History Main / BallisticDiscount

* Rico in ''Film/JudgeDredd''. Justified, as someone had to be a judge to use the gun, and the dealer didn't expect Rico to be one.

* The short story [[http://www.vb-tech.co.za/ebooks/Williams%20Ralph%20-%20Business%20as%20Usual%20During%20Alterations%20-%20SF.txt "Business as Usual, During Alterations"]] has one customer try this with an unloaded pistol, the manager responds by picking up one of their (decommissioned) Sten machine guns and selling it to him at a markup. Shuffling him out of the store before he realizes it doesn’t work, with the assumption the police will pick him up soon.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein Ed Gein]] (the inspiration for [[Film/{{Psycho}} Norman Bates]], [[Franchise/TheTexasChainsawMassacre Leatherface]], and [[Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Buffalo Bill]]) is known to have killed one of his victims this way. He asked hardware store owner Bernice Worden to look at a Marlin Model 20 rifle. While she was distracted, he loaded the gun with ammo he had bought with him and shot her in the back of the head.

A villain enters a gun store and shows interest in various firearms. The clerk eagerly shows the potential customer every piece he is interested in. The villain picks up one of the guns, examines it and loads it with ammunition provided by the clerk. He then calmly shoots the clerk, collects the guns and ammo and leaves the store.

Decidedly ''not'' TruthInTelevision. For one, you're relying on the dealer to allow you to load the weapon in front of him, and the dealers already know these stories themselves. Anyone who does try to load a weapon in a gun store outside of a shooting range will likely find the dealers and any customers will act more quickly than he will. ("Here's one I prepared earlier...") And that's assuming the display pieces will even work; many stores remove the firing pins from the guns at the front to prevent accidents.

Even if you bring your own weaponry, well -- you're still robbing the one type of store in the entire world where the clerk is '''guaranteed''' to have access to firearms and '''know''' how they work. If you pay attention when entering a gun store, you'll see that more often than not the clerk will have a holstered pistol on his belt. Remember, the typical reason that somebody chooses to work at a gun store instead of some other retail sales job is that ''they like guns'', and probably spend as much or more time on the shooting range as the average police officer. Which is helped by the fact that many gun stores have their own in-house pistol ranges. Needless to say, in most real-life stories the [[StupidCrooks idiot robber]] gets nothing more for his trouble than a Website/{{Darwin Award|s}} [[TooDumbToLive nomination]], right up there with trying to rob a police officers' convention. (Or a [[DonutMessWithACop donut shop]].)

* Also averted in ''Freehold'', by Michael Z. Williamson. A thug from a police-state world, where average citizens never carry guns, tries this on Freehold, a libertarian's utopia. He gets the first shot off because the gun store owner wasn't expecting anyone to pull something ''that'' stupid, but then the owner (who was wearing a bulletproof vest) and ''[[EveryoneIsArmed every other customer in the store]]'' open up on him with their own weapons, and he never gets a second shot.

* What is perhaps the largest-scale example of this trope occurs in the third volume of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. [[spoiler: Daenerys Targaryen buys an army of slave-warriors who are conditioned to be utterly loyal to their owner, then proceeds to conquer the city that sold it to her with the army, and take her payment back. And the payment was one of her dragons, who she commanded to burn the slaver she bought them from.]]

* Averted in ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie''; a robber accidentally enters a gunshop and gets gunned down by the well-armed store employees and customers (in self-defense).

'''T-800:''' Wrong.

Even if you bring your own weaponry, well -- you're still robbing the one type of store in the entire world where the clerk is '''guaranteed''' to have access to firearms and '''know''' how they work. If you pay attention when entering a gun store, you'll see that more often than not the clerk will have a holstered pistol on his belt. Remember, the typical reason that somebody chooses to work at a gun store instead of some other retail sales job is that ''they like guns'', and probably spend as much or more time on the shooting range as the average police officer. Which is helped by the fact that many gun stores have their own in-house pistol ranges. Needless to say, in most real life stories the [[StupidCrooks idiot robber]] gets nothing more for his trouble than a Website/{{Darwin Award|s}} [[TooDumbToLive nomination]], right up there with trying to rob a police officers' convention. (Or a [[DonutMessWithACop donut shop]].)

* Also happens in ''ComicBook/LeonardLeGenie'', but in an unusual way. A man comes ask Léonard to ''invent'' a gun for him, and when he has finished building it, the guy immediately threatens him with it.

