History Main / LawOfInverseRecoil

* In the 3rd case of ''[[AceAttorney Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney]]'', the fact that the murder weapon was a 45-caliber revolver is a high point of contention, as the feeling is that it could only be used by someone with a large enough frame to take its recoil. It doesn't prevent the idiots from accusing a blind, frail 10-year old boy in the first place, mind.

* During the production of ''DirtyHarry'', ClintEastwood spent time firing a real .44 Magnum revolver so he could accurately portray its recoil. In the sequel Callahan states that he uses a .44 Special load to minimize the recoil (which would mean he's no longer firing "the most powerful handgun in the world" though still powerful enough to "to blow your head clean off").

* In the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' series, automatic rifles, submachine guns, and even a semi-automatic shotgun capable of sending a charging Flood zombie flying two feet backwards if hit at close range produce no recoil whatsoever, to the point that you can fire them while in mid-air and not alter your trajectory whatsoever. Admittedly, though, the Master Chief does have superhuman strength and his armor is said to weigh half a ton, so perhaps it's more realistic than it seems. That, of course, brings up the question of why you can't [[GoombaStomp kill people by jumping on them]].
** The mass of his armor shouldn't have anything to do with it, those are the SAME guns that are used by the regular infantry, the amount of recoil they should produce should render them inoperable by someone less powerful than MC.
** SMG's actually do have recoil, especially when [[DualWielding dual wielded]].

** Averted in ''Halo 3: ODST'', where automatic and semi-automatic weapons have much more noticeable recoil. For example, rapidly pulling the trigger on a pistol will result in significant muzzle climb, while slowing the rate of fire down will result in much more fire control. This is justified in the story by the {{player character}}s not being [[HollywoodCyborg augmented]] and [[PoweredArmor power armor]]-wearing {{super soldier}}s, but elite unaugmented soldiers.
* Avoided in the ''CallOfDuty'' games. The rocket launchers have zero recoil, the cannon on the first game's tank will actually make you move back a couple feet and all guns have as realistic recoil as possible. A notable and severe exception is the [=M240B=] in ModernWarfare 2 - it's a 7.62mm heavy machine gun that weighs 27 pounds empty. The recoil is severe to the point that the ideal firing position is from a tripod, and if the gunner doesn't have enough time he makes do with the built-in bipod. In the game, however, it has the ''least'' recoil of all the machine guns and can be fired easily from the shoulder. The worst part is that they could have done that realistically by using the Mk. 48, a much lighter and smaller version that ''can'' be fired from the shoulder. It still has a heft kick, though.

* ''Film/MenInBlack'' has an absurdly tiny gun called the Noisy Cricket. When Agent J fires it, the recoil tosses him into a car several parking spots behind his firing position.

* ''KamenRiderOOO'': The Birth Buster used by Kamen Rider Birth actually has a huge recoil, enough to knock an unprepared person flat on their butt. Like any weapon in RealLife, it evidentally takes practice to use it untransformed (and according to its user, even transformed), as while Date (the primary user) has no problems with it, Goto gets thrown off his feet the first time he tries due to not having the proper knowledge of its use.
** This was done earlier in Kamen Rider Kiva and mixed with the above Noisy Cricket example from Men in Black.

* In Daniel Keys Moran's "A.I. War", the as yet unpublished sequel to "The Last Dancer" (available [[http://www.kithrup.com/dkm/dkmfic/toons.html here]]), a bounty hunter shoots Trent with both barrels of a shotgun. Unfortunately for the bounty hunter, they happen to be on the surface of Ceres (one of the asteroids in our Asteroid Belt) at the time, which has an escape velocity of far less than the recoil of even one of the barrels of the gun. He is surprised to find himself flying off of Ceres in the direction of Earth at a few tens of meters per second.

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** In ''{{Cell}}'' when one of the protagonists [[spoiler:is fatally injured by hit-and-run hooligans]]. Another character had picked up an AKS-47 assault rifle from a gun enthusiast's house, but when he fires 'Sir Speedy' it empties most of the bullets into the air.

* ''Series/{{Stargate SG-1}}'':

* In the ''{{Half-Life}}'' series the .357 magnum has ridiculous recoil and the RPG has very little.

* In a departure from the franchise's usual recoil-less [=BFGs=], the Dual Crusher from ''GoGoSentaiBoukenger'' / Drill Blaster from ''Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive'' knocks the user flat (and that's for morphed Rangers; it could be worse for someone untransformed). A special armored vest had to be developed to disperse the energies.

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* In ''SilentHill3'' Heather's wrists jerk from the recoil of her initial handgun, and she's thrown completely off-balance from shooting the shotgun.

* It seems to be present in JamesBond fan film [[FanWorks/DiamondsCut Diamond's Cut]], although guns are fired too rarely to be really sure. However, one could consider the arms’ dealer missing Bond with his pistol at point-blank range as either an aversion of this or plain ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy at work.

* ''MassEffect'' averts this quite reasonably; high-powered shotguns and sniper rifles have a lot of recoil, and automatic weapons have higher recoil depending on how long the trigger is held down.

** Other weapons are described as made for more durable races, like the Claymore or Widow. The tooltips describe how the weapons were remanufactured specificly to avoid breaking the arm of a human weilder.

** Averted in Bloodmoney, all guns have recoil. His trusted .45 Silverballers can even be upgraded to full-automatic, and are then harder to control...add the "Akimbo" upgrade and say your good bye to your accuracy.

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* ''RaceForTheYankeeZephyr''. The DamselScrappy is told to fire a captured AR-10 battle rifle in the air [[WeNeedADistraction while the hero sneaks in to rescue her father]], but she's unbalanced by the recoil and shoots up the villains instead. This is a RuleOfFunny example as she's standing on a cliff above the villain's campsite, and the recoil is portrayed as pulling the muzzle down rather than pushing it up as would happen in real life.
* Similar to the ''TrueLies'' example, during a gun battle in ''TheAdventuresOfPlutoNash'', Dina picks up an automatic pistol, but ends up shooting in all directions due to recoil, but she took out most of the mooks until stopped by Bruno the robot which he takes care of the rest with his guns.