History Main / ThrowawayGuns

* Done in the 3D ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' games. As long as you have at least 1 bullet left, you keep the gun, but once you have no ammo you throw it away. This causes some annoyance if you want to buy more ammo, as you'll have to fork out for a new gun as well, though most of the time ammo is plentiful anyway.
** Done to full extent in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'', where Niko dumps every empty weapon straight on the ground and pulls out a different weapon whenever ammo for that weapon in particular fully goes out. The following game in the franchise, ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', doesn't actually let this happen since the protagonists have infinite inventories and so, instead of dumping their guns away, they just keep it in their inventory until more ammo is acquired for them to be used again.

** ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' has an example of this if you use cheats - [[spoiler:when you're supposed to shoot Zakhaev at the very end, he will attempt to shoot back at you with his Desert Eagle. If you use god mode to survive his shots, after he fires seven times he'll drop the gun and pull out another one. Another seven shots from ''that'', he drops it too, and then pulls out an M1911 with infinite ammo instead.]] ''Modern Warfare 3'' also has a proper variation in a cutscene, where [[spoiler:Grinch drops his rifle to pull out [[GunsAkimbo a pair of Deagles]] during his team's LastStand because there's simply too many enemies and too much going on for him to reload properly.]]

* In ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' there is a small disposable plasma gun called the [=PS20=]. Intended as a stealth gun with its small profile, the size of the gun limits it to a single shot, although for some reason you can only carry one at a time and even a headshot at point-blank range won't kill someone. There's also a much larger variation with the Light Antitank Weapon, which has the same limit of one shot and only one in your inventory, though it's much more powerful (and also takes up much more space) since, as the name suggests, it's meant to be used against armor rather than people.

* Used a few times in ''Film/TheMatrix'', since the dozens of guns abandoned were conjured up from computer code, and vanish without a trace when the programmed reality is "reformatted". Neo and Trinity plan on doing this during their raid, since they correctly figured there would be no ''time'' to reload.

This trope is to be expected when the weapons a character is using only have a single shot and/or take quite a long time to reload (such as crossbows and flintlock pistols), especially in {{Period Piece}}s set in eras that came before the invention of automatic and semi-automatic weapons that can be reloaded much faster.

* In ''Radio/TheShadow'' pulps, the Shadow is terrible about tossing away his automatics whenever they're empty. One reviewer speculated that the hundreds of empty handguns left by the vigilante might be the cause of New York's gun problem.

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' has Kincaid, who claims to be a [[BadassNormal perfectly normal]] hired mercenary[[note]]he's actually -- probably -- half-demon; at least, [[WordOfDante he's written up that way in the RPG]][[/note]] who's just very, very good at his job. In ''Literature/DeathMasks'', he produces a golf-bag full of double-barreled shotguns which he discards after firing one shell through each barrel, because said rounds are [[KillItWithFire Dragon's Breath rounds]], which fire a 20 foot plume of flame. He explains that this is hot enough to ''melt'' the barrel, so he can't shoot more than one through any given shotgun or else they'd explode. This is why those rounds aren't used very much in real life.

** The French FAMAS rifle also suffered from this sort of design decision. The original 25-round magazines were designed to be loaded once, fired from once, and then discarded - and then budget cutbacks forced them to reuse these disposable magazines, with predictable results.

* ''VideoGame/HitmanCodename47'': Players have to resort to this in the levels where the use of guns, submachine guns and assault rifles is required and they bought no ammo beforehand or found no ammo in the level, particularly those who choose to start just with a knife. Submachine guns can be [[{{Hammerspace}} piled up indefinitely]] in 47's inventory to that effect, unlike assault rifles. The sequel, ''VideoGame/Hitman2SilentAssassin'', instead turned every gun 47 grabbed into new ammo if he happened to have one such gun in his inventory.

* The notoriously bad ''VideoGame/DrakeOfThe99Dragons'' has "[[InformedAttribute master assassin]]" Drake reload his akimbo handguns... by pulling out another pair from HammerSpace. [[FridgeLogic And since he doesn't wear gloves, this results in him leaving guns with his fingerprints on them wherever he goes]].

** Space Marines will only discard their weapon if they're killed, as they treat every bit of their equipment as a holy relic, to be treasured and preserved. Adeptus Mechanicus takes this one step further, sacrificing entire ''legions'' of troops to retrieve weapons that ''other people'' discarded centuries ago.

