Juggling Loaded Guns

Guns don't kill people, doughnuts kill people.

Rocko Dillon: [fires a gunshot into the air to silence the audience] Freeze, and nobody gets hurt!
[a guy falls from the rafters into the orchestra]
Rocko Dillon: Well... from now on!

— The Naked Gun 33⅓

You know how you shouldn't screw around with guns because they're dangerous? You know... because they're specifically designed to kill and maim people instantly? Well, the normal rules don't apply when it comes to comedy. Whether it's the police chief eating donuts off his gun barrel or some clown juggling loaded guns, the normal rules of safety don't apply.

Frequently results in Amusing Injuries from gunshot wounds or a superficial case of Ash Face. Caused by whichever combination of Artistic License – Gun Safety, Reckless Gun Usage and Shur Fine Guns would maximize the laughs. When gunshot wounds are used seriously, that's I Just Shot Marvin in the Face. See also Remonstrating with a Gun.

Not to be confused with Cartoon Juggling, though actually juggling loaded guns in any cartoon (or Real Life, for that matter), is probably just as bad an example as any of these following examples. Also not to be confused with Juggling Dangerously, though juggling loaded guns would in fact be an example of that trope. Subtrope of Too Dumb to Live.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In his commercial for Hogan's Heroes, Ernest P. Worrell has found what is clearly a Sten submachine gun from World War II in his father's closet, but thinks it must be a cigarette lighter. The moment he pulls the trigger, he fills his surroundings full of bullets and scares himself straight.
  Ernest: I know nothing! I've seen nothing!

Anime & Manga

• In Assassination Classroom, the assassin Gastro, as a parody of Licking the Blade, really likes licking, tasting and biting his guns. He has been seen holding a pistol in his teeth with the barrel pointing into his mouth, and even using a pistol as an eating utensil.
  Gastro: Start with a rich seafood stock. Add plenty of green onions and a spoon of minced garlic... AND A GUN!
• Cat Planet Cuties has one of the haremettes opening fire on the main character on full auto with a machine gun for the crime of having accidentally seen her naked. Said haremette ran outside stark naked to help the main character she subsequently shot at.
• Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu has a lot of gags involving this. Sōsuke is perfectly capable of handling firearms safely, but has vastly distorted standards on which situations call for use of firearms and which ones do not. He opens fire on a light gun game with a real-life loaded pistol because the alternative (firing the system's light gun outside of the screen and therefore pointing it at something you aren't intending to shoot) was "too unsafe," uses a Steyr AUG to fire warning shots to chase off delinquents (a "peaceful solution" by his standards), and ends up using a loaded handgun to accidentally create a riot when trying order at a bread sale (Kaname told him to "get the seller's attention").
• Gunslinger Girl. While washing dishes with Maria Macchiavelli (whom she's guarding), Triela is asked to show off her skills as a cyborg soldier, so she juggles the kitchen knives she's washing.
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Panty's gun stops working, so she turns it around, peers into the barrel, and pulls the trigger several times. Possibly justified because her gun uses magic bullets that only kill the Monsters of the Week, but Stocking's similar magic swords work just fine against her at the very end of the series.
• Soul Eater: Death the Kid shoots Soul and Black*Star during their bromance hug, when they first fight (this occurs in Episode 6/ Chapter 3). He claims "his finger slipped".
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: When Kamina is first given a gun he pretends to know how to use it, even though he doesn't know what it actually is. At first he uses it as a hammer, and after narrowly missing shooting himself in the gonads he proceeds to hold it upside down. Well, he already held it upside down when using it as a hammer; but of course, it was pointing towards him then.

Films — Animation

• Batman: Assault on Arkham: When The Joker holds him and his group at gunpoint, Deadshot declares that Joker is out of bullets, coolly approaches him, and threatens to beat the crap out of him when he tries and fails to shoot. Joker insists that he still has bullets, looks down the gun barrel, and fires a shot into the ceiling, giving Deadshot an opening to sucker-punch him.
• Monsters vs. Aliens: B.O.B. is given a plasma gun by a clone, and the gun goes off in his hands and hits said clone. Later, Dr. Cockroach grabs the gun away, claiming that it should be in the hands of someone capable... and then the gun goes off in his hands and shoots another clone.
• Steven Universe: The Movie: Not a gun, but the same principle. Steven hands Peridot the Rejuvenator and she immediately holds it up to her face and looks down the shaft, with her finger right next to the extension button, causing an understandably frightened Bismuth to snatch it out of her hands.
• In the Ralph Bakshi film Wizards, a Gas Mask Mook starts screaming about how "They killed Fritz." Fritz gets up and tells him that he's OK. Max (the first mook) crosses his arms in disappointment that he won't get the chance to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, and accidentally shoots Fritz while his arms are crossed.

