Guard: He's got a sword!
Razoul: You idiots! We've all got swords!
Razoul: You idiots! We've all got swords!
— Aladdin
"He's got a weapon!" is the cry of panic made when someone who had appeared to be or make an empty threat shows, intentionally or otherwise, that he can back his threats up. He's not harmless; he has a weapon.
This cry is also used if someone has something that only looks like a weapon. Expect such people to become the targets of preemptive strikes before the mistake is noticed. People who truly have weapons don't get this treatment: they either dominate, or there will be a true Fight Scene.
The exact cry tends to include the name of the weapon. "He's got a gun!" "He's got a bomb!"
Compare I've Got an X, and I'm Not Afraid to Use It!. May have shades of Captain Obvious; however, in Real Life situations, it's safer for everyone in earshot for it to be announced as a warning.
May turn into Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet! if he didn't have a weapon after all.
Examples:
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Advertisement
- Played for laughs in a Bud Light commercial
, featuring a husband and wife driving along a forest road at night when the guy notices a hitchhiker:
Guy: Should we pick him up? He has Bud Light.
Girl: He has an axe!
Guy: But he has Bud Light.
Girl: And an axe!- Later on, they pass by another hitcher:
Guy: He has Bud Light.
Axe murderer: And a chainsaw!
Anime And Manga
Comic Books
- Hellboy: Possibly the best three panels◊ in the comic from "Box Full of Evil".
Abe: Is that a monkey?
Hellboy: HE'S GOT A GUN!!!
BLAM BLAM - During Issue #36 of Life With Archie: The Married Life, Archie shouts out in panic, "HE'S GOT A GUN!" when he sees Wendell the Busboy pull out the gun from his pocket in his attempt to shoot down Kevin Keller while unseen. This is followed by a Big "NO!" from Archie and a Heroic Sacrifice.
Films — Animated
- Shrek:
- It was used in Shrek 2 for comic effect, when Shrek and Donkey first encounter Puss in Boots:
Donkey: "Shrek, look out! He's got a piece!"- And in Shrek the Third:
Donkey: "Look out, Shrek! He's got a piano!" - Aladdin provides the page quote. Made even funnier that they're panicking because it's Abu the monkey holding the sword—that's three times his size. Too bad Razoul is quick to point out that they outgun him.
Razoul: You idiots! WE'VE ALL GOT SWORDS!Guards: Yeah!
- From the Babar movie:
Films — Live-Action
- Super Mario Bros. (1993): "He's got a bob-omb!"
Koopa: Bob-omb...
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi: "He's holding a thermal detonator!" The Expanded Universe explained that this was even more dangerous than it seemed to the audience; a thermal detonator of the type "Boushh" used to threaten Jabba would have vaporized not just the throne room but the entire palace if set off.
- Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: Kumar tried smoking a water bong filled with pot on an airplane, and that method requires lighting a match. An old white woman screams, "Terrorist!" and all the passengers suspect Kumar's holding a bomb, with Harold desperate to re-assure everyone it's a "water pipe tobacco", but when Kumar tells them what it is by its urban name, a "bong", one man screams, "He says he got a bomb!!!" Cue the air marshals breaking open the bong which releases vapor marijuana making everyone think it's poison and Harold and Kumar assumed as terrorists sent by North Korea and Al-qaeda for being East Asian and brown respectively.
- The Big Bus, a Disaster Movie spoof: early in the film, we see the driver in a bus driver bar, and there's a fight. One guy grabs a quart carton of milk and bashes the end off, threatening someone else with it. "Look out! He's got a milk carton!" The other guy grabs a candle and breaks the end off of it. "Look out, he's got a candle!"
- "Crocodile" Dundee:
"Mick, give him your wallet."
"What for?"
"He's got a knife." - Santa with Muscles: "Watch out! He's got a candy cane!"
- Wrongfully Accused: "He's got a leg!"
- In Lethal Weapon, Murtaugh suddenly notices that a man in the police station has pulled a gun. He immediately charges out to tackle him, only to discover that the madman waving a gun around is his new partner.