* In one of the ''ComicBook/MoonKnight'' books, Carson Knowles, better known as the villain Black Spectre, is buying a crapton of medieval weaponry and armour, and the dealer refuses to hand over anything until he sees payment. Knowles tosses a bag at his feet and begins picking up his weapons, while the dealer opens the bag and complains there's nothing in there. He promply says [[OhCrap "Oh @#$%"]] [[ThisIsGonnaSuck when the penny drops.]]
* In ''[[ComicBook/RobinSeries Robin]]'' some criminals selling guns out of a van have one of their customers turn a bit of their wares on them when he doesn't like the price tag. In this case the attempted thief ends up dead and one of the "clerks" and a bystander end up injured since the people he pulled the gun on were all armed themselves.
* In ''[[ComicBook/ConanTheBarbarian Savage Sword of Conan]]'' #75, Captain Bor'Aqh Sharaq has a smith construct him a SwissArmyAppendage that can be fitted with a sword, an axe or a spring-powered throwing iron. Naturally, he kills the smith after the job's done.

** An odder form occured in a Don Martin comic, where a man is shopping for a bandanna from a store. When he finds the one he likes, he promptly ties it around his face like an outlaw, pulls out a gun, and proceeds to rob the salesman.

* At the end of ''Film/FromBeyondTheGrave'', a robber enters and persuades the proprietor to hand him two loaded antique pistols. He then tries to rob the proprietor, who refuses to hand him any money and walks toward the thief. The thief shoots, but finds [[ImmuneToBullets bullets cannot stop the proprietor]].

** ''Film/GoldenEye'': Subverted in a deleted scene. Russian gangster Valentin Zukovsky is meeting with a [[HonestJohnsDealership sketchy Indian arms dealer]] to discuss business. He examines a few weapons, but quickly discerns that they're Chinese counterfeit. He demonstrates this by taking a Glock, a weapon he greatly admires, and pointing it at the dealer's head. Nothing happens because the Chinese manufacturers made the firing pin too short. He just has the guy thrown out of his club and warns him not to return.

** Later in the movie, he adds "The first and most important rule of gun running is: never get shot with your own merchandise." [[spoiler:It happens at one point. A drug kingpin wants to pay Yuri in cocaine, which he initially refuses, but relents after some AggressiveNegotiations.]]

* Been of the movie ''Film/{{Strapped}}'' is likely aware of this trope, and as such keeps a loaded Uzi on him when he's selling guns to the usual low-lives he does business with, just to make sure they don't try and double cross him.

* Averted in ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie''; a robber accidentally enters a gunshop and gets gunned downed by the well armed store employees and customers (in self defense).

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In "Command + P", a young inventor demonstrates his new process for 3D printing a gun to someone he thinks is an investor. He hands the gun to the investor, along with a bullet so that he can see the gun takes standard rounds. The investor loads the bullet into the gun, shoots the inventor, and steals the computer, printer and software.

* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': In "Going Rogue", Snart uses the cold gun to kill the the supplier who is attempting to sell it to him.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Daenerys pulls the equivalent of this in the third season, when she insists on purchasing [[spoiler:every single slave soldier in Astapor, then immediately orders them to massacre their former owners and recollect her payment]]. At the same time, she inverts the trope by [[spoiler:using her payment, one of her dragons, to breathe fire on the slave merchants and recover himself]].

* A variation was used on ''Series/{{Monk}}'' when Monk was working undercover at a Wal-Mart-like megastore. In order to capture the fleeing criminals, Monk gets a gun from the store and demands that the employees give him the ammunition as well. When one hesitates, Monk gets his way by threatening him with the gun... only to have the second employee point out, after Monk has left the scene, that the gun wasn't loaded.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Contact}}'' you can attack and kill [=NPCs=] and shopkeepers are not an exception. They will invariably drop whatever they sell, making it a good M.O if your cash reserves are running low. There are some precautions to be had, though: the scientist that sells you potions in Ft. Eagle is stronger than all the enemies fought up to that point and can easily dispatch you if you attack him the first time you arrive on the island. The storekeepers in Aegis are behind counters and you will not be able to pick up the loot they drop. Aside from that, there isn't a real penalty other than earning bad karma points and that only influences the chances of otherwise docile animals attacking you on the spot.