Films — Live-Action

• In 21 Jump Street, Jenko and Schmidt practice flipping their guns while facing each other. Schmidt asks Jenko if his isn't loaded; Jenko admits it is, but then adds it's more fun that way.
• Pretty much anyone who gets hold of a gun in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa does something stupid with it. Highlights include someone with a taser shooting someone holding a shotgun, and Alan tossing away a loaded shotgun so that it goes off when it lands.
• The A-Team: When two CIA agents attempt to off Pike in the back of the car; lampshaded by the target himself. In fact, Pike begs Lynch not to let that guy shoot him because that'd just be embarrassing. The agent to his left seems to suck at gun safety and is stupidly putting a suppressor on his pistol. While the gun's pointed at him no less. He then proceeds to aim it at Pike such that it'll more likely kill the agent on the right than the target. Pike overpowers him and hands his gun to the agent on the right, hoping that this one isn't as much of a complete imbecile. Sadly, that agent then answers his cellphone, while also pressing the gun to his face. Not to mention that all this is happening in a moving vehicle. By that point, even Lynch is exasperated with the firearms-handling incompetence.
• Austin Powers: Austin does it, as he can be seen shaking his arms and blinking uncontrollably whenever he fires his gun. Mike Myers notes in the commentary that it was done only half-intentionally, as Mike himself had never fired a gun before.
• Big Trouble in Little China: Just before the climactic battle, Jack Burton attempts to lead the charge of The Cavalry by shooting upwards dramatically. A chunk of the ceiling lands on his head for his effort, and puts him out of commission until halfway through the fight.
• Commando: After John Matrix gets locked up in a police van, Cindy tries to free him with a quad-barrelled missile launcher. Unfortunately she points the wrong end at the target and blows up the shops behind her. Of course, if she had used the gun properly, it would actually have turned out worse...
• In the live-action film of George of the Jungle, Lyle Van De Groot carries lighters that look like guns. When he and the poachers Max and Thor head out to find Ursula and capture the "White Ape", Lyle mistakenly trades one of his lighters with an African guide for a real one. He plans to use the "lighter" to scare George away, but when George runs over to save Ape from being poached, a shot rings out, followed by a Big "NO!" both from Ape and Lyle (who realizes he accidentally traded his lighter for a real gun), and a Big GEORGE!! from Ursula.
  Narrator: Whew! Okay, kids, let's settle down and review the important information. Lyle is a big doofus. Poor George was really shot, but can't die because let's face it, he's the hero.
• Game Night: Annie spends several scenes totally ignoring basic gun safety, capping it off by posing for a selfie with her gun in her mouth. She thinks the gun is a very realistic fake. When she realizes it's a real gun, she panics and shoots her husband in the arm.
• Hide And Creep: One character, a former police officer, uses his gun to emphasize other members of the group while coming up with an escape plan, in homage to Plan 9.
• In Holmes & Watson, Watson announces Holmes' arrival by bursting into the Old Bailey firing his revolver wildly: shooting — amongst other things — the judge's gavel, the clock, and — in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it gag — a spectator in the gallery.
• Hot Fuzz: Danny accidentally shoots the village doctor with an air gun. Later on, when Angel and Danny are gunning down the NWA during the return to the village, Danny takes down the doctor by throwing his shotgun and blowing apart his foot with the blast when it hits the ground.
• Idiocracy:
  • It features a bunch of cops firing on the car Not Sure has just exited. One of them has a rocket launcher — which he proceeds to fire backwards. A few seconds later, a 747 enters the shot going down in flames.
  • Later in the film, the U.S. President quiets down a rowdy crowd in the House of Representin' by firing a light support weapon into the air.
• Benny the cop in the Swedish film Kopps keeps doing this in his daydreams and fantasies, like in this awesome scene.
• In Logan, Logan relieves an unconscious Pierce of his sidearm, and gives it to Caliban while instructing him to drive him out into the desert and dump his body. Caliban immediately points the gun at Logan while confirming the instructions, and Logan pushes the barrel down. Made even more amusing considering Logan's Healing Factor.
• Looper has Kid Blue juggling his gun which he nearly drops and which eventually goes off, sending a round ricocheting around the room. He's never lived down a past incident where he shot himself in the foot.
• Mars Attacks!: When a soldier runs screaming towards a rifle, points it at a Martian — and hits the magazine release.
• The Marx Brothers film Monkey Business has a gangster hands revolvers to both Groucho and Zeppo on two separate occasions. Both times he does so he immediately realizes that they are absentmindedly pointing them right at him, and grabs their hands to turn the guns aside. Don't hand weapons to people who don't know proper gun safety, somebody will get shot in the face. Another gangster in the same film gives guns to Chico and Harpo.
