->"What a wonder is a gun! What a versatile invention! First of all, when you've a gun..."\\
''(loud click)''\\
"... everybody pays attention."\\
-- ''{{Assassins}}'', by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman

->''(loud gun cock)'' "Now doesn't that just torque your jaws? I love that. You know like in the movies just as the good guy is about to kill the bad guy, he cocks his gun. Now why didn't he have it cocked? Because that sound is scary. It's cool, isn't it?"\\
-- ''PhoneBooth''

Not [[FreudWasRight the kind of Gun Cock]] you're probably thinking about.

The dramatic gun cock is usually employed when a character is up to some interrogation work while holding a gun to someone's head. The subject of the investigation is invited to divulge some critical information. The subject refuses or spouts an insult.

Here comes the dramatic gun cock. The interrogator angrily pulls back the hammer of the revolver or chambers a round on the automatic, or for a really big noise, pumps the shotgun, then resumes pointing the gun to the subject's head.

Usually this is enough to thoroughly spook the subject into full disclosure.

The dramatic gun cock may be accompanied by a PistolWhipping.

With or without a PistolWhipping, this is visually dramatic but dangerous and stupid, and people occasionally shoot one another by accident when attempting to imitate this.

By the way, most weapons used by professionals are carried in ready to fire condition, and so pumping them dramatically would eject an unfired round. (An exception to this behaviour is with double-action revolvers, which can be fired without manually cocking the hammer first, but doing so makes the trigger pull heavier.)

In other situations, the dramatic gun cock serves to announce a character's presence, or (especially when taking place off-camera) to indicate that the tables have turned in some way. This is a ClickHello, and often occurs in conjunction with a MyNameIsInigoMontoya moment.

There's honest debate amongst those who own shotguns for home defense: with a pump-action shotgun, should you leave the chamber empty and cock it when you find the would-be miscreant, using the distinctive sound of a pump-action as a means of scaring the crap (sometimes literally) out of him, or do you chamber a round beforehand so you can shoot first if he's armed?

Subtrope of KineticClicking.

