This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
I'm not sure if this counts but WW 2 was fought with K98s for the most part on the German side, alot of movies/games portray the whole German army totting M P40s. I could see this going ether way so I'm not going to edit it in, but if someone who better knows what they are doing wants to do it that would be good.
Hey, uhmm, quick question: Is this trope actually supposed to be video-game only or is this just some sort of coincidence? Just asking, because 007 used an OICW in Die Another Day and I'm not sure whether I should add that.
The comments about Thompson submachine guns are interesting, because I saw a documentary on the History Channel that made them seem rather common. Especially due to criminals stealing for use.
LTR: Actualy, the vast majority of Thompson's used by criminals were purchased legaly, you could buy them though a mail-order catalogue or at the local gun or hardware store, there was no law against civilian ownership of automatic weapons at the time. No doubt a lot of Thompsons were used in the time period, but nowhere near as many as Hollywood would make you belive, the gun itself was a commercial failure, and Auto-Ordinance, the company that made them went out of business during the Great Depression for lack of sales. Thousands of Thompsons were made, but most were never sold
BT The P: They were rather common, as I recall. Not sure why that's in there.
//Common in movies, yes, because a Hollywood prop rental house called Stembridge's bought six of them back around 1932 (and they were sold off to collectors when Stembridge's went out of business in 1999, bringing in excess of $20,000 each). They were even put in plastic stocks to make them look more science-fictiony and used as "pulse rifles" in the "Aliens" movies.
See:
http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-25906.html
KEVP: Hey folks, the Thompson SMG, the "Tommy Gun", was indeed a very popular weapon among criminals in the U.S. in the 20s and 30s. Criminals would often steal their weapons, but quite a few were succesful enough to purchase them. A lot of American criminals got wealthy in the period by smuggling alcohol, which at the time was illegal (the 18th amendment). Tommy Guns were used, for example, in the famous "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" of 1929. One reason that the U.S. Military was not more interested in them was precisely because they were popularly associated with criminals. The wikipedia article on the gun says they were also used by the IRA of the time. I think we have enough reasons now to take the Tommy Gun off the list...
LTR - The gun saw a lot of well-publicized use in the hands of certain marquee criminals of the day, like the Mafia hit squads in Chicago during prohibition, and by the likes of Machine Gun Kelly and John Dillinger, but, the fact remains, the gun was a commercial flop, and the number actualy used in crimes or for law enforcement purposes is dwarfed by the sheer number that sat in crates unused until WWII suddenly made any gun worth using. The way TV would have you belive, everybody had one in the 20's and 30's. It's more of an icon of the era, used to tell the auidence "Hey, this is a show that takes place in the Roarin' Twenties" instead of giving the characters what would have been more realistic armaments for the era. It's almost a case of The Coconut Effect
anon: Not sure why the Desert Eagle is on this list, either. Very expensive gun, yes; rare - no.
BT The P: I'm not sure either, especially since it's already the star over at Really Big Gun.
//Go to a public pistol range and look for people using Desert Eagles; you aren't going to see many—you probably won't see any, in fact. I shoot fairly regularly and in the past fifteen years I've seen one guy with one, once.
I think they fit the definition perfectly: they're fairly common television and movie props, but there are not nearly so many to be found in the real world as you'd expect, especially given that the Israelis have been exporting the things to the US for more than twenty years. Granted, of that number that people have purchased, doubtless a great many have been fired exactly once, then buried in the back of the closet by people who did not enjoy the experience.
LTR: True, I target shoot as well, and among my circle of shooting buddies, the concensus is that the D.E. owes 90% of it's sales to people who want to look cool with it, not have a gun they can get good at shooting and enjoy.
Anon: The fact that you don't see them at the range doesn't make them uncommon. I went to five gun dealers today (no, I have no life at all), just out of interest. Each one had at least three on hand for sale. And I know at least two people who one one. So, no, they're not rare.