• In Mortdecai, in a flashback, Charlie goes to a hunting event and, holding his shotgun the wrong way, accidentally shoots Jock several feet away.
• The Pink Panther: In The Return of the Pink Panther, Chief Inspector Dreyfus keeps in his office desk both a real gun and a lighter that looks just like said gun. Hilarity Ensues with predictably violent results, such as when his assistant François, hearing a gunshot, bursts in the office to see the top half of Dreyfus' face looking up at him from behind his desk:
  Dreyfus: Don't just stand there, idiot — call a doctor. And then help me find my nose!
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: Blackbeard at one point plays a version of Russian roulette with two loaded pistols out of six to shoot at his daughter Angelica, with Jack Sparrow having to choose the pistols. After the first pistol proves to be an unloaded one, Jack thinks he's bluffing, picks up another pistol and starts swinging it around, causing the rest of the crew to duck when it's pointed in their direction. Smart, because when Jack fires it in the air, it turns out that gun is loaded.
• Plan 9 from Outer Space: A scene where one of the cops scratches his head with the barrel of his revolver. The possible consequence to himself, should his gun go off, would not only be hideous but poetic, as someone who would do that in the first place obviously wasn't using his brains for much to begin with. The actor who played the cop later said he was testing to see if Wood, who rarely did second takes, would notice or care (he didn't). Characters in the film, including said cop, also tend to wave their guns like they were pointers.
• Sgt. Tackleberry of the Police Academy series gets at least one negligent discharge per film, and uses his sidearms to solve just about every problem he comes across (even down to rescuing kitty cats stuck in trees). Tackleberry is a huge Gun Nut and is implied to have a military background along with his police training, so the movies being out-and-out slapstick comedies are pretty much his only excuse for being so careless.
• Semi-Pro: While playing poker, one guy pretends to threaten someone with a gun as a prank, and says it's not loaded. Everyone at the poker table takes turns pointing the gun and pulling the trigger at each other. Predictably, the gun does have one round left; the bullet ricochets around the room and hits a guy's arm (it's in a cast). It's still played for laughs even though the guy's arm is bleeding through the cast.
• Shaun of the Dead:
  • It features a running argument between Ed and Shaun on whether or not The Winchester's namesake gun (mounted over the bar) has been deactivated:
    [Shaun clubs a zombie with the butt of the Winchester]
    Ed: Why didn't you just shoot him, man?
    Shaun: Ed, for the last time...
    [Shaun squeezes the trigger of the gun, and it fires]
    Ed: I fucking knew it!
  • In a short conversation, a character asks if anyone has any experience with guns. Ed raises his hand, and when asked about what his gun experience is, Shaun mentions that Ed shot his sister in the leg with an air rifle.^note The air rifle gag is apparently based on a real-life incident — in the Shaun of the Dead commentary, Edgar Wright claims that his brother once shot him in the leg with an air rifle.
• Starsky & Hutch: Starsky tries to intimidate a suspect by playing Russian Roulette with him. Said suspect rolls his eyes when he sees him empty his revolver and pretend to put one bullet in, but becomes wide-eyed and panicked quickly when one of the bullets Starsky (not so) inconspicuously puts up his sleeve falls into the cylinder. The scene is still played for laughs since Starsky thinks he still has an empty revolver. When the suspect tries to plead to Hutch when he comes in the interrogation room, Starsky ends up shooting the wall.
• The Three Stooges: If a firearm is anywhere near one of the Three Stooges, you can be assured that every basic rule of gun safety is out the window. One short even has Curly giving a pistol to a baby as a pacifier!
  • "Disorder in the Court" introduces a gun as evidence. Curly is told to try to pull the incredibly rusty trigger, after being told "Never fear, it's not loaded." After one harmless click, he then accidentally shoots off the prosecutor's toupee when his finger gets stuck in the trigger guard.
  • Any time the Stooges or someone around them insisted a gun wasn't loaded, it was. In "Even as I.O.U." Curly gives a baby a pacifier. When Moe sees that it's a revolver, he reaches in to get it, but is stopped by Larry, who warns that the kid might pull the trigger. Curly insists it isn't loaded, and seeks to prove it...by cocking the hammer and thoughtlessly discharging it in an enclosed space. Pretty much every rule of gun safety is blithely disregarded.
• Tucker & Dale vs. Evil has one of the college kids threatening the duo with a cop's pistol, and Dale helpfully points out that the safety's still on. Naturally, the college student points the gun at his own face with his finger on the trigger when trying to remove the safety. It goes exactly how you expect such a situation would go.