* ''VideoGame/MadnessProjectNexus2'' rarely features weapons with additional magazines. Often, you'll burn through your spares in one or two rooms, and then have to discard your gun and find another weapon. This being a game based on the ''WebAnimation/MadnessCombat'' universe, discarded weapons are plentiful and varied. The game actually has a specific input for 'throw gun at enemy' and doing so is as lethal as a bullet, meaning that you can empty a pistol into one {{Mook}}, beat another to death with the empty gun, then hurl the broken remains of the gun into the face of a third with enough force to cave in his face.

* In ''Film/{{Ultraviolet}}'', Violet has hundreds of weapons stored in high-tech HammerSpace, so she just drops empties.

** Mann vs. Machine mode has an upgrade that allows the Engineer to build a disposable sentry gun--which is, for all intents and purposes, a combat mini-sentry. Your regular sentry gun is completely unchanged, so it is very well possible to build two mini-sentries if you have the Gunslinger equipped (not like that will do you any good in [=MvM=]).

** Why does he not take the gun when given the choice between that and an axe? Because he's a badass, that's why.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', "Escape to the House of Mummies, Part II": A mook throws his empty gun at Brock and is admonished by a fellow mook with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHkt5oEv_sI "I have more bullets ya know. You gotta stop doing that. Now go get it!"]]

* The legend of Blackbeard (real name Edward Teach) going into battle with half a dozen loaded guns on his belt may well have been true -- but hardly uncommon. In [[TheCavalierYears the days of single-shot muzzle loading ball and powder pistols]], and even as late as the 1850s, in the age of slow muzzle-loading cap-and-ball revolvers, it was quite common for gunfighters to wear bandoliers of preloaded guns in order to fend off numerous foes in heated firefights. This was done in order to avoid the lethally time-consuming (and unreliable) procedure of reloading one's pistols in the heat of combat. Usually, though, combatants would tie the guns to their belts so that they were not completely lost when dropped.

* From the same war, this was what led to the Sten submachine gun's existence and the reason that it used the same bullets as and close copies of the magazines for the opposing [=MP40=] - in mid-1940, British forces in the European theater were forced to make a hasty retreat back to their home territory, and left a lot of guns behind. While replacing their domestically-made Lee-Enfields and Bren guns would not be very problematic, their SMG of choice had primarily been American-made .45 Thompsons, which would have been much harder to replace as America was gearing up for war themselves, and the only pistol-sized rounds manufactured in Britain before then were rimmed revolver cartridges that couldn't have been used in an automatic design at all. In comparison, 9x19mm ammo was abundant after forces in the African theater managed to capture several million rounds of it from surrendering Italian forces.

* The Scottish tactic known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_charge Highland charge]] involved running at the enemy really fast, shooting muskets at 60 yards while on the run (mostly to create a smoke screen rather than hit anything) then drop the musket to switch to a [[{{BFS}} Claymore]].

* Throwing your gun always works in ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami''. Thrown guns knock down any mooks hit by them, and can even continue their flight to knock over multiple enemies.

* In Joss Whedon's original script for ''Film/AlienResurrection'', one of the smugglers was supposed to carry plastic guns that were made to be disposable. In his final LastStand, he was supposed to eject a number of pistols from his [[NothingUpMySleeve sleeves]] and discard them as they ran out of ammo. This aspect didn't make it into the final film and the guy's sleeve pistols are presumably as reloadable as any other guns.

->"I have more bullets, you know. You gotta stop doing that!"\\
"I know. It just looks so ''cool.''"\\
"Well, ''go get it!''"
-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', "Escape to the House of Mummies! Part II"