There seems to be two types of "rarity" at work here, there's "rare" in the sense that there aren't many examples of a weapon at all, maybe only a few hundred, and then there's "rare" in the sense that there are a lot of them, but they are rarely ever used and almost never used in the way people on TV or in movies use them.
Ununnilium: Just what does "neither fish nor fowl" mean, anyway?
Looney Toons: Something that does not fit into any established or traditional system of classification.
Ununnilium: Ah, I see. Thought it was something like that, but I'd never heard the idiom before.
Fast Eddie: Does the "16478" tag on the entry actually have anything to do with guns, or should we suppress all-numeric tags?
Silent Hunter: This is slightly related, but has anyone noticed the rare use of the SA 80 assault rifle in British fiction? I don't think it's been used in the new Doctor Who at all, but I'd need to double screencaps from "Doomsday". We have a case of the reverse of this trope here.
Space Ace: Well, the SA 80 is universally considered a crappy rifle, and I suspect the people who are liable to write about the British military in the first place are aware. The problems with the thing were fixed some 5 years ago, but that doesn't take away the reputation and the fact that a lot of British fiction was made more than 5 years ago, in the period of more than 15 years the gun was in use (and crappy). What is it with Great Britain and weird guns, anyway? The iconic Bren and Sten guns weren't exactly normal, either.
Tulling: What do you mean by "weren't exactly normal"? They were certainly not rare in the sense of being used in small numbers. If it refers to unusual design, you can say the same about many other weapons. One could claim that any weapon with innovative features is "not exactly normal"?
Deadbeatloser22: With regards to use in new Doctor Who, I'm pretty sure the soldiers at the Hospital in "Aliens of London" had them. The only other time I can recall the British army being featured was in "Turn Left", where the soldiers have G36s. The only other military forces shown are the Torchwood Soldiers and UNIT, who both use the G36 as well (Although the American UNIT Branch uses M4s, and the force at the ATMOS Facility used M4 CQB Rs in the final assault.)
Zero: I'm going to have to cry foul over the blurb about the Walther PPK. The PPK and its elder father the Walther PP are and were exceedingly common throughout most of civilized Europe between the two world wars and for decades onward to this day. It was very widely used by European police departments, especially in Germany, France, and likewise located countries. PP stands for "Polizei Pistole." I'll let you figure it out. The PPK is just a shortened version of the PP (K standing for "Kutz Kurtz," short ) and was also incredibly common in the .32 chambering and later in .380. Smith and Wesson does or at least until very recently did produce the PPK under license. There is also the Bersa/Firestorm line which is essentially the PPK with a few cosmetic tweaks; The Astra Constable line which in the early years was a direct clone and later years a very close Inspired By example; And two very popular BB gun derivatives by Umarex (distributed by Crosman) and the Chinese. Adolf Hitler took his own life to end the European arm of WW 2 by ingesting cyanide and then shooting himself in the head with a .32 caliber PPK. It's a very sensible, nondescript choice for James Bond despite what the writeup says.
Though I will admit the PP and especially the PPK's singularly useless iron sights, low magazine capacity, and marginally powered chambering as severe disadvantages.
Ununnilium: Pulling it out, then:
- Walther PPK. James Bond's chosen handgun for decades, and another German gun that's almost rare enough in the USA to be a collector's item (almost, because in the 1990s they were brought back into production for a while). Sinister and efficient-looking, finicky about what ammunition they'll function reliably with, underpowered, difficult to shoot well in a hurry, and one of the last things anyone who'd ever actually shot one would bring to a fight, except maybe as a last-ditch emergency weapon. But it looks really cool. Ironically, it originally found its way into James Bond's possession because a military friend of Ian Fleming's considered it a more likely choice for a super spy than Bond's original Beretta. However, the current films have Bond use a Walther P99, which is presumably a superior weapon. And, of course, the first Megatron turned into a Walther P38. A Humongous Mecha-scaled one, but still.
The Thompson Submachine Gun is still in production and available to civilians in semiautomatic format, chambered in its original .45 ACP. Drum and stick mags are available, and a new production example will run you 800 to 1000 bucks. They're not cheap. Body parts are readily available and airsoft, blank firing (even in full auto), and propane powered mockups are thick on the ground.