Literature

• In the Dean Ing novel Cat House, a compilation of short stories he wrote for Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars books, a human picks up a Kzinti energy rifle, smearing blood over the 'insufficient charge' light to hide it, and captures a Kzin. Having given his parole, the Kzin asks about the rifle. The human says "It's not charged," and points it upward, pulling the trigger to demonstrate. As they watch the hut burn from outside, the Kzin mentions that there is a world of difference between insufficient charge and no charge.

Live-Action TV

• Played with in The Andy Griffith Show:
  • Clueless Deputy Barney Fife often has comical accidents with his gun, but not because he doesn't know the rules of gun safety, just because he's a total klutz. Andy, due to Barney's habit of accidentally setting off his sidearm, always orders Barney to keep it empty with just one spare bullet in his shirt pocket.
  • However, in one episode when housing a famous criminal, Barney decides to put the one bullet in his gun for safety. Later, the criminal steals the gun and holds up Barney, Opie, and Aunt Bee while attempting a getaway, only to be interrupted by Andy. Not knowing that Barney disobeyed him, Andy is tickled at being threatened with an "empty" gun and dares the criminal to shoot him over Barney's objections. The criminal recklessly pulls his trigger at the ceiling without a shot...five times. After taking the gun away and locking the criminal up, Andy jokes about it some more and fires at the ceiling a sixth time to show how "empty" the gun is...only for Barney's one bullet to go off. Unlike most instances of this trope, Andy promptly realizes how dangerous the incident really was, and is so shaken he faints.
  • Played straight in a few episodes when Gomer gets temporarily deputized and turns out to be so bad about gun safety that even Barney chastises him for it.
    Andy: And take that gun out of your mouth!
• Beverly Hills, 90210: In the Season 2 episode "The Next 50 Years", Scott Scanlon's fixation with guns ends up accidentally killing him when he spins one (and discharges at him) during his birthday in front of his old friend David Silver. His last words were "Check this out."
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episode "End of Days", it is implied that Willow and Tara's cat, Miss Kitty Fantastico, met her demise in a tragic crossbow accident or that MKF stepped on a negligently loaded crossbow, with wacky results.
  Dawn: Xander, my crossbow is not out here. I told you, I don't leave crossbows around all willy-nilly. Not since that time with Miss Kitty Fantastico.
• The Colbert Report: Stephen Colbert thinks of Sweetness as more of a lover than a weapon and so doesn't pay too much attention to gun safety when he's with her. His bad habit of waving the loaded gun around with his finger on the trigger eventually comes back to bite him in the ass when he shots himself in the balls but the bullet ricocheted off.
• On a serious side, during an episode of CSI, the team couldn't figure out how an Uzi was shot in a Death Blossom manner in this warehouse. Turns out the kids who did it spun the weapon down a pole from the ceiling. (It turns out as well as you can expect for the boys.)
• Done with pistol style taser in Doc Martin when the resident idiot-cop Joe gets one to supplement his police equipment and spends the episode pretending he is a cowboy, always whipping it out and pointing at people and things. Needless to say that he eventually manages to taser a complete bystander when he panics during a mild altercation.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "The Gunfighters", when Doc Holliday gives the Doctor a revolver, the Doctor spends the next few lines unthinkingly pointing it alternately at Doc and Kate. Whenever they try to push the gun away from them, he ends up pointing it at the other.
  • During the Stop, or I Shoot Myself! scene in the TV Movie, at one point The Doctor absentmindedly points the gun straight at the officer he had just taken the gun from. Please note that in Real Life, either of those two actions (attempting to take a gun from a police officer or pointing a firearm at an officer) are very good ways of being killed by that officer or other officers in the vicinity. He was lucky he got away with it rather than becoming John Hurt a mite earlier than scheduled...
  • "Daleks in Manhattan": An actress threatens Martha and the Doctor with a gun, and handles it in an appallingly cavalier way, waving it around and even briefly pointing it at her own head. The Doctor suggests she should maybe put it down, and she shrugs and tosses it aside. The Doctor and Martha both flinch–-
