History JustForFun / TelevisionIsTryingToKillUs

* ConcealmentEqualsCover: The wooden door, fence, interior wall, car body, or even concrete bricks you're hiding behind can't stop a bullet. Particularly thick walls might stop *one*, but nobody will only fire once at a wall behind which they're suspecting their target lies. Engine blocks can stop bullets fairly effectively, but they're smaller than you are and, again, the shooter is likely to keep sending hot lead your way. Such protections should in all cases be considered as only capable of slightly decreasing your attacker's chance to hit you: if you manage to survive one shot because you hid behind a wall, thank your lucky stars and run like hell.

* ConcealmentEqualsCover: The wooden door, fence, interior wall, car body, or even concrete bricks you're hiding behind can't stop a bullet. The most it can do is make your attacker more likely to miss.

* BrakeAngrily: Slamming your foot down on the brake with full power will cause problems for you and your vehicle, ''especially'' if you're on a motorcycle -- you'll flip the bike. In a car, slamming on the brakes without warning is a huge cause of rear-end crashes as the driver(s) behind you may not have time to stop or avoid your car.

* FriendlyPlayfulDolphin: The dolphin, much like the human, is known to engage in physical violence for sport, as opposed to merely food or self-defense. Gang rape is common among their pods, too. Furthermore, dolphins are inherently wild animals; it is possible to teach them to be friendly and playful, but there have been many instances in which captive dolphins have actually killed or, at the very least, severely injured humans, including their own trainers. Finally, bottlenose dolphins can weigh more than 1400 pounds, and hold their breath far longer than humans can, so even when dolphins are being friendly, they can be extremely dangerous.

* FriendlyPlayfulDolphin: The dolphin, much like the human, is known to engage in physical violence for sport, as opposed to merely food or self-defense. Gang rape is common among their pods, too. Furthermore, dolphins are inherently wild animals; it is possible to teach them to be friendly and playful, but there have been many instances in which captive dolphins have actually killed or, at the very least, severely injured humans, including their own trainers.

* OneDoseFitsAll: Anaesthesiology is so complex because anaesthesiologists have to take numerous factors into account when administering anaesthetics, including a person's sex, mass, build, constitution etc. A dose of a sedative which safely knocks one person out could easily kill if administered to a person with a different build, etc. This likewise applies to other kinds of drugs, including medicines -- a dosage of a medicine which cures one person's ailments could cause drastic side effects if administered to someone of a different build, mass or constitution.

* PuttingThePeeInPool: [[https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/what-happens-when-you-pee-pool As it turns out,]] doing this will create a chemical called Cyanogen Chloride, which is toxic enough to be classified as chemical warfare agents.

Unfortunately this is more dangerous than most people realize. Even though most real people don't consider fiction a reliable source of information, people don't usually remember where they learned stuff from, even just in the broad categories of 'reliable source' and 'unreliable source'.

* EvilIsCool[=/=]EvilIsSexy: Violent crime is absolutely ''not'' a cool thing to do in RealLife, and even nonviolent crimes such as theft/fraud can carry a risk of arrest or being caught, which could lead to violence. Most real life violent criminals tend to act like a DirtyCoward by threatening to shoot someone unless they do what they say. That victim could probably be you, who probably just lost their most valuable possessions and at worst, was robbed blind by them, severely injured, or even has lost a very close person to criminal violence. Also, committing any type of crime, violent or not, places you at risk for arrest in most societies, and violent actions also risk the danger of violence in return from both police and from people defending their right to live or their possessions from you.

* AManIsAlwaysEager: The wide-spread and culturally ingrained idea that a man is unable to refuse sex can lead to male rape victims being accused of lying when they try to come forward and report their attack. Consequently, millions of affected males around the world find it difficult to get the assistance that they desperately need after such a life-changing and traumatic event. The likelihood of a sexually violated man gaining even a shred of sympathy decreases drastically [[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale if his attacker is a woman]].

* LaxativePrank: This is, in fact, a criminal offense in most jurisdictions, and a particularly dangerous one as the victim can become dangerously dehydrated, have a dangerous drug interaction, or even experience a RupturedAppendix or a [[{{Squick}} bowel rupture]]. For these reasons, it is considered a very serious assault which can carry a lengthy prison sentence. This goes for other substances (such as eyedrops) that are known for causing a laxative effect. Then again, if you're in a Third World country with poor rule of law, you might get away with it.

* AerosolFlamethrower: Runs a danger of overheating and exploding, or burning yourself.

* LaxativePrank: This is, in fact, a criminal offense in most jurisdictions, and a particularly dangerous one as the victim can become dangerously dehydrated, have a dangerous drug interaction, or even experience a RupturedAppendix or a [[{{Squick}} bowel rupture]]. For these reasons, it is considered a very serious assault which can carry a lengthy prison sentence. This goes for other substances (such as eyedrops) that are known for causing a laxative effect.

