Basic Trope: Untrained character doesn't use gun safely.
- Straight: Alice casually points her pistol at Bob while talking to him.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice uses the barrel of her pistol to scratch her nose.
- Alice is way, way, way Too Dumb to Live and attempts to pick her teeth with the trigger.
- Downplayed:
- Alice attempts to have her gun pointed in a safe direction - towards a metal wall but that would cause ricochets.
- Everyone in the room is Nigh-Invulnerable. Getting shot wouldn't kill, just hurt a whole lot.
- Justified:
- Alice has no idea what a gun is.
- Alice is drunk, stoned, or just REALLY stupid.
- Alice thinks she knows more about safe gun handling than she really does.
- Alice is wholly aware of the risk, she's just either too hardy for bullets to kill her or actively looking forwards to it.
- Inverted:
- Alice tries to shoot Bob, but she leaves the safety on.
- Alice is supposed to have never used a gun in her life and be a poor shot but she uses advanced techniques and even her misses look like she is deliberately shooting to miss as safely as possible.
- Bob engages in reckless blade usage, waving his knife around while talking to Alice, trying to catch it when it falls off his hand, placing his other arm near the path of the knife while cutting things, etc.
- Subverted: Alice waves her gun around carelessly, but then explains that it's just a suction dart gun.
- Double Subverted: Alice got her suction dart pistol mixed up with her real pistol.
- Parodied: Alice carelessly waves around a super soaker. It goes off like a real gun.
- Zig Zagged: Alice catches herself pointing her pistol at Bob and hastily corrects herself, explaining that even though it's a suction dart gun, she shouldn't get sloppy. Turns out it's a real gun, which she finds out when she deliberately fires at a target. Bob is standing behind the target.
- Averted:
- Alice handles her gun in a safe manner.
- No guns or other ranged weapons with similar safety concerns (e.g. crossbows) appear in the work.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: "You killed me three times during that sentence. Put down the gun."
- Invoked: "And this is how not to use a gun."
- Exploited: Bob arranges for Alice to be an unwitting assassin with a remote trigger to make it fire when she has her gun casually pointed at his target.
- Defied: Alice double-checks that her gun is unloaded before handing it to Bob, and even then warns him not to point it about recklessly.
- Discussed: "Anyone using their gun as a pointer will not have a gun anymore."
- Conversed: "I can't believe she's just waving it around like that. Five bucks says she shoots Bob in the face."
- Deconstructed: Alice shoots Bob in the face because she wasn't using it properly.
- Reconstructed: Alice narrowly misses Bob, who promptly educates her in gun safety.
Back to Reckless Gun Us—Put that the hell down!