* The ''VideoGame/{{Area 51 FPS}}'' and ''VideoGame/TheDarkness'' use this in one of the circumstances where it's actually a realistic response -- when using GunsAkimbo. Reloading two weapons at once is clumsy at best and impossible at worst, so the empty weapon really ''is'' just dead weight (though the realism of guns akimbo in the first place is specious at best). Although, in ''The Darkness'', Jackie keeps hold of one pair of pistols, the custom ones that were given to him at the start of the game as a birthday present. They're always the last pair of guns he pulls out, so he must hang on to them and reload them at some point.
* In the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' series, most Covenant energy weapons run from a power cell which humanity does not know how to recharge or replace. This leads to swapping guns with your dead enemies as a necessity, even sifting through the bodies to find the one with the most charge left. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation The same applies whenever you play as a Covenant Elite]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' has the alien weapon, which is new to humanity. You can't even tell how much ammo you have, let alone reload.
* ''VideoGame/CondemnedCriminalOrigins'' takes it one notch further: it's an FPS that ''doesn't have a reload key''. Even though you may wind up with one gun with 4 bullets in it in your inventory and another one with 3 on the ground, there is no way to top the first off with the ammo from the second (especially weird considering you ''can'' take the magazine out to visually note how many more bullets are in it, but you can't take those magazines out to slap them into another gun). You can keep ahold of the gun to use as a club once it's empty, but they're hardly effective at the role, dealing the least damage and breaking after a dozen or so hits. Thus, the CSI protagonist mostly relies on braining people with 2x4s, rebars, and lead pipes. The [[VideoGame/Condemned2Bloodshot sequel]] allows you to reload your current gun with the ammunition from a weapon on the ground and in safes, or from one in your holster after the point in the game where you unlock that.
* ''VideoGame/JurassicParkTrespasser'' explains its non-reloadable as the heroine having a broken left arm. How she is able to fire an assault rifle on full auto one-handed, especially with any semblance of accuracy, is not.
* In ''VideoGame/MirrorsEdge'', using a gun is not really the best way to play. Runners, like the player character Faith, use their agility and acrobatics to fend off attack. When carrying a gun, Faith's agility is hampered, depending on the gun size and handedness. A pistol retains your use of both hands (to climb and vault) but mildly hampers your acceleration and jump. Anything larger than that, like a rifle, does kill your ability to jump and vault and wallrun, and your max running speed is completely nuked. An M249 machine gun is the worst - you're forced to walk and you jump like a Goomba, if at all.
* Played straight and subverted in ''VideoGame/MDK2'' with Max the four armed dog throwing away most of this weapons once he runs out of ammo, luckily there is always a good supply of guns lying around. Subverted as Max has four weak guns with unlimited ammo which never leaves his hands, unless he dies.
* Karen's higher level [[LimitBreak Flash Drives]] in ''VideoGame/LuminousArc2'' consist in emptying a pistol, two submachine guns and a bazooka upon the target, discarding them once they click empty.
* In ''VideoGame/DeadToRights'', protagonist Jack apparently dislikes reloading guns. He can max out his ammo by picking up more of the same gun, but instead of putting in a new magazine, in true Hong Kong action style, he'll throw away his guns and pull out two new ones. If he's using a two-handed weapon like a shotgun or a submachine gun, he'll reload that, however. This is at least partially justified, however, as ''every'' enemy in the game will eventually shoot at him, and it's presumably easier for him to just throw away his gun and pick up another. Or violently disarm some guy and kill him with his own gun.
* Nick Kang in ''VideoGame/TrueCrimeStreetsOfLA'' can fire all GunsAkimbo, but throws them away at the drop of a hat; when entering a car, when entering a building, when attempting to holster. He always returns to his issue sidearms, which are also wielded akimbo, have unlimited ammo, and can get upgraded to deadly enough power to make the other guns superfluous.
* The guns in ''VideoGame/BloodRayne'' just offer another variation for killing, and are discarded by Rayne as soon as they're empty, or when other guns are picked up.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Scribblenauts}}'', any weapon you create will have 1 to 5 shots, after which Maxwell will throw them to the ground... where they then turn into a puff of smoke.
* Alex Mercer from ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' doesn't bother holding onto reloads for the guns he pilfers from the military, tossing the firearms away instead.
* ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' goes through a casket full of guns in a single cutscene, apparently just because she felt like it: while they can't channel her magic as effectively as Rodin's handiwork, she's still able to give the final pair infinite ammo.
** This is arguably a partial justification for CutscenePowerToTheMax; ruining the guns allows ''far'' more powerful shots which quickly pulp angels, versus the scaled-down magic bullets she shoots in gameplay at a "safe" level.
* Luna Himiki from ''VideoGame/VanguardPrincess'' is a character with ''eight'' [[StanceSystem different stances]] that change where and how she fires her twin laser pistols. Whenever she gets out of her firing stance, she tosses away her guns and whips out two new ones. Even if you didn't fire a single shot out of them.
* In the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII-based games in the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series, the player is often forced to drop whatever weapons he started levels with for German ones most simply because, with rare exceptions, there's no way to replenish the ammo for the former without actively letting your allies die. It helps that, most of the time, TheEnemyWeaponsAreBetter – after all, the Allies have no good parallels for [[GameBreaker the MP44 assault rifle or the FG42 automatic sniper]].
** ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' has an example of this if you use cheats - [[spoiler:when you're supposed to shoot Zakhaev at the very end, he will attempt to shoot back at you with his Desert Eagle. If you use god mode to survive his shots, after he fires seven times he'll drop the gun and pull out another one. Another seven shots from ''that'', he drops it too, and then pulls out an M1911 with infinite ammo instead.]] ''Modern Warfare 3'' also has a proper variation in a cutscene, where [[spoiler:Grinch drops his rifle to pull out [[GunsAkimbo a pair of Deagles]] during his team's LastStand because there's simply too many enemies and too much going on for him to reload properly.]]
** This also happens and is justified in one mission near the end of ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare''. [[spoiler:Mitchell's prosthetic arm has been broken,]] so the player cannot reload or throw grenades, and must throw away a gun after emptying its magazine.
* [[PlayerCharacter Alcatraz]] from ''VideoGame/{{Crysis}} 2'' can [[RemovableTurretGun pick up and wield heavy machine guns]]. When it runs out of ammo, he simply tosses it aside and goes back to using standard weaponry.