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!!Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Used by a hostage taker in the premiere of ''BigO'', to get across exactly ''how'' imperative it is that Roger Smith hand the phone over to the hostage's father. It works.
* Gene does this to Harry once in ''OutlawStar''.
* It becomes the trademark sound for Yoko in ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' (Trademark sound, not [[MostCommonSuperpower her other trademark]]) as her rifle has a crazy electronic whine when she cocks it after firing off an either impossible shot, or a hail of blue bolts of death.
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[[folder:Comics]]
* In ''Nightwing: Year One'', Nightwing stops a group of carjackers, one of whom decides to be cool. He then mercilessly lampshades this by asking if the crook had seen that on TV, points out that he's just ejected a perfectly good round, and then continues to cock the gun until he's effectively disarmed. There's a reason they call him the Boy Wonder.
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[[folder:Films]]
* Used in the (rather short) movie ''Phone Booth'' with the twist of the gun (a sniper rifle) being a good deal away from the protagonist and the sound being delivered by telephone. He then goes on to discuss this trope, its apparent flaw, and its psychological justification. He also perpetrates the mistake of cocking his gun twice without firing a round in between (presumably ejecting a live round).
** Considering the intent was to [[spoiler: scare the protagonist straight]], ejecting a live round is entirely justifiable.
* A fairly egregious example comes from the {{Stargate}} movie. During the scene where the commando team is investigating the temple, they cock their guns absolutely every time they hear a noise. Considering this is maybe a ten man team and there are maybe twenty gun-cocks per startling noise, this may be the result of a [[IncrediblyLamePun trigger-happy]] foley artist.
* In ''LethalWeapon 3'' the Dramatic Gun Cock is used for interrogation. One of the good guys wants to know where a submachine gun is coming from, and to extract this information from a baddie he proceeds to cock said submachine gun and point it at his head. In the same movie, later on, the two main characters are about to start shooting up the baddies' main hideout. They get their weapons, ready themselves... only to hear a Dramatic Gun Cock from behind them. They start to raise their hands, but it turns out it's another good guy (a good girl, actually) who's come to help them and is just [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace scaring them for fun.]]
* Used at least twice in ''TheBoondockSaints''; the [=McManus=] brothers hold their pistols to the back of their victim's head, and recite their family prayer before firing, such that the prayer ends like this: "''In nomine patris, et filii''..." CLICK "...''et spiritus sancti.''" BLAM.
** Kinda funny considering these are Beretta 92's. Considering they always do this after shooting a room full of baddies, they would need to decock the weapons before cocking them.
* Taken to the extreme by Magneto in the ''XMen'' movie, when, after yanking all the cops' guns out of their hands and pointing them at their owners' heads, he cocks every one at once.
* Sarah Connor does this several times in succession in ''{{Terminator}} 2'', blasting the T-1000 with a SWAT-issue shotgun and interjecting each shot with a forceful, one-armed pump.
** Hell lets not forget the T-800 itself in the same film dramatically cocking his shotgun one-handed by swirling the gun 360 degrees around on his finger, by the firing guard.
*** To be fair, it wasn't a pump-action shotgun, but a ''lever''-action, which still begs the question of why he couldn't just flick his wrist forward and then back, without having to do a full revolution.
*** This can't be done with any real-world gun (the shotgun in question was custom-altered for the movie), and the only purpose of doing so would be to allow the gun to be shot one-handed (likely breaking any human arm with the recoil), but [[RuleOfCool damned if it wasn't awesome]].
*** Of course, the wielder in that scene is no mere human...
** In the first film, Reese does one after [[SawedOffShotGun sawing off the stock & barrel of his shotgun]].
*** He pumps the shotgun three times: Once when he cuts the barrel off, once when he wakes up from his dream, and once in Tech Noir before he starts blasting. It would seem that he pointlessly ejected two good shells, or he was walking around with it empty and was, ahem, pumping it for fun.
* The ''clack-clack'' seems to happen every time the villains brandish their assault weapons at Stallone and company in ''Cliffhanger'' (and countless other action movies as well).
* In ''ScaryMovie III'' on of the characters dramatically cocks... a shovel. A shell falls out.
* Subverted in ''{{Snatch}}'', where one of the robbers of a betting parlor wastes rounds in the gun doing so. And he doesn't even get to use it and has it stolen from him. And even worse, it's the only real gun they had.
* ''TheRock''.
-->'''Mason''': "Your ''best''? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen!"
-->'''Stan''': "Carla was the prom queen..."
-->'''Mason''': "''Really?''"
-->'''Stan''' *clock.* "Really."
* In Tony Scott's deplorable ''Domino'', a dramatic conversation between Ed (Mickey Rourke) and Choco (Edward Ramirez) results in Choco cocking his revolver not once, but TWICE, despite the tension level never dropping to a point where the gun is ever, well, un-cocked.
