Ryback in Under Siege akimboes heavy weapons in more than one shootout, including the massive firefight in the bowels of a ship where he uses an Uzi and a Heckler & Koch simultaneously.
• In the three Underworld (2003) films, Selene is the only Death Dealer who uses dual automatic pistols in every gunfight. All others prefer assault rifles (not akimbo). Being a vampire, she doesn't care about recoil and is a pretty good shot with both guns. In one scene, she uses the guns on full auto to "draw" a circle under her and collapse the floor.
• In The Untouchables (1987), George Stone uses two guns during the shoot-out at the train station. Note that, in his introduction, Stone is presented as something of a pistol prodigy.
• McManus in The Usual Suspects shoots two different people at the same time, with one bullet each from two different guns. During the dock raid, Keaton stealthily keeps his hands in his pockets and then shoots two men at the same time with guns hidden in his jacket.
• In Van Helsing, Van Helsing pulls both his pistols just as Hyde throws him across the belltower: firing them in unison at the monster.
• Violet & Daisy: Violet shoots this way frequently.
• A fairly early example would be in Where Eagles Dare, when Schaffer guns down countless Nazis with an MP40 in each hand.
• Taken to a ridiculous extreme in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet. Villain Tybalt dramatically whips off his jackets and slowly pulls out two handguns with the Virgin Mary engraved on them, to shoot at Benvolio during the opening fight at a gas station.
• In Wyatt Earp, Earp's party is ambushed in a canyon by allies of the Clantons and McLauries. One mook draws down on Wyatt with two pistols and begins firing them with a cocky grin on his face. Wyatt calmly walks over to his horse, grabs a shotgun, approaches the mook and blows him away at POINT BLANK RANGE. The look on the mook's face turns to abject horror as every one of his shots misses wide and Wyatt approaches with his boomstick. It's absolutely priceless.
• Agent Zero, while attacking the Nigerian compound in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Perhaps justified in this case that his mutant power appears to be superhuman accuracy.
• The final shootout in Xx X Return Of Xander Cage has Adele and Serena going Back-to-Back Badasses and dual-wielding handguns on an army of mooks.
• In the opening scene of xXx: State of the Union, this is the easy way to tell who is going to survive the attack on the Elaborate Underground Base... namely, the guy who's dual-wielding semi-automatic weapons while everybody else are toting rifles.
• Zero Tolerance: The hero played by Robert Patrick uses double pistols in every one of his shootouts. One gunfight that spills into the streets of Las Vegas had him using a pistol-shotgun combo.
• In the movie Zombieland, Tallahassee does this with dual pistols.

Literature

• Discussed in 1632, during the Croats' attack on Grantville, Dan Frost is tempted to do this, but doesn't.
• In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, a man standing on a roof of one of the structures at Rearden Steel, later identified as Francisco d'Anconia is using two handguns in the manner mentioned above, in which he uses each one to shoot at different people in a mob attacking the mill.
• The eponymous hero of the Catsfoot novels is a Quick Draw gunfigh- sorry, trail scout who always draws and fires both weapons at once in case of a misfire or malfunction in one (which would be deadly in a duel).
• Damsels of Distress: Anya dual-wields a pair of .45 auto-revolvers. Being a wendigo, she has the strength and the coordination to use both effectively.
• Richard Joseph Camellion, the title character of the Death Merchant series by Joseph Rosenberger, habitually used two handguns. Originally, he used a pair of Smith & Wesson M19 "Highway Patrolman" .357 Magnum double-action revolvers with 4" barrels, which was reasonable. About a dozen books in, he decided that the .357s didn't have enough stopping power, and upgraded to a pair of 8" barreled .44 AutoMags (!). Camellion had no difficulty firing these hand cannons simultaneously and accurately (in real life, they have more free recoil energy than most .30 caliber rifles), and on several occasions fired at and hit two separate adversaries at the same instant, much like Jake in the movie "Silverado", except without needing to "psych himself up" for it first. Camellion referred to this stunt as "mind-firing", indicating that (a) he was highly trained in small arms (in addition to other sorts of mayhem, hence his nom de guerre), and (b) he had practiced this particular trick a lot.
• In the Discworld, Assassin Miss Alice Band, a Lara Croft Expy, is portrayed as holding - and presumably using - two pistol crossbows in the same manner in which Lara Croft holds her pistols.
• Pulled off by a few characters in The Dresden Files such as "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone and Lara Raith.
• In the novels of J.T. Edson, the ambidextrous Dusty Fog would almost always draw both of his twin Colts at the same time; usually firing both at the same target.
• The Executioner. Mack Bolan uses a silenced Beretta during infiltration and a Hand Cannon for more noisy occasions, but sometimes uses both together when Storming the Castle.
• The Exile's Violin: Jacquie always has a pair of revolvers at her side.
• In Stephen King's The Gunslinger, Roland Deschain fights with a gun in each hand. He is somehow able to juggle both guns and reload at the same time. However, he loses two fingers at the beginning of The Drawing of the Three," and is thereafter limited to one gun at a time, except in flashbacks.
• In the Honor Harrington novella "From the Highlands", Jeremy X dual-wields pistols when engaging Scrags in the warrens of old Chicago.
• In the Into the Looking Glass science-fiction series, co-written by John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor, one Marine is very capable of wielding two handguns (and in Power Armor, two cut down .50 cal rifles) at the same time. However it is explicitly stated he only fires one at a time, reloading takes more time, and the character's skill at "two-gun mojo" is considered unique and extreme even among the other highly-skilled (and more experienced) soldiers.
• ThePostmodernAdventuresOfKillTeamOne: Kill Team One often uses two handguns at a time. 1911s in Rated R (2014), CZP09s and S&W Model 460s in Red Scare.
• In the Prince Roger series, co-written by David Weber and John Ringo, Rastar, Prince of Therdan, is a four armed alien who quadruple wields pistols. He is described as being almost unique in his ability to accurately shoot and track multiple targets, though. As the series progresses, he goes from using flintlocks to revolvers, to futuristic pistols.
• In Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, Big Nick opens fire on the hero with a pistol in each hand. It's not very effective.
• The Black Knight in Matthew Reilly's Scarecrow takes this to the extreme, using two matched Remington shotguns, though he does modify them to have pistol grips.
• The Shadow's signature weapons were a pair of .45 automatics. This carried over to most of the various comic book versions and the 1994 film as well. In the 1980s comics series, set in the present day, he dual-wields Uzis instead.
• In Shane, the villainous gun-for-hire Stark Wilson uses two pistols, but the eponymous character belittles that, saying that one pistol is all a person needs.
• Dick Seaton and Marc C. DuQuesne, mortal enemies at all other times, stand side-by-side with guns akimbo in The Skylark of Space, each with a pair of forty-fives loaded with extremely potent ammunition. Lampshaded in the sequel by DuQuesne himself, when he describes to an underling how Seaton has been practising his Gun Fu for a very, very long time. Not just that, but:
  DuQuesne: You know I am handy with a gun myself?
  'Baby Doll' Loring: You're faster than I am, and that's saying something. You're chain lightning.
  DuQuesne: Well, Seaton is at least that much faster than I am. (Description of just how fast follows.)