* Done in the 3D ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' games. As long as you have at least 1 bullet left, you keep the gun, but once you have no ammo you throw it away. This causes some annoyance if you want to buy more ammo, as you'll have to fork out for a new gun as well, though most of the time ammo is plentiful anyway.
** Done to full extent in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'', where Niko dumps every empty weapon straight on the ground and pulls out a different weapon whenever ammo for that weapon in particular fully goes out. The following game in the franchise, ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', doesn't actually let this happen since the protagonists have infinite inventories and so, instead of dumping their guns away, they just keep it in their inventory until more ammo is acquired for them to be used again.
* ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2'' averts this one in theory, as it's possible to have your characters try and clear the jam, but it's surprisingly difficult to do so and each failed attempt costs Action Points.[[note]]Presumably this is because only really serious malfunctions are actually represented in-game, and simple misfires or failures-to-extract that can be cleared just by manually working the action are abstracted.[[/note]] In practice, you're usually better off switching to another weapon until the end of combat and patching it up afterwards. Reloading also takes more Action Points than just drawing your sidearm instead, but limited inventory space and the shortage of truly ambidextrous mercs make going the full HeroicBloodshed route AwesomeButImpractical.
* ''VideoGame/JustCause2'' plays with this trope a bit in its basic mechanics. When a gun runs out of ammo, if there are no other guns of the same type lying around, it is easier to pick up one of the other types of guns, which drops your current gun. Similarly, there is ''never'' ammo for any of the DLC special weapons, so once you are out of ammo, you either have to call in a weapon drop for it again, or toss it for something else in the area. The irony of tossing weapons comes in the form of the "mounted gun" which can be unmounted and carried around. It is "heavy" so you cannot run or jump while wielding it, but it has infinite ammo and can destroy anything you fire it at. The only reason not to have it all the time is that you can't bring it with you... so you might as well drop it when moving on.
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' has a Throw Away WeakTurretGun. The Combat Mini-Sentry is a FunSize version of the standard Sentry Gun that is unable to be upgraded. It also costs more metal to reload an empty Mini-Sentry than to just destroy the extant gun and build a new one. Once heavily damaged or emptied of ammo, it is always better off destroyed or left as a decoy than tended to and reloaded, unlike the standard Sentry Gun. Seeing as how Sentries are effectively the primary weapon for TheEngineer, this means that he is therefore constantly throwing down, then throwing away scores of small automated guns.
** Mann vs. Machine mode has an upgrade that allows the Engineer to build a disposable sentry gun--which is, for all intents and purposes, a combat mini-sentry. Your regular sentry gun is completely unchanged, so it is very well possible to build two mini-sentries if you have the Gunslinger equipped (not like that will do you any good in [=MvM=]).
* In ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' there is a small disposable plasma gun called the [=PS20=]. Intended as a stealth gun with its small profile, the size of the gun limits it to a single shot, although for some reason you can only carry one at a time and even a headshot at point-blank range won't kill someone. There's also a much larger variation with the Light Antitank Weapon, which has the same limit of one shot and only one in your inventory, though it's much more powerful (and also takes up much more space) since, as the name suggests, it's meant to be used against armor rather than people.
* ''VideoGame/OneFingerDeathPunch'' has throw-away bows; once you use up your arrows, your character drops the bow and keeps fighting, even though it could theoretically be used as a melee weapon. The game, however, is modeled after ''{{wuxia}}'' movies, and using bows as melee weapons violates most of the genre's style rules.
* Reaper in ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' "reloads" by dropping his guns and pulling another identical pair out of his trench coat. There is also D.Va's [[MiniMecha MEKA]] suits, which are treated as disposable and contain a SelfDestructMechanism for offensive use. A new suit can be called down fairly quickly to replace the prior as each gets destroyed.
* The notoriously bad ''VideoGame/DrakeOfThe99Dragons'' has "[[InformedAttribute master assassin]]" Drake reload his akimbo handguns... by pulling out another pair from HammerSpace. [[FridgeLogic And since he doesn't wear gloves, this results in him leaving guns with his fingerprints on them wherever he goes]].
* In ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter: The Omega Strain'' the player can choose what firearms to bring on a mission. Unless they choose guns with the same type of ammunition as the enemies they encounter, this trope can happen when the player runs out of ammo and has to discard their weapon and scoop up an enemy's.
* In the cinematic trailer to ''{{VideoGame/Brink}}'', a Resistance heavy empties an assault rifle and just lets it fall out of his hand before reaching for a shotgun [[SticksToTheBack stuck to his back]].
* In ''VideoGame/AgentsOfMayhem'', Kingpin discards his current gun and teleports a new one to his hand instead of reloading. He also tosses his gun away whenever he gets into a car.
* Oda Nobunaga in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' loves MoreDakka, but since she uses slow reloading single-shot muskets, she makes up for it with lots and lots of guns.
* Downplayed in ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 3'', where Max's loadout is limited to two handguns and one long gun. While the handguns get shoulder holsters for him to stash them in when he's not using them, the long gun is simply held onto by its foregrip when he's not using it; thus, going GunsAkimbo with pistols requires him to drop whatever long gun he currently has.
* Tediore guns in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' are an interesting case in that they ''weaponize'' this. Their guns are "[[AllThereInTheManual cheap, plastic pieces of crap]]" that are thrown away rather than reloaded (with a fresh version of the same gun digistructed into your hands afterwards) and the gun will explode on impact with something living or after a short while. You can throw them at enemies when they don't have a full magazine, and they deal more damage depending on how much ammo was left in the magazine. This is often used as a viable tactic in combat, allowing a player to quickly eliminate a particularly powerful or annoying enemy. The tradeoff, however, is that it means reloading uses up the ammunition that was left, and indeed using the preceding strategy will burn through your ammo supply incredibly quickly [[DamnYouMuscleMemory if you have the habit of reloading compulsively]].
* Throwing your gun always works in ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami''. Thrown guns knock down any mooks hit by them, and can even continue their flight to knock over multiple enemies.
* One of the [[EasterEgg hidden joke reload animations]] from ''VideoGame/BattlefieldHardline'' takes this trope a bit more literally than most by reversing the usual setup with throwing away the gun while keeping the magazine, reloading the magazine with a new gun.