* In ''LolaRennt'', it's dramatically releasing the safety (and thus technically [[NotWithTheSafetyOnYouWont another trope]], but used more in this way) that signifies that the titular heroine means SeriousBusiness. ''Twice''.
* Also parodied in ''Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn'', where Ash cocks a type of gun that can't be cocked (if this troper is to trust the knowledge of another viewer who knows more about guns).
* In ''{{Sneakers}}'', during Martin's escape near the end, one thug carries a shotgun which he grabs and pumps as soon as he gets it. But he never fires a round, and yet when he finally finds Martin, he pumps the shotgun at him again. Normally this wouldn't be very obvious if you weren't paying attention, but in this case, you can hear the loud CLUNK of the unfired shell hitting the floor.
* The finale of ''American Gangster'' has Richie Roberts (Russel Crowe) do this ''every single time'' he runs into someone. This works out to racking a shotgun with 4+1 capacity seven times. Not only should there be unused shells lying everywhere, but the slide on shotguns generally locks forward if the hammer is cocked, so this shouldn't even be possible.
** Actually, there's a widget to unlatch it, so you can remove a chambered shell without blowing a 6" hole in your wall. It's usually on the left-hand side of the receiver near the trigger guard for most models of pump-action shotguns,.
* The second ''{{Pirates of the Caribbean}}'' when Elizabeth threatens Cutler Beckett, she makes a point of pulling the hammer back on her pistol so that he'll know she means business.
** The first ''PiratesOfTheCarribbean'', toward the beginning, had Jack Sparrow cock his gun while threatening Will in the smithy. The badass effect was mitigated by his frustrated "''Please'' move!" and then soundly destroyed when the smith conked him over the head from behind.
**Possibly justified in the the weapons of that era HAD to be cocked. Until Liz and Jack actively cocked those guns, Beckett and Will were not in any particular danger of actually being shot.
* In the Chuck Norris action thriller ''Code of Silence'', two thugs try to rob a bar. Only when the hear a chorus of gun cocks do they realize it's a bar where off-duty cops hang out.
* The record for most {{Dramatic Gun Cock}}s executed by a single character, in a single ''scene'', certainly belongs to ''TheMask'', wherein the title character responds to the bad guy's show of force... with his own -- at least 28 weapons [[HyperspaceArsenal pulled from behind his back]].
* Done with EnergyWeapons in the climax of ''{{Ghostbusters}}''. Having reached the BigBad, the team [[PowerWalk confidently stride up to her seat of power]] and go through their proton packs' startup sequence slowly and methodically, which includes ''two'' versions of the gun cock: the simultaneous, distinctive whine of the particle throwers as they're powered on, and the mechanical extension of the wands at their business end.
* Backfires on Buffalo Bill in SilenceoftheLambs. When he's in the completely pitch black room with his night vision goggles, Agent Starling has no idea where he is, until he cocks his gun, at which point, she immediately aims and shoots him. Shoulda cocked it ahead of time.
* JamesBond gets one of these after fighting off Xenia in ''GoldenEye''. '*click* Take me to Janus.' Possible since this was in a bathhouse or bathroom, where one may not always carry a ready to fire pistol.
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[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''The Curious Case of Sid Finch'', the title character (a skilled human parrot, among other talents) tries to scare a burglar by imitating the sound of a taxicab. He later wishes he had thought to make the sound of a rifle bolt being drawn back.
* Backfires pretty badly on the protagonist of Richard K. Morgan's ''Market Forces''. Holding some thugs at bay with a shotgun, he pumps it in attempt to intimidate them... and the gun, having been previously damaged, conspicuously fails to chamber another round, thus rendering him visibly defenseless.
* Lampshaded in one of the ''Track'' novels by Jerry Ahern (a gun writer and action-adventure novelist). Track's {{Action Girl}}friend takes out her pistol, and Track thinks to himself that in the movies she'd pull back the slide dramatically. Of course she doesn't do this as a round is already chambered.
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[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''CSIMiami'' built a whole subplot out of this when someone pointed a gun at the back of Calleigh Duquesne's head and cocked it. She spent the rest of the episode listening to gun-cocks until she was able to successfully identify the type of weapon pointed at her.
* One storyline on ''MiamiVice'' has Crockett suffering partial amnesia. He forgets he's really a cop and falls into his undercover persona of a facilitator of drug deals. While in this state he shoots his partner Tubbs, [[DisneyDeath apparently killing him.]] Of course Tubbs turns out to have been wearing a BulletproofVest. After that Crockett's [[AmnesiacDissonance memory begins to return]]. Guilt-ridden, he makes his way to the police station. He walks into the squadroom and stops. His fellow officers, believing him to have turned rogue, draw and cock their weapons in succession. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.
* Used to excess in ''{{Firefly}}''; in fact, Jayne seems to speak almost entirely in dramatic gun cocks.