...so he is probably firing alternately from both pistols, shifting his attention between the two.

• John Thomas Rourke, title character of the Survivalist series by Jerry Ahern, wears two compact Detonics CombatMaster .45 pistols, in a custom double shoulder holster created by famous holster-maker Lou Alessi.
• Wars of the Realm: In the climactic fight with the gang in Cloak of the Light, protagonist Drew Carter dual-wields FN Five-SeveNs which he stole from federal agents.
• Wax of Wax and Wayne wields dual revolvers most of the time, and has the Improbable Aiming Skills to get away with it. When a situation requires More Dakka, he usually switches to dual shotguns.

Live-Action TV

• In 24 Jack Bauer uses dual pistols during his My Name Is Inigo Montoya moment in the season 1 finale.
• In the penultimate episode of Alias Peyton uses two machine pistols to execute the leaders of Prophet Five.
• Angel. Wesley sometimes uses two guns in the fifth and final season, but there's a This Is Reality moment in the fifth season episode "Lineage" when Wesley starts doing this trope instead of handing one of the guns to Fred, as she sardonically notes right before getting shot.
• In Auction Kings, the muff pistols were designed to be used in this manner. Given that each only held a single shot, it's fairly justified.
• Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck wields dual pistols (and on Caprica, dual Scorpion SMG's) on several occasions; the problem with this technique aiming-wise is shown during a terrorist siege, when she accidentally shoots another main character.
• Chalky White does this awesomely on Boardwalk Empire when the guys who lynched one of his associates while really aiming to get Chalky himself accidentally reveal themselves.
  Chalky: One more thing... (crosses arms under jacket, pulls out two enormous guns and turns around) How'd you know I drive a Packer?
• In the first season Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Angel", Darla wields two guns to attack Angel and Buffy.
• Burn Notice:
  • In the fourth season premiere, Michael does this with a pair of Mac-10 machine pistols to intimidate a trio of biker thugs who were terrorizing his client. Michael even points out how he has More Dakka compared to the pistol-wielding bikers.
  • Done by the hijackers in s5e10 in the same manner of a police procedural with the villain starting the hijacking by dual-wielding submachine guns and shooting up into the air. It Makes Sense in Context though, as they are using the guns with the intention of intimidating airport staff and civilians, not winning a gunfight. Also, they quickly switch to just having one gun out after they get all the hostages sitting down, though the leader continues carrying around two.
• Annie, Britta and Shirley in Community episode "Modern Warfare". For some reason, none of the other guys do except for Señor Chang, in his role as The Dragon, who pulls out dual gold-plated guns after his paintball machine gun runs out.
• In the Criminal Minds 9th season finale, suspect Justin Mills uses a MAC-10 and an M1911A1 during his Last Villain Stand against the FBI and the local police.
• In Deadliest Warrior, one of the Jesse James demonstrators does this with revolvers.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Parting of the Ways": Captain Jack wields two guns to fight off approaching Daleks. Sadly they run out of ammo so he gets out a pistol. Which also runs out of ammo.
  • "The Beast Below": Queen Elizabeth the Tenth (or "Liz X") is the Queen of Starship UK. Who dual-wields laser pistols. Wow. Basically she rules.
• Bianca's Depraved Bisexual lover Natalie does this in the TV version of The Dresden Files.
• Zoe from Firefly blasts off with dual pistols at one point during the rescue of Mal from Bad Boss Niska in "War Stories".
  • And Jayne in the same episode carries an assault rifle in his right hand and a pistol in his left.
  • Jayne also dual-wields two oversized assault rifles in the first issue of the Better Days comic.
• General Hospital's Jason Morgan has done this several times in his career, including during an honest-to-god Church Shootout.
• In The Good Guys, Pedro (the second best assassin in the world) is very good at trick shots so he can pull this off. Jack tries to do this but he ends up missing with every single shot at point blank range. Pedro shrugs and lampshades; "It's harder than it looks".
• The one time Homicide: Life on the Street featured someone firing two guns at once, it was a maniac shooting up several police officers in the third-season episode "The City That Bleeds".
• In Plain Sight: In "Lola", the lead character and her partner pull out their backup weapon in order to drive off some assassins coming after the witness they're protecting. Played realistically: the only time anyone manages to hit anyone during that gunfight is using a single gun, and the two guns are used more for suppressive fire than to actually kill anyone.
• In Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, the Gokaigers often exchange their weapons in the middle of battle. This often leads to Gokai Green and Gokai Pink wielding a pair of Gokai Guns. Given they're aliens and their default fighting style is Dual Wielding a sword and gun, this may be justified.
• Eliot in the Leverage episode "The Big Bang Job", in a gunfight that puts some entire action movies to shame with its over-the-top cinematics.
  Mook: You said you didn't like guns.
  Eliot: I don't. [BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!] I never said I couldn't use 'em.
• Luke Cage (2016):
  • Tone, Cottonmouth's main enforcer, uses a pair of Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine guns to shoot up Pops' barbershop during his attempted hit on Chico, a guy who has stolen from Cottonmouth. It's incredibly inefficient and reckless on his part as he only succeeds in riddling the barbershop with bullets (which is considered a neutral territory by the local gangs), he fails to kill his target, and he only succeeds in killing Pop, who caught a stray in the neck. Cottonmouth is furious enough about that last point that he kills Tone by throwing him off the roof of Harlem's Paradise.
  • Diamondback fires twin Walther PPK pistols in this pose when shooting at Misty Knight in Harlem's Paradise, and later when killing Domingo.
  • Domingo likes to wield dual Berettas in gunfights.
• In The Magnificent Seven series JD Dunne - the youngest and least experienced of the group - uses two Colts simultaneously with much success.
• The Mandalorian
  • Justified with the IG-11 droid, as it is built so it can both shoot and aim in two different directions at the same time. The title character has the occasional Dual Wielding moment, but this is only when the situation requires it.
  • In "The Prisoner", former Imperial sharpshooter Mayfield not only uses two pistols, he has a robotic arm that can fire a third pistol. This makes his sharpshooting an Informed Attribute, as he just blasts his opponents with More Dakka.