- In The Hurt Locker, when Sgt. James returns to the base after trying to avenge Beckham's death, he is stopped by the soldiers standing guard there.
Guard: Get on the ground!James: I have a weapon!Guard: (searching him) GUN!James: (exasperated) Like I said...
- Spoofed at the end of The Naked Gun, when the villain is holding Jane hostage and is very visibly brandishing a semi-automatic weapon at Jane's head.
Jane: He's got a gun!Frank: (Beat) ...I can see that.
- Also parodied in Not Another Teen Movie, with self-irony. To prove his "love" for her, Jake decides to sing on loudspeakers inside college: "She's got a gun... Janey Briggs' got a gun...". One of her classmates gets scared and screams: "She's got a gun!", so everybody except her starts running away. Cue the cops. (Youtube here)
- In Willow, from Madmartigan: "There's a... a peck here with an acorn pointed at me!"
- Used in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) during the final scene with the Vogon attack.
Vogon Soldier: He's got a towel. Run away.
Literature
- Discworld:
- Making Money: Lord Vetinari has engaged in some questionable acts that will only go overlooked as long as he maintains his personal authority and dignity — which is also the only way Moist von Lipwig, the main character, can hope to survive. Vetinari then engages in conversation with a clown, who in close range has a tendency to wet the converser via Squirting Flower Gag, leading to Moist shouting, "Look out, he's got a daisy!", which he immediately recognizes as the most embarrassingly-weird thing he has ever said.
- The Fifth Elephant: Averted by Sam Vimes. When he is imprisoned by the dwarves, someone smuggles a single-shot crossbow into his cell. Vimes notes that if you want to help someone escape, you send them a key — sending someone a weapon will only get them killed via this trope, which is exactly what the sender had in mind.
Live-Action TV
- Frasier
- In the episode "Ham Radio", where Frasier, Roz, Niles, Bulldog, and Bulldog's dyslexic girlfriend Maxine are doing a radio play.
Maxine: Look out, he's got a nug!- Played straighter in another episode, where this is yelled out in the middle of a busy Cafe Nervosa, and Bulldog (apparently) leaps in the way of a pregnant Roz. Actually, he was using Roz as a human shield, and never even noticed the person with the gun, who he accidentally foiled because his panic spilled hot coffee on the guy. Frasier knows, and spends several days trying to get Bulldog to confess. When this doesn't work, Martin — now utterly fed up — yells it and Bulldog tries using Roz as a shield again, exposing him in front of everyone.
- Garth Marenghis Darkplace episode "Skipper the Eyechild":
Thornton Reed: (complete monotone) Look out, he's got a stick.
- Police Squad!! episode "Rendezvous at Big Gulch (Terror in the Neighborhood)":
Jill: Look out, he's got a knife!
(Leo charges Drebin, who fends him off)
Jill: Look out, he's got a club!
(Rocky runs at Drebin but is punched in the face)
Jill: He's got a signed Picasso!
(Leo uses the Picasso as a shield but Drebin punches him in the stomach)
Jill: Look out, he's got herpes! He's got cold sores.
(Rocky runs at Drebin with his face forward, Drebin makes sure not to come too close) - Blackadder III:
Prince Regent: He's got a bomb!Blackadder: It's not a bomb, your Highness, it's a sponge.Prince Regent: Oh. So it is. Well, get it out of here before it explodes.
- Oh my God, Uncle Phil, he's got a... business card!
- Burn Notice sees Mike turn his friends on surveillance duty into part of his cover ID once they're found out and the Big Bad of the week wants them brought in for questioning: Claim the piece of aluminum foil packaging they're holding is actually a gun, grab the only other drawn gun and start firing roughly in their direction. His friends take the hint and return fire, thus "proving" they're definitely not on the same side.
Music
- Aerosmith: Janie's got a gun?
- The Beatles, Help!!:
"It's a thingie! A fiendish thingie!"
- Julie Brown, The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun
Radio
- The Goon Show episode "The Silver Dubloons" has the following:
Eccles: Look out, he's got a knife!