Tulling: Regarding the Fallout Tactics example: I do not remember such a weapon. What was it called and where can it be found? How does the description justify it being useless?
GMO: Alas, I cannot recall exactly where it is found (it was a level midway through the game, with a number of underground caches, I fear that's as far as my memory can help me). The description of the item (which indeed could not be equipped or otherwise interacted with as a wepaon) goes on about how, for example, it was considered lucky to fire more than a single burst with it without the wepaon jamming. Quite obviously, somebody was trying to have a bit of fun with the standard weapons descriptions, and the occurence of finding a gun that seemed new and unique, perhaps somewhat in line with the unusable Easter Egg armour taken from Diablo II.
Sci Vo: I fear that I'm becoming the subversion police. Come on, people. There's no shame in admitting that a show used a trope, and subversion has a specific technical meaning here.
Ununnilium: Indeed. Tropes Are Not Bad.
- Arguably present Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, with the protagonists successfully pulling off a robbery using the expensive rifles which are the film's MacGuffin. Implicitly, they succeed because of the gun's exotic appearance, even though their victims might have been expected to know that they are (likely inaccurate) powder weapons.
- They are not rifles. They are shotguns. And what is explicitly stated in the movie is that having a double-barrelled shotgun shoved in your face is a very intimidating experience. The protagonists refrain from sawing off the barrels in order to enhance the intimidation factor.
The original entry was borderline, and the edit just takes it into not-an-example-land.
Ununnilium: The Thompson and the Mauser both have "yes it is/no it isn't" going on. Someone, please, edit it or take it out.
Radioactive Zombie: E_T, if you're reading this, I'm sure the OICW was canceled. Meh, must go re-check...
Evil_Tim: I read various 'cancelled until further notice' and 'suspended indefinitely,' which both allow the project to be picked back up at a later date.
Martello: Beginning overhaul. First to go is this absurd trainwreck:
- Man-carried rotary miniguns with electric drives. Introduced in Vietnam, but almost never used except as helicopter door guns. The helo provides electric power, and lifts the weapon and a hefty supply of ammo on the shooter's behalf. No human being is strong enough to overcome the recoil of such a weapon firing 100+ rounds per second, despite what you may have seen Jesse Ventura and Bill Duke doing in Predator. In the real world, these rather expensive and temperamental weapons are typically mounted on vehicles or in bunkers as part of fixed fortifications. Characters who are not-quite-human tend to use these, or variations thereof, simply because they are implausibly large for a human being to use.
- Averted in Left 4 Dead, where the minigun is mounted on a tripod and is immobile. It is usually behind a waist-high barricade as well, part of an obvious military-grade defensive position.
- Interestingly, the minigun used in Predator was real — to a degree. The rounds fired were blanks, producing minimal recoil, and the weapon was powered by a remote generator whose cable was concealed in the pants leg of the actor holding the gun.
- The actor also wore a flak jacket to avoid injuries due to spent shells.
- Jesse Ventura also required several takes before finally mastering moving where he was supposed to with the considerable torque generated by the minigun props spinning barrel assembly.
- KOS-MOS from Xenosaga carries one in each hand, each with three tri-barrelled miniguns. She, of course, is an android, with the combat capabilities of a battleship.
- On that same note, the T-800 is perfectly justified using a minigun in Terminator 2 — although that had other problems.
- Used in the illustrated novel Samurai Cat in the Real World, where several giant Norse trolls (serving Al Capone, after the lead character prevented Ragnarok in the first book of the series) are carrying GAU-8 Avengers (the massive (two ton) tank-killing rotary cannons used on the A-10 Warthog). Tomokato's gun-happy nephew, Shiro (a kitten who weighs perhaps two kilos) is immediately smitten, and eventually manages to steal one and even fire it (once). When asked how he could possibly lift it, he exclaims that he has "the strength of madness".
- A running joke in Robert Rankin's stories is the fact that everyone wants "one of those cool machine guns like Blaine has in Predator".