• In an episode of NCIS, Ziva uses both her primary weapon and her backup akimbo to take out goons coming in from two separate doors. Then again, she is a Mossad-trained badass. And it's extra badass, because she first calls her boss and makes him listen while she does it.
  • She also blasts it out this way against a Russian mercenary at a convenience store in the Christmas Episode "Newborn King."
  • McGee ends up taking up Ziva's torch in a later season, where Torres manages to distract two men long enough for McGee to climb a table and pull two guns on them to make them cooperate.
• Person of Interest:
  • Root starts doing this in the third season. The fact that she has perfect accuracy while doing the multi-targeting variant is explained by the fact that she has a sentient and borderline omniscient supercomputer doing the aiming for her. She's just pointing the guns where she's told to.
  • When Root asks for two guns from Sameen Shaw, the latter disparages this as "Kinda lame". On seeing Root use them to take down a carload of gunmen, she changes this to "Kinda hot".
  • Lionel occasionally dual-wields, with significantly less accuracy. Works reasonably well as suppressing fire, though.
• Power Rangers:
  • In the Power Rangers Time Force and Wild Force teamup Jen, the Time Force Pink Ranger and leader of the team, uses two Chrono Blasters to shoot down the Putrids, and as such it is an example of Fanservice
  • Keeping in mind that the character is using Laser Pistols (oops, we mean Blasters) which have little-to-no recoil (at general fire power mind you) and comes from the future where humans have perfected DNA modification technology, it's not too far a stretch to make it a plausible situation.
  • Another example involving Jen comes in the episode where she goes on a little revenge kick, complete with slow-motion shots and a jumping split while firing in midair in the John Woo style.
  • Also with The Power Rangers S.P.D. Red Ranger. the two pistols also form a rifle if needed.
  • The Zords usually get into this too. In Power Rangers Turbo, the Rescue Megazord's Finishing Move involves firing simultaneously a giant flamethrower and an equally big gatling gun. The SWAT Megazord in Power Rangers S.P.D. does a more standard version when dealing with multiple opponents.
• In an episode of Psych Lassiter gets into a brief shootout with a robber and blazes away at him with a pair of pistols while the robber returns fire one handed, both of them failing to score a hit. Justified by the fact that Lassiter is Trigger-Happy, Properly Paranoid, and Crazy-Prepared so having a pair of guns on him during a birthday party seems perfectly normal for him.
• In Reilly, Ace of Spies, when the Cheka is storming the British embassy in Petrograd, Commander Cromie quietly informs Reilly and Hill that he will defend the embassy while they escape, then stands at the top of the stairs with two Colt 1911s, raining fire down on the Bolsheviks until they drag a heavy machine gun into the foyer to finish him off.
• Sherlock: Emelia Ricoletti opens fire on the street wielding a large revolver in each hand in "The Abominable Bride". This later becomes an important clue when it's discovered that she faked her death, by pretending to shoot herself in the mouth with one revolver (which was empty) while firing the other revolver held at her side.
• In Smallville, Lex picks up two revolvers and is prepared to go Guns Akimbo on Green Arrow and Black Canary but Clark zips by to interfere before Lex can do something badass.
• Stargate:
  • Stargate SG-1 once showed Daniel Jackson doing this with his Beretta M92F and an MP5. But for the ultimate extreme, Teal'c was once seen wielding two P-90s (although he only fired one at a time). In fact, other episodes feature Teal'c firing two Jaffa staffs, and even two MP7s simultaneously.
  • The Daniel Jackson example is something of a subversion as he is still in his "incompetent archaeologist" phase and does more damage to the walls. Justification: Teal'c is repeatedly shown to be stronger than almost any human could be; he also needed to be covering two hallways simultaneously.
  • Fabrique Nationale, the manufacturer of the P-90, produced an advertisement video that showed a man firing two P-90s at once on full automatic. This was intended only to demonstrate how the 5.7mm round (unique to the P-90 and Five-seveN pistol) generates very little recoil.
  • Cameron Mitchell also uses two guns while fighting zombies in the 200th episode. Justified in that this was an Imagine Spot, so practicality isn't exactly what he was going for.
  • The Stargate Atlantis episode "The Return Part II" has Teyla wielding not one but two ARG's ( Anti Replicator Guns) in the classic cross-armed casual shoot. Justified-ish considering that they're energy weapons with no recoil.
  • "Sateda" has Ronon mixing this with copious amounts of Gun Fu. In this case, one of the weapons is his signature Traveler blaster and the other is his native Satedan BFG (designed specifically to kill Wraiths).
  • Several times in Stargate Atlantis Dr. McKay is shown using dual pistols. Granted he is shown to miss more than he is to hit.
  • A Wraith does this with two assault rifles. Somewhat averts most of the problems with the trope. Wraiths are much, much physically stronger than humans. He is completely inaccurate, doesn't fire enough shots for reloading to be an issue, and never fires or even raises both guns at the same time. Basically seems to invoke the trope to avoid the need to reload, which he would have if he only had one gun.
• In the first episode of Star Trek: Enterprise Captain Archer is seen brandishing a phase pistol in each hand during the fight in the snow, having taken one used by an injured crewmember he and the others were escorting to safety.
• Star Trek: Picard:
  • In "Stardust City Rag", Elnor grabs two phaser pistols and points them at Bjayzl's female bodyguards, and later, Seven of Nine shoots Bjayzl and her goons with a pair of phaser rifles.
  • In "Broken Pieces", Narissa exterminates the xBs by shooting them with two disruptors.
• Justified use in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles pilot, where an unnamed Terminator attacks John with dual MP-5s. Justified in the sense that it's both a Terminator and a dream sequence.
• Day Two of Torchwood: Children of Earth has Gwen jumping out of the back of an ambulance and firing with a gun in each hand.
  • Gwen also ends up firing two guns after Captain Jack teaches her how to shoot in the first series.
• Subverted in the 1990s version of The Untouchables. The senior member confronts a villain who framed him. The villain tries to resist with twin tommy guns. However, the idiot doesn't realize that given how heavy the gun type is, he can't even keep them level and so doesn't do much more than shoot up the floor in front of him with a lot of noise. For his part, the Untouchable simply shoots the villain with two carefully aimed pistol shots.

