History ArtisticLicenseGunSafety / LiveActionTV

** The ''Franchise/StarTrek'' franchise also has a special {{justified}} case for boarding parties being beamed into hostile situations: Standing on the transporter pad with weapons in the ready position. While this means materializing at their destination ready to open fire on any bad guys in their immediate vicinity (on ''TNG'', they'd even make a point of beaming in a circular formation, [[BackToBackBadasses with their backs to each other]]), it also means that the transporter chief usually ends up beaming them out at gunpoint. ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' in particular manages to highlight this with a camera shot over Saru's shoulder, looking right up Captain Georgiou's gun barrel.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' is a repeat and egregious offender. For one of the best cops in the NYPD, Beckett's sure got a problem with letting suspects and other miscellaneous madmen take her gun. Considering that police training takes avoidance of this scenario to an extreme (at least in the United States), it's a glaring plot hole that a competent homicide detective would lose her gun once, let alone the half-dozen or more times as of Season 6.

** Captain Sobel is asked to leave three "wounded men" on the ground after he gets his platoon "killed" in an exercise. Sobel nominates the men by pointing his service pistol at them, with his finger on the trigger. Presumably, he knew the gun was unloaded, or that the safety was on, but this still breaks one of the cardinal rules of gun safety -- namely, ''a gun is always loaded, especially when it isn't''. Given the amount of ShownTheirWork in the series, and that the other (competent) soldiers in Easy Company follow proper gun safety (such as it was back then), this is likely intentional, to further demonstrate that Sobel is unfit for command. Sobel's lack of trigger discipline is rather endemic in that episode. Pretty much any time he's shown during field exercises, he has his .45 in his hand and his finger on the trigger -- especially if he's just shouted, [[{{Catchphrase}} "Hi-ho, Silver!"]] This might also serve as Foreshadowing his BungledSuicide.

ArtisticLicenseGunSafety in live-action TV.

** "The Gun", a VerySpecialEpisode in Season 6, overlaps with ArtisticLicenseLaw, since one has to be at least 21 years old to buy a gun. The episode detailed Laura being mugged by gang members for her new expensive leather jacket, upon which she tells Carl about it, leading up to her being arrested. Neither Laura nor Steve tell Harriette and Carl about that gang member pulling a gun on her and threatening to shoot them if either of the two testify at her trial, upon which Laura, fearing for her safety, is considering buying a gun herself, and from a classmate illegally selling them, no less. When Steve begs her not to do it, it's not long before another classmate gets shot by that gang member over her new tennis shoes, despite being armed herself. [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse We don't exactly know what happened to that gang member after the fact]]; it's safe to assume she's either in prison for life, died from gun violence herself or [[KarmaHoudini got away scot-free]]. Either outcome, Laura and Steve hold a gun turn-in program, upon which the actors in the episode give a motivating speech of how teen and gun violence must be dealt with.

** "The Gun", a VerySpecialEpisode in Season 6, overlaps with ArtisticLicenseLaw, since one has to be at least 21 years old to buy a gun. The episode detailed Laura being mugged by gang members for her new expensive leather jacket, upon which she tells Carl about it, leading up to her being arrested. Neither Laura nor Steve tell Harriette and Carl about that gang member pulling a gun on her and threatening to shoot them if either of the two testify at her trial, upon which Laura, fearing for her safety, is considering buying a gun herself, and from a classmate illegally selling them, no less. When Steve begs her not to do it, it's not long before another classmate gets shot by that gang member over her new tennis shoes. [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse We don't exactly know what happened to that gang member after the fact]]; it's safe to assume she's either in prison for life, died from gun violence herself or [[KarmaHoudini got away scot-free]]. Either outcome, Laura and Steve hold a gun turn-in program, upon which the actors in the episode give a motivating speech of how teen and gun violence must be dealt with.

* ''Series/FamilyMatters'' has dealt with this issue on some occasions, considering that one of the protagonists is a cop!

* A case of dangerous misinformation rather than implausible behavior -- in ''Series/BronBroen'' a gangster intimidates a victim by forcing him to play Russian Roulette with a revolver containing what turns out to be a blank cartridge. The cartridge goes off leaving the victim terrified but uninjured. In reality, firing a blank cartridge into the side of your head at point-blank range would cause horrific burns at the very least, and quite possibly a skull fracture.

--->'''Reaper:''' "[[JoinTheArmyTheySaid Be all that you can be.]]" ''[[[HoistByHisOwnPetard gun misfires]]]''\\
'''Overton:''' [[InterserviceRivalry That's the]] [[SemperFi Army slogan]], [[{{Fingore}} Lefty]].