* ''Webcomic/MagIsa'': Eman and Kyle both ran out of ammo as they engaged in a firefight. When they did, they just [[http://mag-isa.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/119721 threw out those guns (at least Eman did)]] and proceeded to knife fight.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}'' franchise, Nathan Drake can only carry one pistol and one long gun. Whenever he swaps weapons, he simply dumps the previous one on the ground.

* Characters in ''VideoGame/{{Xenophobe}}'' can only carry one gun, so discarding your gun for a better one is important. Oddly though, you want to remember where your old gun was because guns have a tendency to explode when dropped and you might want to go back for your old one. In some versions you also get points for dropping your gun, which can lead to repeatedly dropping many guns until they explode!
* In the ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'' series of games your character ditches special weapons when the clip empties, reverting to your starting pistol.

* You can do this with any gun-type items in the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' games, and in fact have to once they're empty since there's no way to reload (and they will, notably, immediately disappear on contact with the ground when thrown after being emptied, whereas a still-full gun can be tossed several times). Some of them are even more effective when thrown, considering the primary means of defeating opponents is [[RingOut throwing them off the stage]]; blasts from the laser gun only stop an enemy in their tracks and throw them up maybe a few inches, but the damage quickly adds up to let you send them flying ''really'' far once it runs out and you clonk them with the gun itself.

%% Image replaced per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1303914632062342600
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* Meryl Strife of ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'' does this to an extreme, with dozens of one-shot derringer pistols lining her cloak, which she'd go through quite rapidly in a gunfight. On occasion, Wolfwood was also shown using a large supply of pistols taken from the crossbar of his Cross Punisher, tossing each away when they ran out to grab a new one. Comically, after a barrage of derringer shots, Milly is seen picking up all of Meryl's discarded guns.
* Barnett of ''Anime/{{Vandread}}'' does this to at least five different weapons of the course of an episode, since she does have to keep firing constantly, or risk being overrun. However, as the end of the episode she gets very cheesed off that she can't recover the weapons, since they're incredibly rare in this time period.

* In ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'', [=MagnaGarurumon=] throws his BFG when its out of ammo to bring out its [[DualWielding lightsabers]].
* Manga/{{Golgo 13}} does this on occasion, mainly because if he gets rid of the gun he just used to kill somebody (in a way that the gun can't be found later), there's one less piece of evidence that can be used to prove he was the killer. And given that he charges seven figure fees for his services, he can afford to discard his old guns and buy new ones (with his preferred rifle only costing in the low four digits in reality) whenever he wants to.