    Tallulah: Hunh? [realizes she has gun] Oh, sure. [tosses gun on a chair] Oh, c'mon. It's not real. It's just a prop. It was either that or a spear.
• The IT Crowd: Douglas opening a random drawer and finding a loaded revolver. Whilst attempting to conceal it, he accidentally shoots himself in the leg, and spends the rest of the episode trying to hide his injury from his staff. Amusingly, that happens after he checks if it's loaded by putting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger five times. He is supposed to be Too Dumb to Live, but damn.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
  • In "The Gang Gets Gun Fever", Mac waves the gang's loaded pistol around while walking down their apartment complex hallway, points the gun at Dennis while saying "Powpowpow", and accidentally drops it on the floor. After Mac picks it up and fumbles with it, Dennis rips it out of his hand.
  • "The Gang Cracks The Liberty Bell" has Frank and Charlie discovering one of the rifles they've purchased is defective when it fails to kill Dee. They check the rest by taking turns staring down the barrel of each gun while the other pulls the trigger.
  • "Gun Fever 2: Still Hot" has Charlie prove to Mac, in a Guns vs. Swords debate, that the idea of him charging his opponent with a katana and cutting them down before they can pull the trigger is nonsense, by just pointing Frank's revolver at Mac and pulling the trigger with an audible click a few times. The revolver isn't loaded, but it's still pretty out-there.
• M*A*S*H:
  • Used a lot with gun fanatic Frank Burns. His appalling gun safety included frequently drawing his gun with his finger on the trigger, more than once accidentally shooting something, and at one point, accidentally shooting BJ, for which he was relentlessly mocked.
    Frank: Sir, I think the Chinese have captured Major Houlihan!!
    Col. Potter: I see. So, naturally you shot Captain Hunnicutt.
  • One incident involved him shooting himself in the foot while attempting to return a high-ranking officer's beautiful revolver that he had stolen. He also had a particularly entertaining scene where he pulled the pin on a grenade for no good reason, and about six seconds later realized he was waving around a live grenade. Cue frantic search for the dropped pin and fumbling attempt to return it to the grenade (it worked).
• Modern Family: When the families go to a dude ranch, the guys try skeet shooting, and Mitchell sends the others diving for cover when he absent-mindedly turns towards them while holding his rifle.
• One sketch in Monty Python's Flying Circus centered around a hunting club with all the members firing their rifles off randomly just to hear it go bang. By the end of the sketch, every single one of them is wounded.
• My Name Is Earl: Chubby carries both a loaded pistol and an identical-looking water-pistol filled with vodka, that he uses to freshen patrons drinks (and occasionally squirts directly into his own mouth). He is shown shooting at least one patron's glass, and (between episodes) the inevitable happens and he shoots himself in the head.
• Pixelface: Sgt. Riely uses his plasmatronic laser for all kinds of mundane tasks, such as opening a carton of milk.
• Sanford and Son: While Fred was away in St. Louis, Grady chases away some of Lemont's friends with a rifle. When Lemont talks to him about it the next day, Grady claims he didn't load it, then starts pointing it around the room, though only at the ceiling, claiming "You sure can scare people with an empty gun", then pulls the trigger and when it fires, he's so startled he drops it.
• SCTV: In a parody of Captain Kangaroo called "Captain Combat", Gunny Rabbit is shot by an accidental discharge. (Captain Combat's lesson to the kiddies at the end of the sketch: "Never be in a room with a loaded gun unless you're holding it.")
• Stargate Atlantis does it pretty much every time Rodney McKay fires a gun. Justified since he has no military experience and no training with firearms. In one episode, he frantically asks someone else what the hell he's supposed to do when his gun runs out of bullets. Why he hasn't sought out proper instruction on how to use weapons beyond "bullets come out of this end" by now is part of his many many flaws. His best part was when he tried to shoot a Wraith, and hit the magazine release instead... He does, over the course of the show, go from barely being able to operate a pistol to carrying a P90 and using it fairly competently, though never quite as well the rest of the team.
• Top Gear had an episode where James managed to point a shotgun right at his own face.
  "And James was rubbish with the shotgun."