-->-- ''Series/{{Frasier}}

--> '''Pete Hutter''': ''Dixie, I'm kind of a stickler for gun safety, [waves his gun at Dixie with his finger on the trigger] could you move a little to the left?''

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'': In "[[Recap/FireflyE14ObjectsInSpace Objects in Space]]", River apparently finds a fully loaded gun with no safety lying on the floor of the cargo bay. There's a scene later where Mal and Jayne are arguing about this, the gun is Jayne's but he insists he doesn't leave his guns lying around. It's left ambiguous whether he was merely lying here to save face, or if River (perhaps subconsciously) broke into his quarters and stole it. Since most of the scene in question takes place from [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness River's perspective]] it is unclear how accurate it is.

* Deliberately played for ValuesDissonance in ''Series/MadMen''. In the first season, Pete Campbell brings his new .22 rifle to the office, then jokingly points it at various people while pretending to shoot. Granted, the gun was brand new and had never been loaded, but there wasn't a safety rule he didn't violate. Apparently, gun safety hadn't been invented in 1960. It may be less ValuesDissonance and more Pete being foolish and likely completely inexperienced with guns.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'', Frasier learns that Martin keeps his old sidearm hidden in a shoebox under his bed when he had assured Frasier it was in storage. Martin insists that Frasier is overreacting and that guns are safe if used properly, but it later goes off accidentally when Niles knocks it off the table, much to Martin's shock since he believed the safety was on. This means that Martin, an ex-cop who was shot by an armed robber, has had a loaded gun lying around his bedroom for years simply assuming the safety was on, which is incredibly irresponsible.

** Captain Sobel is asked to leave three "wounded men" on the ground after he gets his platoon "killed" in an exercise. Sobel nominates the men by pointing his service pistol at them, with his finger on the trigger. Presumably, he knew the gun was unloaded, or that the safety was on, but this still breaks one of the cardinal rules of gun safety -- namely, ''a gun is always loaded, especially when it isn't''. Given the amount of ShownTheirWork in the series, and that the other (competent) soldiers in Easy Company follow proper gun safety (such as it was back then), this is likely intentional, to further demonstrate that Sobel is unfit for command. Sobel's lack of trigger discipline is rather endemic in that episode. Pretty much any time he's shown during field exercises, he has his .45 in his hand and his finger on the trigger -- especially if he's just shouted, [[{{Catchphrase}} "Hi-ho, Silver!"]]

* ''Series/AgentsOfShield'': While Fitz is displaying the new guns he's created for the team, Ward and May are currently checking them over. Both Ward and May noticeably keep their fingers off the trigger while keeping Fitz out of the line of fire. At one point Fitz picks up a Shotgun variant. With the barrel pointed at May. May gives him a DeathGlare, and Fitz hurriedly apologises and puts it down.

** In one episode, Andy boldly faces down a criminal who has stolen Barney's gun and is threatening Opie and Aunt Bee with it. After disarming him he laughingly explains that Barney's gun doesn't have the one bullet in it, and to demonstrate he pulls the trigger--Bang! Turns out the gun was loaded after all, and Andy is badly shaken to realize how much danger everyone was actually in.
* ''Series/AshVsEvilDead'' has a notable scene where Kelly uses the barrel of a shotgun ''as a bong'', filling it with smoke at the receiver end and putting the muzzle in her mouths. Pablo gives her a look that expresses how patently stupid this is. [[spoiler: Justified as she's demonically possessed at this point, hoping to trick him into trying it so she can blast him]].

* ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'':
** In "[[Recap/Daredevil2015S1E3RabbitInASnowstorm Rabbit in a Snowstorm]]", we see Turk Barrett's status as a shady firearms dealer in the sense that he is shown unloading a crate of guns that have been transported magazines-in.
** Karen Page kills James Wesley by taking advantage of him leaving his loaded gun unattended and within arm's reach of her.
** In "[[Recap/Daredevil2015S2E2DogsToAGunfight Dogs to a Gunfight]]", it's implied Frank Castle's shot to Matt's mask at the end of the previous episode was, in fact, a warning shot, not intended to kill. This "warning" shot knocked Matt out for hours, left him with severe disorientation and temporary deafness in between bouts of SensoryOverload, with a long-delayed DeadlyNosebleed, this isn't even justified in-story since Matt's clearly dealing with a major concussion.

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': Robin is a gun enthusiast who routinely loses her guns, accidentally points a gun at another character while making vague threats, and apparently goes to the shooting range while blackout drunk (a good way to get banned for life at a real range). This is because [[FridgeBrilliance it isn't how she actually acts]]; it's how an uber-liberal, previously established UnreliableNarrator (Ted) ''thinks'' she acts.