Pinball

• In Pinball Dreams 2, the table "Revenge of the Robot Warriors" has a human female holding double BFGs.

Podcasts

• When the dimension-hopping antics of Sequinox arc 2 land the girls in a cowboy dimension, Chell gets two revolvers that shoot fireballs.

Tabletop Games

• The first Airfix release of "US Marines" - ie, generic WW2 American infantry soldier figures for wargaming - included a commanding officer figure suspiciously reminiscent of a John Wayne whose sole equipment appeared to be a pistol in each hand.
• In Deadlands dual-wielding guns, and even rifles, is possible, but offers severe penalties to hit. However, with proper Edges the player can neutralize such penalties, effectively doubling his/her firepower.
• A recurring character in Exalted, the Nameless Solar, is never seen without twin plasma tongue repeaters.
  • One of the early spoilers for Shards of the Exalted Dream was a BFG known as a Godcannon. Its minimum strength requirement of 2 means that with a little bit of strength-boosting, you can dual-wield guns with 4-foot barrels and firing chambers the size of a torso.
• Feng Shui, in keeping with Hong Kong action movies, uses this trope fairly frequently. Gun-using characters can use a gun in each hand with no penalties at all, and can blast off on mooks with both guns blazing with little problem. But against named characters, the only way to increase damage when using two guns is to buy up the Both Guns Blazing gun schtick, which doubles the base damage but allows the victim to subtract twice his toughness against it.
• Fudge Firefight II, one of the more critically acclaimed articles on the webzine, allows characters with the Double Barreled Badass knack to use two pistols as if they had an automatic weapon. This is among the most mundane knacks in the article.
  • Largely compliments of stuff like glass dancer, which makes you invulnerable and forces people to shoot at you anyways when you jump through a plate glass window guns blazing.
• Games Workshop games:
  • Warhammer 40,000
    • The Seraphim of the Adepta Sororitas are trained to wield a pair of bolt pistols using an ancient technique to fight their enemies with fluid grace. They can also upgrade their pistols to hand flamers or inferno pistols for extra power.
    • The Exarchs of some Craftworld Eldar Aspect Shrines, such as the Dire Avengers and Warp Spiders, use their race’s advanced technology to duel-wield weapons that would be two-handed guns for other Eldar.
    • The Tau can upgrade their Battlesuits with a support system known as a multi-tracker, allowing them to fire a pair of weapons.
    • The Tyranid bio-weapon known as a spinefists fires great salvos of diamond hard stake-firing pistols coated in neuro-toxin and are generally wielded in pairs by the race’s warrior beasts.
    • Cypher of the Fallen is renowned for his abilities with his bolt pistol and plasma pistol, weapons he duel-wields with greater skill than any other in the galaxy.
    • Introduced in the game's eighth edition, Space Marine Inceptors, a heavily-armoured flying infantry unit, fight using a pair of either assault bolters or plasma exterminators, essentially one-handed versions of the Imperium's ubiquitous heavy bolters and plasma cannon respectively.
    • Kill Team: Nachmund introduced Voidscarred Corsairs, who have the option of equipping one of their squad members - known as a Starstorm Duelist - with both a basic shuriken pistol and a tank-destroying fusion pistol. The Inquisitorial Agents team from Kill Team: Ashes of Faith can also field a Pistolier, who can either skulk behind cover with a Conceal order and pick enemies off with a single scoped autopistol, or "go loud" and combine that autopistol with a much harder-hitting plasma pistol.
  • Dark Heresy (and its own spinoff, Rogue Trader), allows the dual-wielding of guns with the right talents. You can also dual-wield rifles, just don't expect to hit very often.
  • In Inquisitor there is a special rule that can be given to characters called Gunfighter, which does actually enable them to fire two pistol weapons simultaneously. Unless they're ambidextrous, though, it does confer an aiming penalty to the gun being used in the character's off-hand.
  • Necromunda:
    • In 1st and 2nd Edition, any model with access to the Shooting Skill chart was able to acquire the 'Gunfighter' skill when they levelled up. This skill allowed the model to fire a pair of pistols at a target. This skill was also one of the common randomly generated skills available for the Bounty Hunter and Underhive Scum hire guns.