* NeverWakeUpASleepwalker: Even when they are about to do something that can cause actual harm to themselves and/or others?

* HollywoodDrowning: Drowning victims in real life may not be able to scream for help. They tend to die even when other people are nearby because those people do not look for the right signs.

* HealingHerb: As with AllNaturalSnakeOil, not all herbs are beneficial; even herbs with known medicinal properties cause side effects, some worse than others. Even if effective, the plant's active ingredient may interact with other drugs you are taking. Two plants of the same species may have wildly differing amounts of the active ingredient depending on the conditions they grew in. And that's you can ID a plant correctly in the first place, which is a non-trivial task for an amateur, and may not be possible without acess to certain equipment (a good magnifying glass, at the very least), or without access to certain organs of the plant (like the reproductive organs or the root). Identifying plants in the nonflowering stage based on vegetative signs is always harder than based on flowers. Do your research.

* HealingHerb: As with AllNaturalSnakeOil, not all herbs are beneficial; even herbs with known medicinal properties cause side effects, some worse than others. Even if effective, the plant's active ingredient may interact with other drugs you are taking. Two plants of the same species may have wildly differing amounts of the active ingredient depending on the conditions they grew in. Do your research.

* HealingHerb: As with AllNaturalSnakeOil, not all herbs are beneficial; even herbs with known medicinal properties cause side effects, some worse than others. Do your research.

* TrashLanding: Glass and sharp objects are commonly found in garbage bins. Safer than concrete or glass, but ''only'' should be attempted, as the page says, if the alternative is hard concrete. On the other hand, the manure bin/pile variant, while disgusting, is actually a ''good'' idea -- loose dry manure IS a soft surface (loose ''liquid'' manure, however, has all the attributes of fictional quicksand).

* OutsideRide: Being on the outside of a moving car or train is likely to result in injury or death. Being on the outside of a moving aircraft is certain death, unless you're a professional barnstormer or skydiving instructor (and carry parachute). Either way, [[DontTryThisAtHome it's not something you should be trying on a whim]]. There is one notable aversion of this trope and it is skydiving instructors and photographers. They really ''do'' climb outside the plane and hang there before they jump. But they have training for it and [[CaptainObvious they carry parachutes]].

* TheMarvelousDeer: Deer are among the most dangerous animals of the forest. They gore with their antlers, break bones by kicking and can become blindly aggressive during mating season.

* FiringInTheAirALot: Whatever goes up must eventually come down. There have been several reported incidents of bullets fired into the air that landed on someone a fair distance away, injuring or killing them.

* GrievousBottleyHarm: Breaking a bottle almost always causes injury to the person trying to make a weapon out of it. Bottles used in TV are made of sugar glass, which breaks easily (and in a manner less dangerous to the one being hit by it). On the other hand, an unbroken bottle actually ''is'' an effective club... (DontTryThisAtHome, kids!)

* WeHaveToGetTheBulletOut: In the USA, this trope ''killed'' President McKinley when the wound from his assassin's bullet festered after his doctors went digging for the bullet with unsterilized hands and instruments; had they left it where it was, he might very well have recovered. With few exceptions, it's generally safer to leave a bullet in the body for trained surgeons (with sterilized hands and instruments) to remove rather than pull it out yourself, since removing a bullet can open a wound further and lead to bleeding out (as well as cause other problems covered by AnnoyingArrows above).

* HollywoodSilencers: If you're thinking to pull some kind of quiet assassination with one (which is already pretty dangerous, evil, and stupid), think again. Apart from a few very carefully crafted military-grade silencers, most silencers are more accurately termed "suppressors" as their purpose is to lower the volume of gunshots in order to prevent hearing loss. (See also SteelEarDrums below.) Other than a few BumblingCrooks, real-life criminals generally don't even bother using suppressors on their weapons, as they tend only to make the weapons shorter-ranged and less effective at killing the target. The only people actually likely to find civilian-grade and homemade "silencers" useful are people using their guns for self-defense.

* WeaponForIntimidation: Sometimes this does work in RealLife, but other times it makes things ''much'' worse. You should ''only'' threaten someone if your life is at risk and you are willing to face the consequences of following through on your threat. If you carry around a weapon just to threaten people with, you are a moron and absolutely deserve to have it taken away from you, and in jurisdictions where permits are required for certain weapons, issuing authorities may refuse to grant you one if they think that you just want to use the weapon as something to throw your weight around with.
* WeHaveToGetTheBulletOut: With few exceptions, it's generally safer to leave a bullet in the body rather than pull it out, since removing a bullet can open a wound further and lead to bleeding out (as well as cause other problems covered by AnnoyingArrows above).

* ImprovisedZipline: Real ziplines take a while to construct and require specific, strong materials so they don't break. The cords are designed to support the weight of an elephant or two for a reason. Further, as ''LiveActionTelevision/MythBusters'' demonstrated, a cord has to be strong and 'slippery'' to function as a zipline; otherwise you can't slide at all.