* Played for comedy in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'':
** In "Gun Fever," the gang buys a pistol. One scene after another demonstrates a laundry list of unsafe behaviors. In one scene, Mac waves the gun around while walking down an apartment hallway, finger on the trigger. He then points it at Dennis and pretends to shoot him, then drops it on the floor and almost trips on it. In disgust, Dennis rips the gun out of Mac's hands while it's still pointed at him.
** A RunningGag has Frank always carrying a snub-nose revolver, which he whips out at the slightest provocation and points at people, fully cocked and with his finger on the trigger. The gang occasionally yank it out of his hand.

* ''Series/LawAndOrder'' was usually quite good about gun safety. One episode dealt with an autistic boy prone to self-injury. He was in the holding cell when he started hitting his head against the wall. Detective Logan quickly hands his revolver, butt first, to Detective Briscoe for safekeeping before opening the cell and restraining the boy. When the boy goes wild, Detective Briscoe puts his own gun on his desk, as does Detective Profaci. This was all incidental and in the background.
** Sometimes gun safety went right out the window, usually when a detective had had a really, really bad day—e.g. Det. Logan's partner was murdered and Logan puts the suspect on his knees with a gun to the back of his head. A confession followed.

* In ''Series/TheManFromUNCLE'', Napoleon Solo (as played by Robert Vaughn) routinely waved his gun around casually with his finger on the trigger, pointed the barrel at friends and allies to gesture at them, and so forth. When "firing" the gun, Vaughn shook his wrist as if he were tossing the bullets in the general direction of the target. It was painfully obvious that he had no idea how to handle a firearm.

* ''Series/PennAndTellerBullshit'': Averted in the episode on guns and gun control. When firing at a gun range, they are wearing ear protection. When not shooting their fingers are not on the trigger. This even extends to what is clearly a pink plastic prop gun. They don't even make note of it. This is a holdover from the "double bullet catch" finale of their stage show, in which they routinely go over the basics of gun safety and warn the audience to cover their ears before firing.

* The second season intro of ''Series/Psych'' shows Jules and Lassiter sweeping their guns in an arc around the room, and Jules is pointing hers at Lassiter's head.

* Tragically {{deconstructed}} on an episode of ''Series/QuincyME''. The eponymous character spends the latter half of the episode trying to keep a confiscated revolver from reentering the hands of its rightful owner, who has two small children. As luck would have it, the owner proceeds to leave it lying, fully loaded, safety off (if it had one; revolvers typically don't), on his bedroom closet floor. His son finds it, thinks its a toy gun, and shoots his sister. GoryDiscretionShot to credits.
* ''Series/RealHumans'': While searching for Mimi, Max comes upon a gun and carries it to Leo, asking "What should I do with this?" -- pointing it straight at him. Subverted in that Leo knows exactly that Max is only doing that because that's the only way he's ever seen a gun carried, and has no intention of harming him; so he casually replies, "Put it here."
* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'': In Season One, Alice finds a gun in the house and understandably freaks out about it. However, she does so by ''carelessly waving the gun around in front of herself and Betty'' and not bothering to check if it has the safety on or if it’s loaded.

*** During the poolside confrontation, Sherlock waves the gun around for emphasis, before SCRATCHING HIS HEAD WITH IT. Bear in mind the gun is loaded, no safety, and cocked, with his finger still on the trigger. Granted, he is having a bit of an emotional meltdown at the time, what with his only real friend at that time being wired with explosives and all.

** A major example in the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS01E14SleepingDogs}} Sleeping Dogs]]". Reed decides to train Hoshi with the new phase pistols and has target practice held in the armory (where the ship's high-yield torpedoes are stored). At least on TNG, they had a separate practice range. At the end of the lesson, Hoshi points the phase pistol at Reed's chest while handing it back to him. To make it worse, Reed is a MilitaryBrat; he should have plenty of experience in handling weapons and gun safety.
** In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS05E24EmpokNor}} Empok Nor]]," an engineer is trying to salvage supplies and calmly asks the experienced Starfleet security officer if she wouldn't mind pointing her phaser rifle somewhere else. She smugly replies that the safety is on. In real life, this is no excuse.

*** The episode "The Mind's Eye" has Geordi and Data running tests - including firing tests - on a recovered phaser rifle. Not only does at least one of them stand downrange while running the tests, but the test target is placed such that the rifle is pointed directly at the ''Enterprise's'' warp core!