    • In 3rd Edition, all models equipped with a pair of pistols are able to fire them both at a single enemy fighter but suffer a to hit penalty if they do so. The 3rd Edition 'Gunfighter' skill however allows the model to ignore the to hit penalty and target multiple enemies.
  • In Warhammer, and its sequel Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, models armed with a brace of pistols are able to fire both their weapons at the same target during the same turn.
  • Mordheim uses the “fire one weapon until empty then fire the other” version of this trope for models armed with multiple pistols, allowing the model to fire every turn and bypass the need to spend a turn reloading. There is however a Shooting Skill called Pistolier that allows a model to fire both weapons at the same time when armed with a brace of pistols. The downside of this ability being that the model once again has to reload his weapons in the next turn.
• Doing this is a very effective way to miss in GURPS. Cinematic characters can buy off the penalties while superhuman ones can buy Extra Attack.
  • Generally Schmuck Bait even then. Almost no two handguns can beat the damage of a single rifle.
    • Though a high enough Strength allows you to pull One-Handed Zweihänder with any gun that's not a pump or bolt-action one. A strong enough Super-Soldier could even dual wield heavy machine guns.
  • At least as of fourth edition, everyone can buy Extra Attack.
    • Though Buying of the penalties (6 points) is cheaper than the Extra Attack (Pistols only) (20 points)
    • In GURPS Gun-Fu you can buy the ability use two guns at once with no penalty for a single point, and make your guns self-reloading for another.
• In Hc Svnt Dracones a character with at least three dots in Mind:Acuity and two in Ranged Combat can do this. But they have to split up their attack dice between the two guns so they're unlikely to hit much unless using SMGs.
• Every player character in Hong Kong Action Theatre can do this, along with other Guns and Gunplay Tropes, as a matter of style. HKAT's penchant for multiple attacks makes blasting somebody to hell with both guns blazing very, very possible.
• Ironclaw has the Akimbo Fighter gift (as an improvement of Ambidexterity), which would allow a character to do this, even though the only guns in the setting are wheel-locks.
• In Iron Kingdoms we have Allisteir Caine, a gun mage Warcaster that is well known among players for his amazing skill with two spellstorm pistols.
  • Also we have Master Holt, Taryn Di La Rovissi and Pistol Wraiths.
• Max Steiner from Mutant Chronicles dual-wields machine pistols. He apparently got the idea from a movie he loved as a kid.
• One of the suggested starting builds in Myriad Song is "Akimbo Assassin", you fight with two pistols.
• Surprise surprise, a very vanilla ('mortal') character can do this in 'New World of Darkness' (look for Gunslinger merit). If he's also Ambidextrous, he can do this very effectively.
• Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution gives us the John Wu Special technique, which allows players to wield two guns at the same time.
  • The TK Gunslinger talent allows you to hold, fire, and reload extra guns with telekinesis. If you have both, you can wield up to four guns at once.
• Expatriette from Sentinels of the Multiverse can use her dual handguns named Pride and Prejudice this way.
• Averted in Shadowrun - dual-wielding guns is possible, but offers such penalties to hit (splitting of dice pools, penalties for offhand firing, recoil, environmental factors, etc.) that it's just not worth it. Someone with godly skill (a Gunslinger Adept or a tooled-up-to-the-max Street Samurai) might be still effective with such an arrangement, but not as much as just using one firearm at a time.
  • However, in at least 4th edition the dual-wielding of pistols is both possible and useful, if you are using different guns to make two different shots in two different actions. It keeps recoil from stacking, which would have happened if you used the same gun twice.
• In Zombicide, some weapons are considered "dual" (the pistols, machine pistols and the Sawed-Off Shotguns for guns). If you have two identical dual weapons equipped, you can fire both at the same area for one action. Also, you can pick up the Ambidexterity skill to consider every weapon as a dual weapon. Also, there is one weapon called the Evil Twins, taking only one inventory slot and considered only one weapon, though the evil twins are two handguns.