* Used a few times in ''Film/TheMatrix'', since the dozens of guns abandoned were conjured up from computer code, and vanish without a trace when the programmed reality is "reformatted". Neo and Trinity plan on doing this during their raid, since they correctly figured there would be no ''time'' to reload.
* In ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'', Bond uses an Anderson Wheeler double rifle for most of the attack on the eponymous estate, but upon running out of ammunition promptly discards the weapon. His contentious relationship with his parents may be part of his reasoning. He also discards his service weapon, a Walther PPK, in the opening scene of the movie, despite having time to reholster it, as seen [[https://youtu.be/mBCN8qf_kMk?t=40 here]]. This is especially irresponsible as the weapon's serial number is most likely registered to him through [=MI6=].
* The zombie horror/comedy ''Film/{{Undead}}'' hangs a giant neon lampshade on this. The badass never reloads, instead whipping out a fresh pair of pistols after every barrage, to the point of ridiculousness. This goes unmentioned until he spends several minutes ''naked'', finds new clothing in a thrift store, and at the first sight of zombies, whips two ''Desert Eagles'' out of {{Hammerspace}}, prompting another character to ask, "Where've you been keeping them, then?"

* ''Film/{{The Mummy|1999}}'': In the opening battle at Hamunaptra, O'Connell fires GunsAkimbo at a number of bad guys. He runs out of bullets... then drops the pistols, draws two more from their holsters, and keeps firing. The French service revolvers he was using were loaded via a gate at the back of the cylinder, like a Colt Single Action Army revolver, requiring much more time to reload than even modern revolvers.
* ''Film/TheLastOfTheMohicans'': Hawkeye and Chingachgook stage an extended two-man assault on a group of Huron. Because all of their weapons are single-shot, Hawkeye and Chingachgook repeatedly drop their empty muskets and pick up the loaded muskets of the Huron they'd just shot.
* Parodied in the 1985 comedy/adventure film adaptation of ''Literature/KingSolomonsMines''. The female character throws a gun at the villain; he shouts: "Thank you!" and uses it to blast away at her.
* ''Film/{{Unforgiven}}'': Clyde carries three guns because he only has one hand, which makes reloading impossible for him. "I just don't wanna get killed for lack of shootin' back."
* Played straight, then lampshaded, then inverted in ''Film/GrossePointeBlank'' -- Martin Blank and rival hitman Grocer end up in a MexicanStandoff across a kitchen counter, only to find that they're both empty. They toss their guns away, and Grocer pulls out a fresh one while teasing Blank when it's apparent that he's all out -- "So, what are you gonna do? You gonna THROW that gun at me? How 'bout this? How 'bout I sell you a piece for a hundred Gs?" Grocer tosses a loaded gun past Blank's cover and jumps out to shoot him [[spoiler:only for Blank to smash his head with a nearby television and electrocute him.]]

* In Joss Whedon's original script for ''Film/AlienResurrection'', one of the smugglers was supposed to carry plastic guns that were made to be disposable. In his final LastStand, he was supposed to eject a number of pistols from his [[NothingUpMySleeve sleeves]] and discard them as they ran out of ammo. This aspect didn't make it into the final film and the guy's sleeve pistols are presumably as reloadable as any other guns.
* ''Film/{{Tremors}}'': When a giant man-eating SandWorm breaks into the basement of the CrazySurvivalist and his wife, they seize one firearm after another from their WallOfWeapons and blast away at the creature, which is only a few feet away -- sometimes reloading, but other times tossing the gun aside and grabbing a more powerful weapon. At all other times in the movie the two show proper weapons handling; this case is justified in that they ''are'' right in their own basement, so they can just retrieve the guns after they've killed the worm.
* ''Film/TheNakedGun'' goes even further than its TV predecessor, ''Series/PoliceSquad''. When someone runs out of ammo during a shoot-out, they toss their empty handgun at the opponent. Police and baddies keep emptying their guns at the same time...
* In ''Film/{{Wanted}}'', Wesley does this, [[spoiler:during his major assault on the bad guy headquarters.]] Why reload your gun when you can take the guns from your dead enemies?
* Possibly parodied in the original ''Film/TheBlob1958'', when a four-year-old boy "shoots" the BlobMonster repeatedly with a ''cap pistol'' and then throws the toy gun away. Presumably he'd seen this trope in action on Franchise/{{Superman}} shorts and cowboy flicks.
* Staff Sgt Nantz in ''Film/BattleLosAngeles'' runs out of ammunition for his assault rifle while [[spoiler:chasing retreating aliens]] and reflexively lets go, draws his pistol and keeps on firing. He still retains the weapon though, as the sling was correctly used to carry it.
* Averted in the opening CarChase of ''Film/TheTransporter'' when a French policeman empties his revolver after the [[BadassDriver protagonist's rapidly-departing car]]. The cop is about to throw down his gun in frustration, when he realises what he's doing and throws down his cap instead. The trope is played straight in later scenes though.
* ''Film/{{Posse}}'' has a scene where the two combatants advance slowly in a ShowdownAtHighNoon, throwing their guns away as they empty them.