Bluebottle: And a fork!
Eccles: And a spoon!
Bluebottle: He's gonna eat you, Neddy!
Theater
- Used in Forbidden Broadway's spoof of Ragtime:
Sarah: I know! I'll ask the President of the United States for help! Yoohoo, Mr. President? My fiancee won't marry me, and I've got a son!
Aide: Look out, she's got a gun!
Sarah: No, no, I said I've got a son. A son. - The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), in the Tower of Babel scene: "Look out! He's got a picture of a bomb!" The picture goes off with a Written Sound Effect.
- The Lion in Winter:
John: He has a knife, a knife!
Eleanor of Aquitaine: Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!
Video Games
- While fighting the Robo-Pirates in Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, one of the pirates will say this when you switch weapons.
- Splicers in BioShock may say "He's got a gun!" when they see you, even if you're holding your wrench.
- Not in so many words, but the guards' reaction to a female City Elf Warden getting her hands on a sword at the beginning of Dragon Age: Origins certainly gives this impression.
- When Mass Effect 3 has Udina pull a gun on a hostage, Shepard (or the Virmire Survivor) will yell "Gun".
- Played for laughs when battling Merasmus in Team Fortress 2, especially because this is Soldier we're talking about: "Everyone down! He's got a book!" or "It's a book! He's going to read!" In all fairness, it is a sentient magical tome that causes explosions and possesses body parts, so it's a genuinely dangerous weapon of a sort.
- In Tomb Raider (2013), Lara's already well armed by the time it happens, but the point where she gets a Grenade Launcher marks the point when the mooks start being scared of her and mention this trope by name.
"That's right! Run, you bastards! I'm coming for you all!!"
Webcomics
- Massively invoked by Penny Arcade in this strip. Appropriately titled He Has a Gun!, Gabe repeats "He's got a gun!" in every frame, even while Tycho is being shot with said gun.
- Girl Genius: Bang shouts that someone in the building she's just crashed into has a gun as she gleefully shoots the hand he's using to hold it.
Bang: Look out! He's got a gun!
Gil: So do you!
Bang: Why, so I do! Hooray!
Web Original
- asdfmovie: Right in the first scene, one guy "steals" a baby's nose.
Man: Got your nose.Police officer: *bursts through the door with a gun* "Look out, he's got a nose!"
- And a few episodes later...
Woman: What a cute little doggy.Man: Careful honey, he's got a knife.Dog (hiding said knife behind him): Wh-what? No, no I don't. - Done in this short video titled Captain Obvious.
loud gunshots are heardCaptain Obvious: He's got a gun!
Western Animation
- In one of the early Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons, Kang runs past in the background yelling, "He's got a board with a nail in it!" He's being pursued by Moe, who does indeed have a board with a nail in it (Earth had previously achieved world peace and disarmed, allowing K&K to invade with even less effective weapons).
- Parodied in Recess when the main six are the only kids at school for the week thanks to everyone else sick with food poisoning. The gang love it at first, but soon grow tired of it, so Gus tries to give Miss Grotke a fake note from home in order to stay home, causing Mikey to scream, "HE'S GOT A NOTE!"
- The The Amazing World of Gumball episode, "The Spoon", where a fingerprint thief named Sal attempts to rob Larry's Convenience Store with a not-so-threatening weapon that freaks everyone else out.
Larry: Oh my GOSH!! HE'S GOT A SPOON! HE'S GOT A SPOOO... (Panics, running around in circles until he accidentally crashes into the wall and knocks himself out).
- An early running gag from Robot Chicken would have someone in a crowd screaming "Oh my God he's got a gun!"
- Futurama: Returning home from a disaster at a Mars University fundraiser, Fry sees his monkey roommate silhouetted in the dark of their room, holding something. Fry cowers at what he thinks is a gun. It's actually a banana - which his roommate previously said he didn't like.
- The Codename: Kids Next Door once tried to fear that former operative Chad was just about to deliver a Pizza.