- The Heavy class in Team Fortress 2 uses a minigun, but the game is intentionally over the top - the engineer carries a wrench the size of a baseball bat, etc...
- To be fair, that wrench is probably the most realistic thing in the game, as anyone who has used a wrench designed for nuts that are 2 and a half inches from end to end will tell you. I wish I was kidding.
- Minigun? That thing's more like an aircraft cannon that the Heavy Weapons Guy fitted with a trigger.
- Even though it doesn't have a trigger...
- Fallout manages to get its miniguns mostly right: it's only a practical weapon if you've got superhuman strength or are wearing powered armor, and it runs through your ammunition supply incredibly fast.
- Vulcan Raven ripped a Mini-gun and its generator out of a downed F-16 in order to waste Snake. He's canonically a giant at seven feet tall, very thick and has vaguely-defined Shaman powers.
- That's a maxigun, not a minigun. It's a Vulcan autocannon, which is considerably More Dakka indeed. Still, I haven't actually seen the scene in question, but I'm pretty sure F-16s don't have anything resembling a stand-alone generator.
The use of the AK-47 or AR-15 families in crime has nothing to do with this trope. I'm not even going to repost that one. Bad writing and natter are only a few problems.
The Thompson is not a Rare Gun, sorry. It was produced in large numbers in several different variations, was available by mail-order for $200 earlier last century, and is still manufactured in large quantities by more than one company. However, there are a few good points made in this bit, so here it is.
- Just about any TV show/cartoon set in the 1920's and 30's will have the bad guys and possibly the good guys blasting each other with Thompson sub-machine guns (aka the "Tommy Gun"), probably because the Thompson, particularly the 1921 model with the vertical foregrip, the slotted "Cutts Compensator" muzzle device, and the drum magazine, is one of the most sinister, cool-looking, visually-striking firearms ever designed. However, historically, while Thompsons were occasionally used by gangsters and law enforcement agencies, and the US Marine Corps began buying them in small quantities in 1928, the gun itself was a commercial failure, due to its very high price and also the fact that the US and other militaries of the era considered it to be neither fish nor fowl and could not imagine what purpose it could serve. Accordingly, the vast majority of Thompsons produced would remain unsold and unused until World War II. Your average criminal of the era was more likely to be armed with an inexpensive handgun of some sort that was cheaper to buy and easier to conceal, or perhaps a sawn-off shotgun. Or even a knife.
- Actually, gangbangers in those days were more likely to use the BAR if they wanted firepower. The police also used the BAR, too.
- Justified in an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, with a culture that had based itself completely on a book about 1920s mob culture. A piece of the action, indeed.
- Also justified in the novel The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three, where the subway hijackers carry Thompsons precisely because of its cinematic reputation.
- The "machine gun" in Bioshock is actually a Thompson submachine gun.
- Actually, during the 1930s, the more successful gangsters were likely to use Thompson's. A recent show on the History Channel showed that the Thompson was a popular choice for them. It was not a commercial success until WWII, since the numbers sold were small until the Army purchased them but the weapon was popular with gangsters and the FBI also purchased them to match the criminal's firepower.
- You could order a full auto Thompson SMG through the mail, so even though there might not have been hundreds of thousands made, they were readily available to the handful of gangsters found in any major city
- Thompsons not being seriously adopted by the military but instead being the favorite weapon of gansters troubled John T. Thompson (the inventor) until the day he died, which was in 1940, just shortly before the British, Canadians, and later US military requested large volumes of the weapon.
- A Thompson is one of the weapons in Serious Sam, or rather a modified version explicitly updated to modern ammunition. In the 22nd century.
- Batman The Animated Series has so many, you wonder if that's this show equivalent of lasers in most other shows.