** Mal also seems fond of doing it at times, either to make a point (such as in the "BigDamnHeroes" scene in "Safe") or as a way of saying "Cut the bullshit" if someone is trying to con him. It's particularly noticeable in his interactions with Saffron.
** Notably played for laughs when Wash cocks a tiny pistol rather dramatically in "War Stories."
** Speaking of "Jaynestown", anyone notice the DGC sound when "Stitch" Hessian points his shotgun at Mal's face? Seeing as Stitch doesn't pump the action (he's holding the shotgun one-handed) and that model doesn't have an exposed hammer, what exactly is creating the cocking sound?
*** Target lock? Weapon powering up? Futuristic saftey? Its futuretech, so you can probably make up your own answer.
*** Could be any one of those things. Many of the weapons in Firefly have, in place of a dramatic gun cock, a dramatic electrical whine (regardless of if the weapon appears to be purely conventionally mechanical or not.)
** The interrogation aspect is inverted in TheMovie, where Mal is trying to talk down River as she has a pistol pointed at him, while looking away at a computer terminal. He tells her that he considers her a person, and not a [[SuperSoldier weapon]], and if she disagrees, she'd best shoot him now.... [[DramaticGunCock *hammer click*]] ....''or'' they can keep talking.
* Inverted in ''TheSarahConnorChronicles'', where John has to quietly and carefully pump a shotgun while Cromartie is walking around his house. The not-so-dramatic noise nearly reveals to Cromartie where John is hiding.
* Locke uses the gun cock to get Ben to reveal information in the ''{{Lost}}'' episode "Confirmed Dead". Kate uses it in "Not in Portland" to get Aldo to tell her Karl's whereabouts.
* Obligatory ''StarTrek'' reference -- in "A Piece of the Action", when a gangster sneaks up behind Kirk and Spock, Kirk is able to recognize the sound of a Thompson machine gun being cocked. Ah, Starfleet training, you can't beat it.
* On ''{{Angel}}'', when the titular character is about to shoot Faith point-blank with a shotgun, he delivers his little speech, then dramatically pumps the shotgun. Then he does it again. And again. Only once all of the shells have been ejected does Faith kick it away and resume fisticuffs.
* From ''What It's Like Being Alone'':
-->"What happened to my booze? Did I black out and join AA?" ''(DramaticGunCock)'' "Better unjoin it."
* Blatantly overused in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', where you know someone is going to cock their gun only after pointing it at someone for ten seconds. The only exception is Noah Bennet.
* While not a firearm, ''{{Stargate SG-1}}''[==]'s version of the DramaticGunCock would be the staff weapon's distinctive "Bzzzt" sound when it is armed, as well as showing arcs of energy along the tip of the weapon. The Goa'uld and their Jaffa love doing this to prisoners before executing them.
** In one episode when O'Neill threatens Kinsey, he did the Dramatic Gun Cock, and much to this troper's enjoyment(being a pistol owner) they actually got the sound of the slide being pulled back and released '''CORRECT'''. Ask any pistol owner; the standard Hollywood Foley effect used for chambering a round in a semi-automatic pistol is almost always WRONG.
* The famed Arctic Expidition on ''{{Top Gear}}'' had James May cock his shotgun as he looks out for polar bears while Jeremy Clarkson takes a dump. This is lampshaded when Clarkson calls out (while still on the "bumper dumper"): ''"James, are you showing off, or are you actually looking for bears over there? because I can't run"''
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[[folder:TabletopGames]]
* Role-playing example: In ''{{GURPS}} {{Discworld}} Also'', the type of repeating crossbow used in the swashbuckling seaports of the Brown Islands makes a distinctive "ka-chunk" sound when a bolt is released from the magazine. "Some users regard this as an essential feature."
* Spending a shot to do this with a shotgun (the "KA-CHINK!" rule) in ''FengShui'' gets you an extra damage point on your next attack with it.
* ''Spycraft'' gives pump-action shotgun owners a bonus on their Intimidate skill at the start of combat. Guess where it comes from.
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[[folder:Video Games]]
* Except for the sniper rifles, every time you switch guns in ''CounterStrike'', your character automatically cocks the gun as soon as you select one.
* Overplayed in ''MetalGearSolid 2''. In an attempt to find the location of the C4 bombs along the complex, Raiden interrogates Fat Man. As Fat Man pushes a remote, Raiden cocks his gun and demands an explanation. He does this at least twice more.
* Both justified and subverted in ''MetalGearSolid'' 3. The first time Major Ocelot racks the slide on his pistol during the Virtuous Mission (before he kills a KGB team), no bullet comes out of the ejector port which gives the idea that Ocelot doesn't chamber a bullet until he's going to shoot someone (presumably so he can avoid shooting himself while [[GunTwirling spinning it]]). When he's about to shoot Naked Snake, Ocelot reloaded and tried to rack the slide before he fired, an uncommon Middle Eastern technique used to ensure there is an unjammed bullet in the chamber. Since he was obviously trying it for the first time, the gun stovepiped on him. Snake later chastised him for trying a technique he probably only heard of in the middle of close-quarters combat.
