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alt title(s): Instantly Fatal Bullets; Instant Death Bullets
In real life, being fatally shot almost always leaves the victim the option of 1-2 minutes of essentially normal activity before they finally fall unconscious. In fact, it is not uncommon for the victim to fail to realize they have been shot. Police trainers report that many officers are hurt or killed when their target fails to instantly fall down when shot, "like they do on television," but instead retaliates.

It can be Truth In Television, as given by this statistical website. Instant incapacitation can result from damage to the nervous system, such as a brain or spinal cord injury, destruction of bodily extremities, or from psychological collapse. Also, anything involving the Chunky Salsa Rule can be considered an Instant Death Bullet.

However, it is rarely possible to aim at and hit relatively small areas of the human body with any degree of accuracy, especially when they're moving around or hiding behind obstacles. Police snipers are capable of dealing headshots if required, but doing so requires skill, opportunity, an extremely accurate rifle, and a lot of luck.

The only reliable way to hit a moving human target at all is to aim for the centre of the body. Getting shot causes severe tissue and nerve damage which will usually incapacitate quickly, but not immediately kill. Again, incapacitation is not always the case, as various factors ranging from the physiology of the person shot to the type of ammunition used can have varying results.

In fiction, one or two minutes of fairly normal activity followed by death is almost never an outcome of being shot for most characters. The normal outcomes are, in rough order of frequency:

Some of these subscribe to this trope more than others; the instantly incapacitating shot that then leads to a lingering dying speech isn't really a violation, since a stomach wound is even less likely to be instantaneously incapacitating than an arterial or brain wound, and yet it almost always causes the victim to fall over immediately.

The Railing Kill may be an attempt to avert this trope without leaving the hero exposed to last-minute gunfire.

Consider the Showdown At High Noon, or any other pistol duel. Screen renderings of these "quick draw" gun battles would be rendered relatively silly if a common outcome was that one combatant was fatally shot, and then took careful aim and fired back, fatally wounding the opponent. There's a reason there were never many experienced gunfighters; the Instant Death Bullet makes for a better story, though.

This trope is largely responsible for the tendency for mooks to come from the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy. After all, if any bullets that hit the hero are going to instantly kill or incapacitate him, then the story must ensure that the bullets don't hit him. Not that even with the exceptions listed, this is mostly with important characters. Mooks and Redshirts will almost always die instantly.

These are particularly likely for a Mercy Kill or I Cannot Self Terminate. Although in those situations the killer is particularly likely to have the chance to get off a quickly lethal attack, since he can usually position himself and chose his shot carefully.

Examples:

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