Webcomics

• 8-Bit Theater, but with bows and arrows. And then pushed it to the extreme. Just see for yourself.
• Invoked by Bug here.
  "Ack! What amazing peripheral vision!"
• Cleo, eponymous heroine of Cleopatra In Spaaace! favours a matched pair of lazer (sic) pistols.
• In an El Goonish Shive filler comic, Tedd wields guns that rapid fire roses a la Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon.
• Played somewhat realistically in Errant Story when Jon uses two weapons in a pinch, with opponents front and back. Both bullets are actually on their targets, but one is jumped over (you heard me right, opponent is later dealt with in hand-to-hand combat) and the other distracts the other opponent (he uses his neigh-unbreakable blade to deflect it) so Sarine can cut him almost in half. The success of the move amazes Jon to no end.
• Girl Genius: Flashbacks to the Heterodyne Boys fighting the Other show them back to back with Barry firing a massing Death Ray and Bill simultaneously using a smaller one in each hand.
• Kore in Goblins is a variant, fighting with 2 Automatic Crossbows.
• Homestuck's Jake English uses this thanks to his weapon of choice, twin M9 Berettas, inherited from his grandmother. In fact, nearly all the handguns he has been seen wielding are paired up for this particular style of gunslinging (dual flintlocks, twin M9s, matched golden guns), to the point that his Strife Specibus is this, formally known as Double Pistolkind (2xpistolkind).
• Parodied in Irregular Webcomic! #35, by combining it with I Know Mortal Kombat.
• In Schlock Mercenary, a four-armed alien states that the mercenaries should recruit him because with four arms, he can fire four guns at once. The recruiting officer points out that, with two eyes, he can only track one target at a time.
  Thurl: Don't sweat it. I'll put down 'Very enthusiastic,' and 'Seen too many John Woo movies.' You're in.
  • However in a later comic he is seen quad-wielding pistols to shoot at birds.
    "Pull!"
  • Played straight, however, with Sergeant Schlock who, since he is able to grow additional hands as required, will cheerfully dual or triple wield BFGs; then again, Schlock can also reorient his eyes, so this isn't so unrealistic, particularly while he had an extra pair of eyes. When it came to dual-wielding his 20 kg Plasma Cannon, though, the officers had some objections.
    Elf: Sergeant, when you fire your plasgun in one direction, the only safe place for friendlies is behind you. And that's giving the word "safe" a real workout. If I give you two plasguns, and you fire in multiple directions, the only safe place to the rest of us would be inside you.
    Schlock: I promise not to chew.
    Elf: I'm still gonna have to say no.
• Lt. Dart fires two shotguns at once during the Sluggy Freelance story arc "KITTEN II." Not that it does him much good.
• In The Wolf at Weston Court soldier Nova Petrov threatens a Dwarf bandit with math... and guns.
• Zokusho Comics character, Serge, uses a pair of guns as his main offensive strategy. When things get hairy he prefers his revolver Lucky 7, which fires magical bullets.

