Bob hands Alice a gun. "Do you know how to use this?" he asks. To answer, Alice goes through a little routine with the gun. This may involve checking the safety, unloading, testing the action, and reloading. It will almost always involve lots of exaggerated clicky noises and shoo-shoo sounds.
The idea is to show that yes, Alice knows how to use one.
Contrast One-Handed Shotgun Pump, which is reloading a shotgun vertically so only one hand is needed. Compare and contrast Lock-and-Load Montage, which is a montage of the characters equipping and readying their weapons for some action. Not to be confused with the show.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
- Noir: Kirika does this with her eyes closed.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Parodied during "Who Do You Think You Are, Having Two Faces!?". Yoko tosses Kamina a pistol and asks if he knows how to use it. He cocks it and acts like he does. Then he uses it as a bludgeon, acting surprised when it fires...at him because he was holding it backwards.
Fan Works
- Neon Exodus Evangelion: DJ hands a pistol to Shinji Ikari and asks him if he can use it. Shinji (who was thoroughly trained by the villains earlier in the story) promptly performs the full routine to DJ's utter bemusement.
- Streets of Rage Saga:
- A realistic subversion occurs in Origins—when Axel has to temporarily leave Blaze by herself, he leaves a pistol with her. She admits she's never held one before, so he shows her how it works. The explanation goes over her head, though, and when the time comes for her to use it, she tries to pull the hammer back...and ends up spilling all the bullets out of the gun instead. She has some difficulty getting the bullets back into the clip but manages to work the gun correctly on the second try. Later, she gets better with firearms after receiving some basic gun training from Adam.
- Zigzagged with Skate—he's never stated to have had any prior firearms training, yet the first time he's given a high-powered weapon the narrative doesn't outline him having any difficulty using it. (Although one could make the case that Adam, a cop with extensive firearms training, might have given him a few pointers outside of the narrative.)
Films — Live-Action
- James Bond
- GoldenEye: Bond tosses a gun to Natalya and asks if she can use it. She promptly checks if everything is in working order and answers "Yes."
- Spectre: Bond places a pistol on the table with the intention of showing Madeleine how to use it. She picks it up and performs a safety check, indicating that she already knows how.
Live-Action TV
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- Xander tries to do this with a flare gun and totally fails. Giles then demonstrates how to do it properly.
- In "Halloween", Xander briefly gains military knowledge thanks to having been Cursed with Awesome by a commando costume. He demonstrates his newfound skills by properly loading his now-real toy firearm. This ability will come and go depending on the plot in later episodes.
- Dollhouse: Implied in "The Target". Boyd gives a gun to Echo while asking him whether he knows how to use it. Echo's answer is that none of his brothers are Democrats, the subtext being that Republicans usually support the legality of owning fire arms, so they are stereotyped as freely using them. As such, Echo's brothers have taught him how to handle guns.
Boyd: You know how to use this?
Echo: I have three brothers, none of them Democrats. - Haven: Exploited in "Fur". Audrey goes to question Landon and finds him skeet-shooting. Badly. She gives him some tips, and he challenges her to do better. She does, not missing once, which impresses him enough to talk with her.
- Life on Mars (2006): Sam does this, showing Ray and Chris that he knows how to handle a gun.
Sam: You should see my PlayStation scores.
- Lost: Every character has done this at least once. Even Shannon.
- Love/Hate: Zig-Zagged. The opening scene consists of Nidge learning how to field strip a Glock 17.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: In the 'months earlier' part of "Alpine Fields", Sarah proves to the family she wants to protect that she can defend them all effectively by showing them she knows how to use guns despite not having a license.
- Unforgettable: Carrie locks and loads her gun to intimidate a mobster after he tells her to put the gun down because she obviously doesn't know anything about guns (insert prejudiced reason here). Carrie almost contemptuously ejects the mag then slides it back in place and puts it back on target.
Webcomics
- General Protection Fault: Nick and Ki are visiting the former's family. Nick's father turns out to be a cop and when he shows off his new service sidearm to his son, Nick —who is otherwise a stereotypical nerd— goes through this routine before checking the sights and commenting "Nice...". Ki is somewhat intimidated. Apparently, growing up in a house with guns taught even Nick how to handle them.
Web Videos
- Wiz War 100: In one of his reviews, he demonstrates that he knows how to handle airsoft guns.