* Perhaps evident in ''MetalGearSolid 4''. In both the vanilla game and ''Metal Gear Online'', whenever Snake (or any other player) reloads a gun, they cock the gun to chamber a round. Okay, this is realistic. However, doing so ''ejects another round''. So apparently every clip has one extra bullet just for dramatic purposes?
** This only happens if the gun is empty. Since quite a few guns also have another means to "ready" them after reloading aside from cocking, the cocking effectively is for dramatic purposes.
* From the ''TeamFortress2'' "Meet the Team" video "Meet the Spy", the soldier dramatically cocks his shotgun, while claiming that the BLU spy was the RED spy all along.
**For the record, he cocked the gun right after shooting the spy, meaning that the act of cocking didn't waste a round.
* At the end of the introductory highway stage in ''MegaManX'', the sound of Zero's blaster charging up replaces the click.
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[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Can also happen with EnergyWeapons, such as [[SchlockMercenary Sergeant Schlock]]'s Plasgun and its Ommminous Hummmm. "I like the soothing sounds I get from this one."
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[[folder:Web Original]]
* Parodied in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBSi8qC0tFA this video]].
* Justified in ''VoidDogs'', with Cicada's [[BigFreakingGun GSMR]]. The gun fires self-propelled rocket rounds so there's no reason for it to cock, but it has a button that makes ominous, attention-grabbing noises so she can do this and ClickHello.
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Parodied (isn't everything?) in an episode of ''TheSimpsons'', where a hunter says something dramatic, and pumps his shotgun, visibly expelling a shell. Cletus the Yokel tries to copy him, and then he and the hunter start bickering about whether his comment added anything, and they ''keep'' expelling shells at the end of each sentence!
* Another Simpsons example; while threatening Homer and Krusty with a revolver, a Mob boss cocks his gun, scaring Homer. After some patter, he cocks the gun again, eliciting the exact same response. In the DVD commentary, the writers mention that they thought it was hilarious that a gun gets more frightening the further back you cock it.
* Also in ''SpongebobSquarepants'' when Patrick catches him stealing his secret box.
-->"Get ready for the most uncomfortable pillow fight of your life! (cocks his '''pillow''')
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* The reason the [[http://dailymobile.se/2009/03/15/iphone-shotgun-free-application-review/ shotgun app]] exists.
* Almost all military units, the world over, keep a round chambered at all times while in the field. The only exception are peace-keeping forces, because the sight and sound of an entire squad cocking their weapons is usually enough to scare any would-be troublemakers back into line without the force having to resort to violence.
* It's been said that if you must keep a gun in the house, a pump-action shotgun is a good choice for a number of reasons. First, the small pellets are unlikely to go though walls and reduces the chance of friendly fire, and secondly, the sound of loading a round in the chamber is VERY distinctive and lets the intruder know what is pointing at them.
** According to legend, the law states that any action an intruder takes after hearing the homeowner pump their shotgun, other than surrender, may be legally considered assisted suicide. Or, less formally, when you hear somebody pump their shotgun, either you surrender or you get shot in self-defense.
* On this troper's first day of firearms training with the RAF, it was EXPLICITLY drilled into him that the weapon should be made-safe in all situations that do not involve pointing at a live fire target. This meant near continuous rattling of cock-safetyoff-safetyon-clearchamber-easespring every time someone so much as touched a weapon. Even this level of gun safety paranoia was not enough to prevent the occasional accidental discharge by someone who thought they were holding a "safe" weapon...
** Squaddie friends tell the story of how they would be forever be half-cocking their "gats" and then dry-firing at each other; Helluva funny right up to the moment one of them blew his best mate's brains all over the tarmac...
** This type of training doesn't extend to US forces, or at least not Army ROTC cadets as this troper accidentally discharged an improperly cleared rifle at a virtual firing range. It was just compressed air, but I'm sure if it had been a live fire range I and the guy who had used the gun previously would have gotten kicked out.
* Justified with vintage single-action revolvers and lever action rifles. There was nothing to prevent the firing pin from hitting the primer of a chambered cartridge if the weapon was dropped or the the hammer was bumped, so the normal carry state was hammer down on an empty chamber.
* One officer at least claimed to do this in a real manhunt. He was wielding a shotgun that was already primed to fire, but the suspect was hiding somewhere. The officer worked the slide (and ejected a round) to persuade the suspect to give up. This was in one of those 'Dumbest Criminals' books, if memory serves.
* Deputy Bud Staple [[http://www.justice.gov/marshals/history/miss/04.htm credited]] the sound of a newly-arrived Army unit's simultaneous loading of their M-1's with intimidating the mob trying to keep [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Meredith James Meredith]] from registering at Ole Miss.
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