** You can kill pretty much anyone and take their stuff, shopkeeper or not, which includes killing them with a gun they just sold you and taking back your cash. That said, if they have any friends around that see you, odds are that you're about to engage in a gun battle which will gradually increase in size to the entire town against you. Then again, if you do it in the later levels, you're [[OneManArmy a power-armor-wearing human tank with enough firepower to bring down a battleship]], [[SuicidalOverconfidence and they are wearing leathers and toting sawed-offs]]. The end result [[CurbStompBattle is more of a slaughter than a battle]]. This does allow you to ransack the shop (and the city) with impunity, but at the cost of never having anyone in that city for the rest of the game.

* The {{freeware}} game ''VideoGame/{{Spelunky}}'' (a sort of dungeon-crawler/platformer hybrid) mostly averts this: [[EasilyAngeredShopkeeper all shopkeepers are armed with shotguns]] and will [[TriggerHappy fire at the slightest hint of a misdeed by the player]]. However, you pick up items in order to initiate the purchasing dialogue, and several items are indeed firearms. [[spoiler: Pick up a shotgun and shoot at point blank range to play the trope straight. Immobilize him from behind with a webcannon and you can GoombaStomp him to death. Depending on the level layout, the player may also be able to send a ''boulder'' rolling through the shop. Anything else is significantly riskier due to the shopkeeper's vitality and agility.]] Even if you survive, [[spoiler: killing any shopkeeper means they will ''all'' shoot you on sight, and any criminal activity except murder will cause shopkeepers to camp the level exit from "just the next level" to "until the end of the game", depending on your actions.]]

* ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'': [[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/2013/12/06/532-ravio/ Ravio]] learns what happens when you do business with monsters when a Moblin upset at how much bows cost rents the fire rod instead, and then uses it to rob the store.

* There's one well known and [[http://www.snopes.com/crime/dumdum/gunshop.asp mostly true]] Website/DarwinAwards winner who tried this. The story tends to exaggerate the number of times the guy was shot, in reality only the cop and one clerk shot him. The part about him [[FailedASpotCheck walking around the police cruiser to enter the store]] is true though. The exaggerations may be partly because the perp accidentally shot a box of ammo on the shelf, causing it to explode, which is yet another danger of a firefight in a gun store.

* This trope is the reason for the many laws/store policies not allowing a person to hold both the gun to be sold and the ammo at the same time, or allow to load the gun until it is purchased, unless you are at the store range.

* [[UsefulNotes/NotableSwedishMonarchs Gustav Vasa]], King of Sweden, pulled this on a national scale. Faced with invading Danes and domestic unrest, he borrowed several times Sweden's GDP from [[UsefulNotes/HanseaticLeague The Hansa]], hired mercenaries and dealt decisively with the threat. He then sailed his army south, laid siege to Lübeck, the Hansa's headquarters, and threatened to let his mercenaries sack the city unless the debt was cancelled.

* Guns Stores generally have a strong control policy where a customer is not left unattended with a gun at any time (which also prevents someone from running off with something they didn't pay for). This is also why they prefer to have multiple clerks, they are all armed and ready to provide leverage if someone pulls a gun on any one of them.

* ''VideoGame/FarCry'' has consistently avoided this, most commonly by forcing the player character to lower their weapon when in the gun shop itself or the town the shop is in; the owner of the one in ''VideoGame/FarCry3''[='=]s Badtown even has a shotgun that she points at you whenever you come inside, apparently to discourage people from trying to steal. ''VideoGame/FarCry4'' adds wandering Sherpa merchants who can and will die if you shoot them, or if they fall afoul of any of the other myriad dangers of Kyrat, most commonly eagles or [[DrivesLikeCrazy the lead-footed civilian drivers]], but while you can loot their bodies all you get is an inventory list that can be sold for a couple bucks.

* This can be done in ''VideoGame/{{Postal}} 2'', with not only the gun shop, but any shop- though many of the clerks are armed, and even if they aren't crossing the trigger line will cause them to run for the police, who definitely are armed. The grocery store is run by Al Queda terrorists and even trying to leave without paying will cause the clerk to attack you. And the one actual gun shop in the mall is run by the police department, which are some of the more powerful characters in the game. Even then, shooting all the store clerks might get you the cash in the registers but getting the guns requires shooting/blowing up a circuit breaker box, and attacking this will also alert the authorities. Actually robbing the gun store is possible, but not easy, and usually results in your crime meter going up.

* Heroic example in ''Film/TheNightOfTheCreeps''. Detective Cameron points a shotgun in the face of the police armory officer and demands a flamethrower. Needless to say, the officer quickly complies.