* ''Film/ShootEmUp''. Creator/CliveOwen's character does this [[BadassAndBaby while carrying a baby]] or during a [[HighAltitudeBattle mid-air shootout]] -- all other times he reloads.
* In the opening of ''Film/TheShadow'', gangster Duke, unnerved by the EvilLaugh of the title character, blasts away in all directions with his snubnose revolver, then tosses it aside to grab a [[MoreDakka Thompson submachine gun with drum magazine]] from his car.
* Subverted in ''Film/{{Red}}'' when Victoria is exchanging fire with the Secret Service. Every time she runs out of ammo, she calmly exchanges her [=MP5K=] for another held by her colleague, who reloads for her while she's emptying that weapon.
* In ''Film/{{Ultraviolet}}'', Violet has hundreds of weapons stored in high-tech HammerSpace, so she just drops empties.
* Justified in the final chase in ''Film/TheTerminator'', as the Terminator is on a motorbike and can't just reload like he's done on every previous occasion.
* Justified in the final battle of ''Film/{{Commando}}'', as John Matrix annihilates the BigBad's army he just tosses his guns aside as they run dry. This is because he stole the guns and doesn't expect to keep them and that he really can just pick up more guns from the slain.
* While only seen once in ''Film/{{Strapped}}'' it's implied that this is a common practice. One of the people purchasing a gun on the streets refers to it as a "burner" suggesting it can be disposed of after it's used.

* When running from Big Nick at the end of ''Film/DenOfThieves'', Merriman throws away his assault rifle. Justified as the rifle is out of ammo, and Merriman is looking to disencumber himself to make it easier to escape.

* ''Film/{{Apache}}'': During his final confrontation with the Army, Massai empties his Peacemaker at a group of scouts, then throws the empty gun at them, and launches himself at the group. Justified because Massai is a DeathSeeker at this point and isn't expecting to survive the confrontation.
* During the shootout in the rail yard in ''Film/DickTracyVsCueball'', Cueball throws his gun away when it runs out of bullets.
* ''Film/TenDeadMen'': During the shootout against Franklin's gang, Ryan gets his arms pinned and draws his holdout gun from his boot as its the only weapon her can reach. The gun jams after two shots but, now being free, he tosses it aside and continues on with his rampage.

* Averted in the Jerry Ahern novel ''The Takers'' when the protagonist (an action novelist and gunwriter) is told to throw down his guns, he quotes from a Western. "I won't throw down my weapons, I'll set them down."
* In Creator/TimPowers' ''Literature/OnStrangerTides'', Hurwood assists the pirate attack by firing one pistol after another, pulling the guns from bandoleers and dropping them after use. Justified because Hurwood has only one arm and would be slowed down immensely if he paused to re-holster each weapon. Since they're aboard a ship the dropped guns likely aren't going anywhere.

* In Radio/TheShadow pulps, the Shadow is terrible about tossing away his automatics whenever they're empty. One reviewer speculated that the hundreds of empty handguns left by the vigilante might be the cause of New York's gun problem.