Web Original

• The Crazy X-Box Lady resorts to using two guns at once, after miming a pair of maracas.
• Moira Quicksilver in The Endless Night is a notorious bounty hunter who carries two matched pistols (lovingly called Righty and Lefty) to deadly effect.
• Forgotten Weapons: In this video, the presenter dual-wields two fully automatic pistols (at about three minutes).
  Ian: I didn't hit nothing, I hit everything! Probably not the target though.
• The general sign of a badass in Madness Combat is that he uses two guns at once, as shown by Hank, Sanford, Deimos, Jebus, and even some Elite Mooks use it. The ability to do this, and fire at multiple targets at once, is one of the planned features of the upcoming Madness game.
• Somewhat rare, but it occurs in Survival of the Fittest. Two examples come from v1, during the same gun battle. Peri Barclay wielded two revolvers, but this proved completely ineffective as he failed to hit anyone. Jacob Starr later did the same with his gun and one that an ally dropped, but he alternated fire between the two guns and it wasn't really to hit anyone as much as it was to force Peri and his ally Steven to keep their heads down, covering the other group's retreat.
  • Brendan Wallace wields akimbo when he's forced to try and hold off a group of terrorists sent by Danya to eliminate Liz Polanski. He doesn't fire them both at once, however, he barely even fires them at all. He runs. This happens a lot with him.
• A somewhat popular Self-Imposed Challenge on Light Gun Games is to play both sides at once and dual-wield. Some games such as Target: Terror Gold even have a mode that allows you to use both guns with one credit.
• The Elsa van Dorst's v5 incarnation from Open Blue isn't just a badass sniper anymore. Now she can fight with a rifle (or musket) in each hand.
• Red vs. Blue has Agent North Dakota who does this with sniper rifles. He's accurate enough that he manages to shoot missiles out of the air.
  • Agent Carolina does this near the end of Season 10 with two Plasma Rifles.
• Mitten Squad: The thumbnail◊ for Can You Beat Fallout: New Vegas With Only 1 Life? shows the Vault Boy wielding two pistols.
• This becomes the player's main loadout in How to "Gun Only" Bloodborne, with the Repeater Pistol in one hand and the gunblade Reiterpallasch in the other. Perhaps worth noting is that the Reiterpallasch's existence is what makes this style of wielding feasible, as guns are sidearms specifically assigned to the left hand while weapons that you're supposed to use as your main offense are on the right, so you can't just wield 2 guns at the same time normally.

Western Animation

• Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: Shane Gooseman sometimes dual-wields blaster pistols, most prominently in the title animation.
• Around the World with Willy Fog: Rigodon demonstrates a talent for dual-wielding guns in the episodes where Fog and his companions are travelling across America.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy briefly uses two guns (Cosmo and Wanda, naturally) when playing a video game.
• In the season finale of Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Kilowog stays behind to try to slow down the entire Red Lantern armada. By himself. First he created a pair of large machine gun constructs, then later he busted out quad Gatling cannons. He then adds a Macross Missile Massacre launcher.
• Major Phil Stark in Invasion America invoked this trope a couple of times. Once while trying to find David on Maple Island (humorously used against a stray tree branch that David manipulated to distract him while he escaped), and again at the Glenport Galeria while trying to rescue him from Simon and Sonia.
• Kaeloo: Mr. Cat does this quite often. Stumpy does it along with him in the episode "Let's Play Market Vendors" when the two of them rob a supermarket.
• Crazy Stunts in Skysurfer Strike Force uses two laser pistols as his primary weapons. Bioborg Replicon can shapeshift his arms into dual missile launchers or guns.
• Star Wars animated series often have a penchant for characters who do this:
  • Among clone troopers who do this on a regular basis, we have Captain Fordo from Star Wars: Clone Wars (now part of Legends after the Continuity Reboot) and Captain Rex from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Actually, The Clone Wars has a lot of clones who do this, for a few reasons: any clone officer who wears kama also carries twin blaster pistols (and that includes Rex). This also includes the ARC troopers. In fact, Fives dual-wielding two DC-15 blaster rifles during the defence of Rishi Station in "Rookies" foreshadows his later promotion to ARC trooper.
  • Even Anakin Skywalker gets in on the fun in deleted scenes from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, with the Force granting him Improbable Aiming Skills to boot.
  • This is also extremely common among Mandalorians. Sabine Wren from Star Wars Rebels is one of the most prominent examples of this.
  • Agent Tierny from Star Wars Resistance is also fond of this.
• There's a metric buttload of Transformers that do this, but you could probably guess that. Rhinox from Beast Wars is probably the one best known for doing so - with DUAL GATLING GUNS. From the same series, Ravage wields dual guns... and stores them on his hips, Russian crossdraw style. So did the G1 "Triggerbot" Dogfight... but he didn't draw them crossways; he drew them straight and then pulled the triggers with his pinkie fingers. (All the "Trigger" Transformers - whose gimmick was engines that, by pressing a spring-loaded trigger, became weapons when they transformed into robot mode—also used Guns Akimbo to some degree.) Even some versions of Optimus Prime can do it, most famously the Powermaster version.
  • Beast Wars Rampage did this on occasion, dual wielding a smaller gun with his Tri-Barreled Cannon (shrunk down slightly to match).
• In T.U.F.F. Puppy Members of T.U.F.F. and D.O.O.M. do this sometimes.
• The Venture Bros.: In the episode "O.S.I. Love You", Sergeant Hatred rushes Molotov Cocktease this way. She stands still, and every shot misses.
• In Voltron Force, Lance's Voltcoms can form twin pistols. When it's Lance's turn to form Voltron Red Center, his Blazing weapon is a pair of high-powered energy pistols.