* Subverted in ''Film/{{Jumanji}}''. It is set up to happen when Van Pelt visits a gun shop and is informed of the waiting period, but instead he merely bribes the clerk with a pile of gold coins. The shopkeeper is still dull-witted enough to let [[EgomaniacHunter Van Pelt]] (hunter of [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame the most dangerous game]]) have a rifle and ammunition and load it to test on the "[=OPEN/CLOSED=]" sign, but Van Pelt, [[MagicAIsMagicA who cannot kill anyone he hasn't been summoned to hunt]], just buys the gun, ammo, and a scope.

* Been of the movie ''Film/{{Strapped}}'' is likely aware of this trope, and as such keeps a loaded UZI on him when he's selling guns to the usual low-lives he does business with, just to make sure they don't try and double cross him.

** Later in the movie, he adds "The first and most important rule of gun running is: never get shot with your own merchandise." [[spoiler:It happens at some point.]]

** ''Film/GoldenEye'': Subverted in a deleted scene. Russian gangster Valentin Zukovsky is meeting with a [[HonestJohnsDealership sketchy Indian arms dealer]] to discuss business. He examines a few weapons, but quickly discerns that they're Chinese counterfeit. He demonstrates this by taking a Glock, a weapon he greatly admires, and pointing it at the dealer's head. Nothing happens because the Chinese made the firing pin too short. He just has the guy thrown out of his club and warns him not to return.

* * ''Film/JamesBond'':
** In ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'', Bond questions a gunsmith about a custom bullet he made by, in part, threatening to shoot him with a rifle the man is making for a customer who has lost two fingers on his right hand and needs something custom balanced. Apparently, the rifle fires one inch below the target for people with all their fingers. Bond proves this by shooting at, and missing, the gunsmith's wedding tackle.
-->'''Bond:''' So talk now...[[BondOneLiner or forever hold your piece.]]
** ''Film/GoldenEye'': Subverted in a deleted scene. Russian gangster Valentin Zukovsky is meeting with a [[HonestJohnsDealership sketchy Indian arms dealer]] to discuss business. He examines a few weapons, but quickly discerns that they're Chinese counterfeit. He demonstrates this by taking a Glock, a weapon he greatly admires, and pointing it at the dealer's head. Nothing happens because the Chinese made the firing pin too short. He just has the guy thrown out of his club and warns him not to return.

** ''Film/GoldenEye'': Subverted in a deleted scene. Russian gangster Valentin Zukovsky is meeting with a [[HonestJohnsDealership sketchy Indian arms dealer]] to discuss business. He examines a few weapons, but quickly discerns that they're Chinese counterfeit. He demonstrates this when he takes a Glock, a weapon he greatly admires, and points it at the dealer's head. Nothing happens, because the Chinese made the firing pin too short. He just has the guy thrown out of his club and warns him not to return.

** ''Film/GoldenEye'': Subverted in a deleted scene. Russian gangster Valentin Zukovsky is meeting with a [[HonestJohnsDealership sketchy Indian arms dealer]] to discuss business. He examines a few weapons, but quickly discerns that they're Chinese counterfeit. He demonstrates this when he takes a Glock, a weapon he greatly admires, and points it at the dealer's head. Nothing happens, because the Chinese made the firing pin too short. He just has the guy thrown out and tells him not to return.

* In ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'', Film/JamesBond questions a gunsmith about a custom bullet he made by, in part, threatening to shoot him with a rifle the man is making for a customer who has lost two fingers on his right hand and needs something custom balanced. Apparently, the rifle fires one inch below the target for people with all their fingers. Bond proves this by shooting at, and missing, the gunsmith's wedding tackle.

* 'Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'': [[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/2013/12/06/532-ravio/ Ravio]] learns what happens when you do business with monsters when a Moblin upset at how much bows cost rents the fire rod instead, and then uses it to rob the store.

* [[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/2013/12/06/532-ravio/ Ravio]] learns what happens when you do business with monsters in ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily''...
* Done by Chelsea Grinn in ''Webcomic/{{Chimneyspeak}}''.
-->'''Chelsea''': Now we can have ''all'' the guns!
* Played with in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', when Roy is trying to buy a new polearm (as a replacement for his broken sword) from a weapon shop, in a shout-out to ''[[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus Monty Python's]]'' "cheese shop" sketch as he tries to guess what weapons they have. It turns out the polearm shop has no weapons there whatsoever, and the man behind the counter was deliberately wasting Roy's time.