- Funnily enough, it actually is a way to get around the censors. Not to mention also a homage to pulp stories that Batman heavily borrows from. That and they look cool. A more deliberately ridiculous addition is the use of tommy guns in by The Family faction in City Of Heroes, where they function exactly the same as mordern machine guns elsewhere in the game. (Assault Rifle-wielding players can even select it as a skin for their Swiss-Army Weapon)
- The public's association of gangsters with Tommy guns probably comes from the St. Valentine's Day massacre, in which they were reportedly used.
- During WWII over one million Thompson SM Gs were produced. You could buy war surplus Thompsons for as little as $12 (back then it was more money than it is today, but still pretty cheap!). For movies set in the 40s this gun most definitely does not match the trope of "Rare Guns".
- Real life example: This troper's granddad apparently acquired a Tommy and attempted to use it to off a gangster. This troper is not entirely sure of the details or accuracy of this story as he didn't hear it until said granddad's funeral. What he does remember of it is: During prohibition, Granddad worked as a mechanic for Blackie Harris, who was a member of either the Shelton Brothers Gang or Charlie Birger's gang (I really don't remember details). For some reason, a member of one of the two gangs made Gramps and his friends angry, so they pooled their money and bought a Thompson, and planned to use a ladder to climb up to the second story window of where he was staying; however the gun snagged on a tree branch, and went off. They all ran for their lives and failed to actually kill anyone.
- One of the Infinity Plus One Guns in Resident Evil 4 is a Thompson, under its nickname "Chicago Typewriter."
Here's some more good info, again needs to be rewritten and posted elsewhere. The Model 1896 "Broomhandle" Mauser, so nicknamed for its grip, which resembled a section of broomhandle rounded off and screwed to the frame. It appears over and over in films (even at least one Western, "Joe Kidd" with Clint Eastwood), up to and including the original Star Wars, where one had a couple of doodads bolted onto it to serve as Han Solo's "blaster". Visually striking though it is, it's also a vanishingly rare collector's item today, never having been especially popular when it was in production due to several factors — it was, like the Thompson, horribly expensive, complex to manufacture, difficult to load in a hurry due to the clumsy clip loading mechanism, poorly balanced, prone to jamming whenever it got the least bit dirty, prone to parts breakage, and rather underpowered. But it sure looks cool. Another aspect of its appeal may be the fact that its curious upwards ejection mechanism makes the Broomhandle one of the few (if not the only) firearms for which Gangsta Style is in any way practical.
- in China and South America, the Mauser C/96 was seen as a status symbol, a mark of prestige, and very expensive, enough so that Astra of Spain devoted a plant to making a copy of the gun for over 10 years.
- Many knockoffs were made for the South American market and the Middle Eastern market. Some of these knockoffs were full auto, which lead to Mauser making their own full auto version which could be loaded through the open bolt like a standard C/96 but the magazine was also removable. Magazines were avaialbe in 10 or 20 rounds
- The Chinese make a copy of the above-mentioned M712 (Basic mauser, but full auto) named the Type 80. It became the symbol of the Communist Revolution. Huge quantities were produced and dumped into the African arms markets.
- China for a brief period made a 45ACP knockoff, now that would be a great example of a rare gun if one shows up in any numbers in a game or on TV
- As the standard issue pistol for CHEKA Commisars, the Mauser sees a lot of use in Russian Civil War/"Eastern" movies. Other iconic "Eastern" guns include the Nagant seven-shooter revolver, the Mosin Nagant rifle and the Lewis light machinegun.
- The titular characters from Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere use one when they make their short-lived and unsuccessful foray into the assassination business in season two of Phoenix Nights. Paddy more or less hangs a lampshade on the idea of using such an old, rare gun, exclaiming "It's an antique, Max!"
- Sable's favourite gun in the Jon Sable Freelance comic is one of these chambered for .45 ACP.
- Resident Evil 4 featured the Red Nine. The Red 9 is a version of the Mauser that uses 9x19mm Parabellum ammunition, instead of 7.63x25mm. These versions had a 9 burned into the handgrip and painted in red paint, hence Red9.
- Somewhat subverted in Metal Gear Solid 3, where EVA mentions that the Mauser she carries is actually a Chinese knockoff.
