SilentHunter: Minor historical footnote- NATO and Warsaw Pact weapons have different coloured tracer rounds (red for NATO, green for Warsaw Pact).

BluetoothThePirate: Yeah, but it's not often that tracers are even used apart from a belt-fed machine gun. But that is probably where, at least ''{{GI Joe}}'' anyway, got the idea.

{{Ununnilium}}: "Image at left" is gone.

Pepinson: Are we sure the guns in ''Gundam SEED'' are supposed to be lasers? I was always under the impression they were just handheld variations on the railguns used everywhere else in the series.

BTTheP: The handguns used in the series are definitely ballistic, and many of them are slightly updated real designs. It's another example of "[[SchematizedProp Japanese animators love mechanical accuracy]]". (Is that a trope? 'Cause it should be.) The technology of the show doesn't include any power sources small enough to make a magnetic handgun of any useful power and range. But, does it matter? The point is that in the airing on CN, very obvious edits were made to make the guns look less real, and laser visual and sound effects were added to people shooting at each other.

Pepinson: Huh. I never noticed that--but, if you say so...

Aozame: On an interesting note, Gundam ''does'' sometimes depict conventional weapons as beam weapons: Railguns (especially Freedom's), [[spoiler:the GP02's nuclear bazooka, the bazooka Char killed Kycilia with, the gun Kycilia killed Gihren with]]...
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BTTheP: the "VerySpecialEpisode" of Gragoyles about the dangers of real firearms was the episode wherein Elisa was shot accidentally by Broadway, not the one with the arms dealers.
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benteen: From the article: "Spoofed in an episode of the Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes cartoon, where at one point the villain complained, 'If this were prime-time, I could use real bullets!'" Isn't this actually a LampshadeHanging vice a spoof?

{{Ununnilium}}: Indeed it is.

{{Planish}}: One thing about beam weapons is that they don't have to have a fixed number of rounds. As long as there is battery (or whatever) power, they can keep firing with a reload (if you want it that way) and without dragging around extra clips.

Another thing is that you can see a beam better than a bullet, and you can sustain it, so it could persist on the screen longer than a bullet being fired. Maybe some directors/editors prefer that. Just guessing.

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LickyLindsay: Was Thundarr's sunsword done to placate MediaWatchdogs? I always assumed it was just an ersatz lightsaber.

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[=DoKnowButchie=] Did some general alterations to the main write-up to make it more coherent and better reflect the examples, and removed most of the discussion on the ''One Piece'' hammer-gun--yes, it's hilarious, but it doesn't need what amounts to a paragraph on how 4Kids sucks. Also did some general changes throughout. Also removed examples dealing with swords and other non-guns--those have their own tropes.

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LittleBeast: I don't see how ArtemisFowl is an example. At all.