Music

• The narrator of the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Trigger Happy" is extremely reckless with gun safety and rather unconcerned about having shot both his father and his cat.

Music Videos

• Used in the music video for "Walk" by the Foo Fighters after the rest of the band (minus Dave Grohl who's being arrested) becomes friends with the cops. This includes taking a picture while pointing guns stylishly at the camera and Taylor Hawkins literally juggling a loaded gun.

Radio

• In one A Prairie Home Companion "The Lives of the Cowboys" sketch, a coffeehouse waitress asks the title characters if they use their pistols a lot. Dusty replies that they mostly only do while drunk, when they sometimes shoot at the Milky Way, or whatever they mistake for the Milky Way while drunk.
  Waitress: No senseless acts of violence?
  Dusty: They always made sense to us at the time.

Video Games

• Comic Jumper: Captain Smiley accidentally shoots the cameraman during this ad.
• Deadpool starts with the titular character hanging around his apartment lounging in his recliner, occasionally scratching his crotch with one of his pistols.
• Earthworm Jim: Two of his idle animations are to twirl his blaster on his finger, throw it in the air, catch it and holster it. The aversion is done successfully, with no harm done. In the second (straight) version he catches it wrong, and it blasts him in the face. (Unfortunately, his head does not asplode.) A third idle animation splits the difference — after Jim tosses the gun in the air, it lands on his head, but doesn't go off.
• LEGO Star Wars II: After being handed the lightsaber Luke turns it on and Obi-Wan ducks out of the way. Luke then swings it a few times and inadvertently beheads C3PO.
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater played with: Ocelot is fond of literally doing this as an extreme form of Russian Roulette: Three Colt Single Actions Armys, one bullet, and he juggles them while periodically pulling the trigger on one while aiming at a potential victim. The last time he does this in The Stinger, one of the guns he juggles is empty, and the other is empty except for a blank. He's doing it just to test Snake's mettle.
• Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light has some seriously unsafe (and generally hilarious) Idle Animations. Artyom will start throwing his fully-loaded submachine gun built from old steel pipes into the air until it whacks him in the head, he'll crush his finger while playing with the hammer on his shotgun pistol (and catch his fingers in the Sawed-Off Shotgun's break action), shock himself on the Volt Driver, and jam a cleaning rod down a loaded shotgun. The safest animation is ringing the bell on the bicycle shotgun.
• Captain Qwark, in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time.
  Qwark: This Lombax is young. He does not understand that being a hero is 45% strength, 60% bravery, and 10% raw intelligence. *points to his head with the barrel of his laser gun*

Web Animation

• Girl-chan in Paradise, "It's out of bullets, anyway!" "Then that means I can do this!" (BANG)