* [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/01/14/ This strip]] from ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' depicting ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' as if the trope were to be played straight (though Leon's using the gun he already has to get his way).

* [[UsefulNotes/NotableSwedishMonarchs Gustav Vasa]], King of Sweden, pulled this on a national scale. Faced with invading Danes and domestic unrest, he borrowed several times Sweden's GDP from UsefulNotes/TheHansa, hired mercenaries and dealt decisively with the threat. He then sailed his army south, laid siege to Lübeck, the Hansa's headquarters, and threatened to let his mercenaries sack the city unless the debt was cancelled.

* In the ''Series/{{Merlin 2008}}'' episode "Gwaine", [[ShameIfSomethingHappened protection racketeer]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Dagr]] uses his new magic sword to reclaim the purchase price by stabbing the seller in the back.

Decidedly ''not'' TruthInTelevision. For one, you're relying on the dealer to allow you to load the weapon in front of him, and the dealers already know these stories themselves. Anyone who does try to load a weapon in a gun store outside of a shooting range will likely find the dealers and any customers will act more quickly than he will. ("Here's one I prepared earlier...")

Even if you bring your own weaponry, well -- you're still robbing the one type of store in the entire world where the clerk is '''guaranteed''' to have access to firearms and '''know''' how they work. If you pay attention when entering a gun store, you'll see that more often than not the clerk will have a holstered pistol on his belt. Remember, the typical reason that somebody chooses to work at a gun store instead of some other retail sales job is that ''they like guns'', and probably spend as much or more time on the shooting range as the average police officer.[[note]]Which is helped by the fact that many gun stores have their own in-house pistol ranges.[[/note]] Needless to say, in most real life stories the [[StupidCrooks idiot robber]] gets nothing more for his trouble than a Website/{{Darwin Award|s}} [[TooDumbToLive nomination]], right up there with trying to rob a police officers' convention. (Or a [[DonutMessWithACop donut shop]].)

* At the end of ''Film/FromBeyondTheGrave'', a robber enters and persuades the proprietor to hand him two loaded antique pistols. He then tries to rob the proprietor, who refuses to hand him any money and walks toward the thief. The thief shoots, but finds bullets cannot stop the proprietor.

* ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'': ''Literature/TheDrawingOfTheThree'' has a variant of this as one of Roland's many [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome Crowning Moments Of Awesome]]. He wants ammo for his gun (back in his world), but the gun store owner won't give it to him. And he has no weapon in our world. So he goes back outside, lies to the police, gets them to follow him back inside, knocks ''them'' out, takes their guns, and then ''pays'' for the ammo before leaving.

Even if you bring your own weaponry, well-you're still robbing the one type of store in the entire world where the clerk is '''guaranteed''' to have access to firearms and '''know''' how they work. If you pay attention when entering a gun store, you'll see that more often than not the clerk will have a holstered pistol on his belt. Remember, the typical reason that somebody chooses to work at a gun store instead of some other retail sales job is that ''they like guns'', and probably spend as much or more time on the shooting range as the average police officer.[[note]]Which is helped by the fact that many gun stores have their own in-house pistol ranges.[[/note]] Needless to say, in most real life stories the [[StupidCrooks idiot robber]] gets nothing more for his trouble than a Website/{{Darwin Award|s}} [[TooDumbToLive nomination]], right up there with trying to rob a police officers' convention. (Or a [[DonutMessWithACop donut shop]].)

->'''T-800:''' (''loads gun'')\\

* Played with in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', when Roy is trying to buy a new weapon, and they do a shout-out to ''[[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus Monty Python's]]'' "cheese shop" sketch as he tries to guess what weapons they have. It turns out the polearm shop has no weapons there whatsoever, and the man behind the counter was deliberately wasting Roy's time.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'', the weapons have to be purchased through a terminal, and killing the shop keeper and his guard will only net you their weapons, and not the ones they are selling.

* Party averted in ''VideoGame/TheElderscrollsIVOblivion'': Store owners are programmed to sell everything in their saleroom (including containers) that matches their store's sortiment, so the player is able to kill them and take their stuff. The only problem is that the actually valuable goods are placed in chests that are stuck inside walls or floors, and thus unreachable for the player.

* Played with in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', when Roy is trying to buy a new weapon, and they do a shout-out to ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' sketch in which he tries to guess which weapon they have. It turns out the polearm shop has no weapons there whatsoever, and the man behind the counter was deliberately wasting Roy's time.