Basic Trope: A weapon is carried or brandished when not appropriate.
- Straight:
- Alice walks into a bank, a courthouse, a church, or a similar location where weapons are either forbidden by law or at least considered threatening and unwelcome, openly carrying a gun, sword, or similarly obviously lethal weapon.
- Axes at School, this trope engaged in by kids at a school.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is carrying not just one gun, but several guns, a fully loaded bazooka or rocket launcher, belts and canisters of ammunition, grenades, and looks like she just walked out of Rambo as she walks into the place.
- Alice drives a fully loaded armored personnel carrier or tank up to the drive-in window.
- Downplayed:
- Alice's weapon is a Joke Weapon such as a fish or SuperSoaker.
- Alice's weapon is, while a weapon, a small pen knife or nail file or can of pepper spray, and it's only taken out when she's checked for weapons.
- Justified:
- Alice is an active-duty soldier and cannot keep the weapons/armor elsewhere.
- Alice is a police officer or employed in law enforcement AND actively pursuing a dangerous suspect.
- The setting is one that allows for carrying weapons everywhere.
- Alice is filming a scene for a movie and walks into the nearby coffee shop on break, having put orange tape on the "weapons" she still wears to make sure no one mistakes her for an actual threat.
- The back/church/courthouse is completely ruined, and Alice's world is a crapsack one.
- Inverted:
- Alice is entirely unarmed (possibly even to the degree of being naked) in an active combat zone or similar situation where one would expect someone to be (possibly heavily) armed.
- The location is a live fire range for elite target shooters, and Alice has brought a Super Soaker squirt gun.
- Subverted: Alice is carrying a weapon into a place where it is not appropriate, but it is concealed and she has a concealed carry license.
- Double Subverted: To everyone in earshot, Alice then immediately starts bragging that she has a 357 Magnum strapped to her side.
- Parodied: Alice walks into a peace conference at the United Nations...armed to the teeth as in Exaggerated and carrying the Russian nuclear football she wrestled from Vladimir Putin.
- Zig Zagged: Alice is a police officer but has her gun holstered and the safety on when she stops into the bank. Someone announces their intent to commit a Bank Robbery, and she unholsters the gun and points it at the bank robber while arresting him.
- Averted:
- A society or setting where weapons do not exist, or are unavailable to anyone outside the military, and the military is not allowed to carry them on home turf outside of active war.
- A Fantasy setting where everyone is a Squishy Wizard and physical combat arms aside from perhaps wands do not exist.
- Enforced:
- To show how accustomed the society or world is to people walking around everywhere armed with the most lethal weapons.
- To make a political statement for or against gun control.
- To show how dangerous the place is that people must continually be armed and ready to fight.
- To allow for An Aesop about carrying weapons in the wrong places per Axes at School.
- The programming of the Video Game isn't advanced enough to allow a weapon concealment animation and/or interactions to change when it is not used.
- Lampshaded:
- "You'd think walking in here looking like Rambo would get us all caught."
- "What the hell are you doing carrying that in here?"
- The people at the bank or church or whatnot remark on all these people coming in with weapons, should they call the city guards/the police?
- Invoked:
- Someone who is not a soldier or a police officer has a weapon that cannot be concealed, and is randomly walking around with it through anywhere he or she can.
- The place the location is in is being invaded and people have been ordered to carry personal arms everywhere.
- Exploited: Alice takes advantage of the lax gun regulations to start a massacre.
- Defied:
- Alice is not carrying a weapon despite all the other people that do.
- In a Video Game or Fantasy setting, Alice is the priest/healer/cleric/mage/etc - her party members may be armed to the teeth in an inappropriate location but she isn't.
- Discussed: "Do you really think we should carry our weapons in there? The sign says weapons aren't allowed."
- Conversed: The soldiers discuss between each other whether they should carry their weapons or one should stay outside at the truck with them.
- Implied: Alice invites some friends to to her apartment, and one of them catches a glimpse of a ticket she got for "irresponsible weapon handling in public propriety".
- Deconstructed:
- In a Video Game or Fantasy setting, Alice, being the thief who ran reconnaissance, is the only one who knows the town guards arrest everyone who carries their weapons into The Magocracy. She makes sure to ditch her daggers outside of town, smirking as all of her party members are arrested but she isn't, helping herself to what she can carry of their belongings, grabbing her daggers from their hiding place, and leaving.
- Real Life: Carrying guns or other weapons into many places will get one arrested at best or killed at worst.
- Alice walks into the bank or courthouse or church or wherever with her openly carried gun, and is arrested, shot, or both - or at the very least, told to Get Out! and never return.
- Reconstructed:
- The setting is Real Life or Like Reality, Unless Noted, but it is also a small town that pretty much only revives in hunting season and does business with hunters. As long as the person is known and their weapons are obvious hunting gear, they're likely given a pass for most places.
- The setting is Real Life or Like Reality, Unless Noted, but it is close to a military base or active combat zone. As long as the armed people are soldiers and not fighting there, their weapons are ignored.
- Played For Laughs: Black Comedy.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice is indeed an actress carrying fake weapons marked as such, but gets arrested or shot anyway.
- Alice is actually going to commit a robbery or a murder or even a massacre with her weapon(s).
- Alice is about to become part of An Aesop about the danger of carrying around dangerous weapons.
Please leave your weapons here before you return to the main page, we don't want Guns in Church.