Webcomics

• The Dreadful: A cocky gunslinger tries to intimidate Kit by spinning and flipping his revolver around. Kit even invokes the trope by remarking on how dangerous that sort of thing is. Then he had to go and call her "pinky". Before the (unnamed) gunman made his appearance, Kit put on a display of Improbable Aiming Skills on the rest of his gang and was still holding her gun.
• El Goonish Shive: Sarah is scared of shapeshifting, and holds a grudge against Tedd after his "just joking around" with supposedly "not charged" Transformation Ray.
• Girly: Lampshaded.
• Gone with the Blastwave has an Armed Farces cast full of depressed people, apathetic people, incompetents, sociopaths, and depressed apathetic incompetent sociopaths. All of the many, many examples of improper gun use and handling are Played for Laughs.
  "Friendly fire you goddamned son of a b—"
• Lackadaisy: In a background extra strip, Rocky shoots himself in the left ear when waving around his pistol, giving him Ear Notch seen in the regular strip.
• In The Last Days of FOXHOUND, Ocelot does his Russian Roulette routine, (as described above in the Snake Eaterentry) with a hostage in a flashback. The Boss, who is having none of it, snatches one of the guns out of the air, points it at the ground, and fires (revealing it to be the gun with the bullet), all the while lecturing Ocelot that "there's no such thing as luck on the battlefield."
  Raven: ...How—
  Mantis: Shut up. I'm doing the math.
• Poison Ivy Gulch: Happens on 6/11/2021 when an obviously drunk deputy shoots up Marshal Art's hat.
• PvP: 2008/09/15, when Scratch tries to threaten someone with his ray gun.
• Questionable Content: Marten doesn't observe taser safety and accidentally electrocutes himself. Of course, he was drunk.
• Schlock Mercenary has the eponymous amorph literally juggling his plasma guns... lacking safety switches and powerful enough that he need only one to use as a makeshift jetpack. Then again, dumb luck and unusual biology are the only reasons he survives. That said, he also invokes the trope at one point — he acquires a pair of BFGs and saws the barrels in half to make them more maneuverable. When Kevyn points out that he cut off all the safety mechanisms that'd stop the guns from blowing up in his face and insists on repairing them, Schlock demands that he not make the gun look any safer.
• Subverted in this Wapsi Square strip. Monica makes absolutely sure her vintage revolver is unloaded, and then manages to knock herself out with it.

Websites

• Several Darwin Awards have been handed out to those who shouldn't be allowed to handle guns.
• Idiots with Guns blog, dedicated to the people who for some reason think Hollywood style gun handling makes them look "cool", as opposed to irresponsible and/or stupid.
• The Onion, this article, an 8-year-old boy who unintentionally shot himself in the thigh wins praise from Strawman Politicals for having exercised his constitutional rights.

Web Videos

• This video with a man using a gun's slide action to power a toothbrush, which of course he sticks in his mouth. Incredibly unsafe trigger discipline, and he even points the gun at the camera while doing so!
• Channel Awesome:
  • The Nostalgia Critic shows blatant disregard for gun safety, often waving the gun around, discharging it at unsafe distances, not unloading the magazine, not uncocking the pin, etc. He would likely accidentally blow his head off in real life. Then again he has blown his head off on purpose enough times already in character. The actor, Doug Walker, is of course using a prop gun, which is just an airsoft gun with the orange tip painted black.
  • Bennett the Sage takes this to the extreme in the two-year anniversary special Kickassia where, as Surgeon General of Kickassia, he determines that Uzis make you unkillable, on the grounds that he's holding one, and he isn't dead. He's later seen wiping tears away with the barrel of the Uzi.
• "Gun Privileges," an episode of Troopers from CollegeHumor, is full of this.
• Sheriff Domestic: The Care Expy is jailed by Dick Head for brushing her teeth with a gun. It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.