- On the other hand, while it never displaced other, more advanced automatic pistols in major militaries, it DID see enough use in the early 20th century that many people of that era would recognize one immediately. It's rare today in large part because most of the originals are gone. For instance, Winston Churchill carried one at the Battle of Omdurman, it was used by Irish rebels in the 1916 Easter Uprising, the Nationalist Chinese made it a standard service weapon, and so on.
Here's the Luger. Look how it turns out that it doesn't actually qualify for the page. Again.
- Pistole P-08 "Luger." Everything about the Broomhandle goes double for the Luger, except that it doesn't feel quite so ungainly in the hand, and has a much more sensible magazine mechanism. Nevertheless, it's rare in the USA, expensive (if you can find one at all), fragile, and kind of unreliable. But it was the standard pistol of the German Army in the First World War, and was still common in the Second World War, and so has the sinister and purposeful associations that made it the undisputed weapon of choice for movie and TV villains for decades.
- Also, the German army made a lot of them in WWI, so quite a few people were carrying them during the era in which they were used.
- It's the favorite gun of Max the rabbit, of Sam and Max: Freelance Police fame.
- A pair of gold plated Lugers turned up in Resident Evil: Code Veronica. To be sure, they WERE originally for a puzzle.
- A similar pair appeared in in Coyote Ragtime Show.
- In the 1930s film "Freaks", the human torso Johnny Eck brandishes one quite memorably, and then we never see it again.
- Subverted in Band of Brothers. One character's sole dream was to find a working Luger, which were considered incredibly rare and valuable souvenirs for the GIs fortunate enough to find one.
- Actually, the Luger isn't that rare, as they were made for 45 years and numbered in the millions. The problem is that many are no longer intact, and the pistol's iconic status means many collectors have horded dozens or even hundreds of them. Some versions are incredibly rare, though, including a prototype model of which only two examples exist.
- Subverted in Black Lagoon. A gigantic neo-Nazi stares down Revy while raving about how she can never defeat him, as he has the esteemed Luger of his German ancestors... then Revy beats the shit out of him for wasting her time with nonsense, and shoots him dead.
Here's some more stuff that should go in Weapon Of Choice or somewhere.
- Among the items on the gun list in the Tabletop Games Feng Shui is the Smith and Wesson 3566, a custom-shop gun that fired a special .356 TSW round which only saw limited production before being discontinued in favor of the more popular .40 S&W cartridge.
- In the Jon Sable Freelance comic, Sable carried a large bore, multipurpose stainless steel revolver, that had a resemblance to an antique pepperbox revolver. The weapon could fire underwater, fire rifle shot, arrow/bolt type projectiles and a multitude of other loads, such as tear gas, explosive, and tranquilizer. This was an actual weapon designed for Navy SEALs that never went beyond prototype. Sure looks cool, though.
- The .44 AutoMag: the first automatic to use Magnum ammunition. Only around 9,500 were ever made and are considered collectors' items these days. Fictional users include:
- Mack Bolan, the Anti-Hero of The Executioner series of novels.
- Travis Morgan, the hero of the Lost World comic book series The Warlord.
- Dirty Harry in the movie Sudden Impact.
- Justified : Jagged Alliance 2 featured a pair of customized AutoMags the player could acquire for saving a gun collector.
- True, but they could have been any model of Auto Mag pistol modified to fire 7.62mm NATO rounds (from memory, they were customised .30 Carbine versions)
MattyDienhoff: I just deleted the huge lists of media the SPAS-12 has appeared in. Besides the fact that we really don't need a complete list of media it's been in, it was a mess. I followed up some of the titles and some didn't even have a SPAS-12 in them in the first place, but other entirely different shotguns, or the gun did appear but only in a brief and insignificant glimpse. Rather, we should just list notable appearances as they come to us, and I started by listing the movies and games in which I know the SPAS made a notable appearance.
Evilest_Tim: Apparently the list was cribbed from a website about the SPAS. I tried to make it at least a little less of a mess (it wasn't even bulleted before), but I'd agree it was excessive.