Real Life

• Whenever you go to an arcade that offers 2-player shooting games, and the guns can be operated single-handedly (reload ammo by aiming off-screen and pulling the triggers, not pump action)^note Bonus points though if you can operate the pumps one-handed!, insert coins, press START for both players... and see how easy it is to aim and track targets. Now imagine if both guns had actual recoil, let alone the noise.
• Subverted by the Finnish Hakkapeliittas in the Thirty Years' War. The Hakkapeliittas were medium cavalrymen who had helmet, breastplate, two pistols and sword. Their tactics were attack the enemy formation in full gallop, shooting one pistol at 20 m distance, second at 10 m distance and then draw sword without reloading the pistols. Comparing to the usual caracole tactics of the date, more akin, to skirmishing, the hakkapeliitta charge was usually devastating, and won several battles for the Swedes.
  • The name hakkapeliitta comes from their slogan, Hakkaa päälle! (Hack them on!). It is today used by Finnish ice hockey fans.
• A possible example of actual use of two guns firing at the same time is "Macedonian Shooting", practiced by Russian special forces. This evolved as a method of increasing rate of fire, more in order to force the enemy to take cover than to try to accurately hit them, and was generally practiced by NKVD officers issued a pair of revolvers. If you don't believe me see for yourself.
• A group of U.S. Army soldiers decided to demonstrate this trope and its dual-inherited Rule of Cool and Awesome, but Impractical qualities on a firing range, with one soldier dual-wielding M249 Squad Automatic Weapons. As they explicitly say in the video, this is very unsafe. Considering the recoil and sheer weight of those guns, the soldier is a sheer badass for even keeping his footing while he fired.
  • He dual-wielded two M240 General Purpose Machine Guns, which are even bigger than the M249.
  • Note that he's forced to take a few steps back while firing. And he carefully braces himself beforehand.
    • But wait, there is even more insane example: specifically this guy with two .50 cal anti-materiel rifles!
• Back in yon olden times when pistols were muzzle-loaded and took several minutes to reload, it was fairly common for cavalry troops and people fighting in close-quarters to carry multiple pistols. And since you only needed one hand to fire a pistol, it was quicker to hold a pistol in each hand. Nowadays this is called a New York Reload.
  • Many descriptions have the pirate Blackbeard doing this, as he carried a large number of pistols into battle. The purpose was not so much to kill anybody but to scare the defending crew into surrendering - as a successful pirate Blackbeard understood the importance of avoiding unnecessary bloodshed so he cultivated his reputation as a fearsome scourge of the seas.
  • Wild West Gunfighter "Wild Bill" Hickock is said to have wielded two 1853 'Navy' Colts at the same time using a distinctive "crossed wrist" stance. Details are lacking but he probably fired one gun at a time using the back of his other wrist as a support. It's likely he did this to avoid reloading these pre-cartridge 'cap and ball' revolvers because that takes 5-10 minutes per gun.
  • One technique that came out of the Old West (and is occasionally seen in Western novels) is the "Border Shift", where a shooter who has a pistol in each hand fires the main-hand gun until it runs dry, and then tosses each gun to the opposite hand, putting the still-loaded gun once again in the main hand. It's essentially a form of New York Reload, with the added fun of juggling loaded weapons. Needless to say, it's incredibly unsafe and extremely difficult to do smoothly.
• It might be apropos to mention Morris "Two Gun" Cohen, an Anglo-Canadian Jewish mercenary who fought for Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China. As noted on the page, his nickname came from carrying two loaded .45 semiautomatic pistols so he didn't need to immediately reload while in combat, rather than because he used both simultaneously.
• Mock Duck was known for an unusual method of self-defense that combined this trope with Blind Weaponmaster.
• 19th century Australian outlaw Ned Kelly did this with two revolvers while he and his gang were wearing suits of improvised armor in their famous gunfight against police at the Glenrowan Inn. Apparently known as a rifleman before the shootout, he made the switch because pistols were the only thing he could raise up high enough into his greatly impaired field of vision in order to sight them. This didn't work as well as he hoped, losing the fight and getting arrested, bruised and most likely deafened from the occasional headshot clanging off his armor.
• While he and his squad were under ambush in Iraq in 2005, Combat Medic Spc. Jason Mike held off insurgents by dual-wielding an M4 carbine and an M249 according to TOW.
• John Chivington, a Badass Preacher and outspoken anti-slavery advocate greeted a pro-slavery mob storming his church by whipping out a pair of pistols and announcing that "By the grace of God and these two revolvers, I will preach here today!" Too bad that he became a genocidal maniac after the Civil War, disgraced for crimes against Native Americans that went past the pale, even by the era's low standards.
• Depending on where you are, you may need to dual wield QSZ-92 semi-automatic pistols as part of the Chinese Liberation Army training. However, unless new info disproves this, it is safe to assume it is solely for the purpose of training one handed firing with both your dominant and non-dominant hand. And maybe training for "Macedonian Shooting" if a soldier is ever in need of suppressive fire and only has two pistols?
• Alexander Solonik, nigh-legendary Russian contract killer, although initially known to be clumsy with guns and avoiding their use, is rumored to have been able to do just that during the last of his career. And with "two guns", we mean "against two separate targets", not More Dakka.
• When the Imperial Japanese Army overran Hong Kong during WW2, the Canadian Brigadier General John K. Lawson radioed his commanders to say he was "going outside to fight it out" and was last seen exiting his command bunker with a pistol in each hand.
• Averted in the (unattributed) old West saying: "Beware the man with only one gun — he probably knows how to use it!" Since the most common reason to carry two guns in the West was to have a backup on hand if your other gun ran dry, if someone only needed one gun to do his business... well...

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By the way, the word "akimbo" does NOT actually refer to Dual Wielding guns. It means standing with your hands on your hips and elbows pointed outward. You can no more have anything but your arms akimbo than you can flip the bird with your ear.

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