Western Animation

• In Archer, Brett's primary character trait is "gets shot in the office regularly." As of Season 3 he seems to know this, after someone demonstrates a car's bulletproof shields and he gets hit by a ricochet. Becomes Running Gagged when he finally suffers a fatal shot during a CIA raid of their headquarters.
  Brett: Yeah, I'm like a magnet...
• Duckman:
  Duckman: Did I ever tell you my Dad's last words to me?
  Cornfed: "Careful, son, I don't think the safety is on."
  Duckman: Before that!
• Family Guy:
  • In an episode where Peter becomes the town sheriff, he aims at a thug holding his son hostage and pulls the trigger. After the gun fails to fire, he then examines the jam by looking down the barrel. Rather than being hit and killed by a bullet from his pistol, he is instead punished with a raccoon to the face.
  • He literally juggles a loaded gun in a deleted scene from another episode as Adolf Hitler's fictional brother. He kills Hitler by accident, continues to juggle the gun as Eva Braun berates him, accidentally shoots her too, then places the gun in Eva's hand to make it look like they committed suicide with it before silently moving away.
• Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law:
  • In "SPF", Peanut is seen cleaning a gun while pointing the barrel to his face.
  • In another episode, Phil is juggling a baby, a target, and a shotgun (and is shooting the target while juggling all three). Of course it's not REALLY unsafe until Harvey helps out...
• King of the Hill:
  • In "Soldier of Misfortune" Dale once again tells a story to the gun club members about how he assassinated a Central American dictator. He twirls his gun and accidentally drops and discharges it hitting the cash register. This panicked the others and ruins Dale's reputation as president.
  • In a two-part whodunnit, Buck Strickland's mistress Debbie is found dead in a dumpster behind the barbecue restaurant he owns, and Buck, his wife Ms. Liz, and Hank are all suspects. Eventually, the Texas Ranger investigating the case reveals what really happened: Debbie was hiding in the dumpster with a shotgun to ambush Buck, went across the street to a convenience store to buy snacks when she got hungry, and then tried to climb back into the dumpster while juggling the shotgun and an armload of snacks; this caused the gun to discharge, accidentally killing her.
• Looney Tunes:
  • In "Porky's Duck Hunt", Porky, while showing off his hunting gear, aims his shotgun at his dog, then says it's unloaded, points it at the ceiling and pulls the trigger, firing it. His upstairs neighbour then comes down and punches him in the face, then walks away with a hole in his pants. After Porky's unsuccessful hunt, Porky disgustedly throws his gun on the floor, causing it to fire into the ceiling again. The neighbour upstairs comes down and punches Porky in the face again, then walks off with two holes in his pants.
  • Elmer Fudd, for an avid hunter, ignores pretty much every rule of gun safety while out hunting wabbits. Also, there's the scene from "Rabbit Fire", where Daffy looks down the barrel of Elmer's gun and finds out the hard way that there was One Buwwet Weft.
• The Simpsons, repeatedly.
  • Homer buys a gun and uses it for such things as opening a can of beer, turning off lights, and turning on his TV (complete with a Mook from a Western falling off a roof at that exact moment). He becomes a member of the local gun club, and despite how trigger happy they are, even they are horrified at his total lack of responsibility and expel him immediately. By third-act, Marge takes the kids and moves out of the house until Homer can learn to control himself. Considering all the things she's put up with from him, this actually says quite a lot. Hell, considering the very first thing he did in the gun store was point it at the clerk and pull the trigger five times (with no bullets inside, of course), it's a wonder the clerk sold him the gun at all. This is, incidentally, Truth in Television, as a lot of new customers will do that exact thing when buying their first firearm.
  • In The Simpsons Movie, Chief Wiggum can't carry enough donuts, so he stacks them on the barrel of his gun, and then eats them straight off it. The gun goes off while he's between bites, blowing a hole through his hat. He says "Whoa, that was a close one!" and continues eating.
  • Another episode, showing film of him when he was younger at a firing range, has him looking down the barrel after his gun stops and getting yelled at by his instructor ("What did I say about pointsy-twardsies?"). He then gives the instructor a back massage with the gun and it goes off and shoots the cameraman. He's later shown to have gotten the position of Chief by giving the Mayor a back massage with his gun.
  • Another episode showed Wiggum cleaning his ears with the barrel of his gun, and yet another showed him firing at his TV after forgetting where he left the remote. It was in his gun holster.
  • Yet another Wiggum example is a recent episode where he uses two gun barrels as earplugs.
  • In another episode, Chief Wiggum is trying to shoot a fly with a gun:
    Chief Wiggum: [the fly lands on his nose] HA!! I've got you now!! [cut to commercial]
  • In "I Love Lisa", Chief Wiggum uses his loaded revolver like a hammer to crack walnuts by holding it by the barrel and hitting the nuts on the table with the end of the handle. He gets frustrated by a nut that won't crack and shoots it, leaving a large bullet hole in the kitchen table. What's worse is that Ralph was standing right by the table the whole time.
  • Also done in "Homer The Vigilante":
    Marge: I don't think the guns are a good idea.
    Homer: Marge! We're responsible adults. And—
    Moe: [shoots] Whoops.
    Homer: And if a group of responsible adults can't handle firearms in a responsible way—
    Sea Captain: [shoots] Sorry.
    Skinner: [shoots] Uh-oh.
    Moe: [shoots] Me again.
    Bart: [shoots] Sorry.
  • From the episode "Simpsons Tall Tales":
    Homer: I'm cleaning my gun with the safety off, safety off, safety off, I'm cleaning my gun with the safety off on a cold and frosty— [shoots]
  • One comic book had Homer attend an "Arm the Elderly" rally. To the frustration and astonishment of the Grim Reaper, everyone somehow survived.
• Superfriends: Marvin manages to get the Villain of the Day's freeze weapon and threatens him with it. The villain smugly tells him to fire away because he (and the audience) can clearly see he's holding the weapon backward. In order to demonstrate that he was just as stupid, Zan later did the same thing with a transformation gun.

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