* ''Series/DueSouth'': Once they cross over into Canadian territorial waters, Ray tosses his gun to Fraser because he is a [[ImprobableAimingSkills much better shot.]]
* In the ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' episode "War Stories", Zoe tells Wash "Six shots, then throw it away." as she hands him a pistol. Her husband is however inexperienced with firearms, so it would probably make more sense than teaching him to load in the short time they have.
* Lampshaded in an episode of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Robin goes to a shooting range to cool off after breaking up with Barney. She is shown violently shooting at her target and once out of bullets, she actually throws the gun.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': Done by a perp in "Civilized Lies". He fires two shots at the cops, finds his gun empty and then discards it before trying to flee... and running straight into a third cop.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyBattle'' has a Regiment of Renown (a mercenary unit) of [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Dwarf death seeker pirates]]. They have a special rule, "Festooned with pistols", allowing them to use pistols in each turn of combat.
* The full-round reloading time in ''TabletopGame/HongKongActionTheatre'' seems designed to encourage this among players, since many Hong Kong action characters will dump their guns once they're out of bullets and either draw or grab new ones to continue the gunfight or turn the situation into a kung fu battle.
* Seriously averted in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''.
** No Guardsman would ''ever'' throw away their weapon unless it was too damaged to be usable. This is because Guard regulations state that losing one's weapon is a crime, potentially (and usually) punishable by summary execution. This is largely due to the rifle (and sometimes just the ammunition) being far more valuable than the guardsman who wields it. As a result of this, Guardsmen tend to take their rifles everywhere.
** Space Marines will only discard their weapon if they're killed, as they treat every bit of their equipment as a holy relic, to be treasured and preserved. Adeptus Mechanicus takes this one step further, sacrificing entire ''legions'' of troops to retrieve weapons that ''other people'' discarded centuries ago.
** The World Eaters believe a weapon destroyed or lost in battle brings bad luck, leading to this trope (and a lot of waste). Despite this, Khârn's chainaxe Gorechild was made from the remains of his primarch Angron's axe, when he destroyed its teeth by hacking his way out of a collapsed building.
* ''TabletopGame/{{BattleTech}}'' has a few examples of this. For one, quite a few battle armor suit designs carry disposable missile launchers (one-shot models or with a small number of reloads) that are generally jettisoned after use to no longer slow down the trooper(s); indeed, normally jump-capable Inner Sphere battle armors equipped with those are generally prohibited from jumping until the missiles are expended or the launchers ditched. Optional rules expand this to disposable packs for other weapon types and also introduce explicitly handheld weapons for [[HumongousMecha [=BattleMechs=]]], which allow a 'Mech to carry weapons it normally doesn't have installed but also usually encumber it and block some to all of its 'standard' weapons fire; these can be dropped and picked up again as the occasion demands.
* ''Battletech'''s roleplaying game spinoff ''Mechwarrior'' features a number of small, cheap guns in its inventory. Some are explicitly one-shot weapons, meant to be expended and then tossed out due to the fact that they have no reloading options (and some of them are hideously expensive for disposable weapons). Alternately, some weapons in the game are so cheap and small that it's not unreasonable for a character to simply toss it once expended and pull a new one. Holdout guns are often in this category, such as the holdout pistol, a snubnosed 5-shot revolver heavily implied in the original material to be a "Saturday Night Special" type of gun. This explains its relative cheapness and the fact it can't seem to hit anything past 10 meters or so.
* ''TabletopGame/HeavyGear'' has the compact but convenient [[IkeaWeaponry folding rifle]] known as the Deployable Pack Gun. It comprises of little more than a barrel and receiver on a hinge, a pistol grip, and an internally carried ammo supply...often with no ability to reload it in the field, as opposed to its clip- or magazine-fed ballistic cousins. As a result, some pilots just carry one with them for extra firepower in a pinch, expend the rounds carried in its internal ammo storage, then toss the entire gun once it runs dry to save weight mid-battle. This has led some pilots to call it the Disposable Pack Gun.

* In ''ComicBook/GothamCentral'', Detective Romy Chandler blames Franchise/{{Batman}} for the death of her partner, Detective Nate Patton. When she and her new partner stumble upon Batman interrogating the Penguin, she draws her gun and fires. Batman survives, but he takes her gun and [[StealthHiBye vanishes from the room]]. RealityEnsues as the fact that a police officer has lost her gun, after ''shooting Batman'' on top of everything, becomes a matter of great concern for her and the police department at large, especially when another detective slips and accidentally mentions the theft to their captain. Thankfully, before it can spin too far out of control Robin returns the gun, passing along the message that Chandler should not shoot Batman again.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', "Escape to the House of Mummies! Part II", seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHkt5oEv_sI here]]

** The 3D-printed [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberator_(gun) Liberator]] pistol, by Texas-based open source software firm Defense Distributed, takes its namesake from the FP-45 liberator. It is made of the same plastic as Lego bricks (and therefore would not be useful after a small number of shots, with even ideal conditions producing a gun that will at most last through ten shhots), and can only fire one .380 ACP round. Its designer, an anarchist named Cody Wilson, developed it not as a practical firearm, but to illustrate that technology can and will one day render gun control laws useless.

* Justified in ''Film/TheGodfather''. Michael Corleone is given a untraceable, unfingerprintable revolver and is told to just drop it next to the dead bodies. The reasoning is that, if Michael is caught at the scene, the mafia will be able to "fix" any eyewitnesses so that Michael can say he was just at the scene. However, there's nothing they can do if the murder weapon is found in his pocket.