* ''Series/TopGear'': the hosts travel to the North Pole, and Clarkson and May are given a shotgun in case they need to defend themselves from polar bears. At one point, though, James May earnestly looks down the barrel of the shotgun, and it is immediately taken away from him. In a Series 14 outtake, May defended himself, claiming it was the only way to see whether the barrel is unblocked, which is completely wrong. There is always a safe way to find out whether a barrel is blocked, like shining a light down the front and looking at the breech for the reflection of light or looking down from the breech itself.
** Bonus points for this happening during a lecture on gun safety.

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'':

** A character in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E2TheDalekInvasionOfEarth "The Dalek Invasion of Earth"]] points a gun at his own head as he unloads a magazine.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature "Human Nature"]]: When the boys are doing machine gun practice, they're using a .303 Vickers machine gun, which had a range of 4,500 yards. An outdoor firing range should always have a slope of earth or sand behind the targets to stop dead all bullets fired down the range. Not only is there no such slope behind the boys' targets, but we can see they're firing down into a valley full of buildings, well within the 4.5km (2.8mi) range of the gun, jeopardizing the lives of the villagers!
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem "The Sontaran Stratagem"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]]: The Sontarans use a "cordolane signal" that is said to render ordinary firearms useless by causing the copper jackets of the bullets to expand so they can't leave the barrel. In reality, such a malfunction often causes the affected weapon to explode; the stuck bullet denies the gases from the ignited gunpowder any safe exit, so they exit unsafely instead by bursting the chamber or barrel. Fortunately for the UNIT soldiers, here it just results in the same click you'd get from a dry fire.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E6TheDoctorsDaughter "The Doctor's Daughter"]] has the Doctor hurling a loaded pistol, apparently with the safety off, in the direction of a crowd of people. He ''was'' pretty ticked off, as [[spoiler:his clone-daughter had just been shot with it]], but even though [[TechnicalPacifist the Doctor]] DoesntLikeGuns, you think he'd know that throwing a loaded pistol around isn't a great idea. Indeed, the earlier [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E4DaleksInManhattan "Daleks in Manhattan"]] showed the Doctor taking issue with Tallulah casually tossing a (fake, but he didn't know that) gun around. He is seriously considering shooting the person he points it at though, and it's something of an internal struggle to point the gun away.
* On an episode of ''Series/{{ER}}'' a husband and wife pair of dealers come to the hospital from a gun show where he got shot in the leg. The wife shows off the merchandise and tries to sell guns in the reception area, letting people handle non-functional samples. Desk clerk Jerry picks up a grenade launcher and at one point, "playfully" points it ''directly at'' the other receptionist, who yelps and ducks away. The wife laughs and assures her that it's perfectly safe because it isn't loaded,thus seeming to play this trope straight . . . just as Jerry pulls the trigger and fires a grenade into the parking lot, where it blows up an ambulance, ''completely'' averting it. The very fact that the husband was shot at the gun show already demonstrates incredible carelessness on their parts, and there's considerable FridgeHorror that Jerry would have killed the other clerk and likely other people had he pulled the trigger earlier, and ''could'' have killed people had that ambulance been occupied. ''Always'' assume a gun is loaded, even if you yourself just unloaded it, and ''never'', '''''ever''''' point a gun at someone unless you intend to use it.
* ''Series/Evil2019'': The young incel who Leland is grooming accidentally shot himself when he foolishly pointed a gun at his own head with his finger on the trigger. Leland rants at his stupidity on hearing this.

* ''Series/TheFlash2014''

** As noted by Website/StarDestroyerDotNet, it took TheFederation until the ''TNG'' movies to develop a phaser that has a trigger guard (i.e. the rifles introduced in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact''). These are handheld weapons that have been seen to blow walls off of buildings and make humanoids disappear into thin air, and they're often built like remote controls with a large, totally exposed button to fire (and no sights). As the site says, one should pity the Federation soldier who tries to catch one.

*** Possible low-key subversion; the scene opens with Reed loading a power cell into the phase pistol, which might potentially be a training cell that turns it into a glorified light pointer. Not that that excuses the careless pointing, but...
** Mocked outright by Website/SFDebris in his review of the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS05E24EmpokNor}} Empok Nor]]". An engineer is trying to salvage supplies and calmly asks the [[SarcasmMode experienced Starfleet security officer]] if she wouldn't mind pointing her phaser rifle somewhere else. She smugly replies that the safety is on. Chuck proceeds to rip her stupidity a new one by pointing out her blatant violations of the second and third rules of gun safety. Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy and never rely solely on the safety mechanism. Rules which are strictly followed by organizations such as the NRA and NSSF.

*** In "Lower Decks", Geordi and a junior officer create simulated battle damage on a shuttlecraft by shooting it with a phaser rifle. During this process, Geordi stands right next to the shuttle while the junior officer fires at it from some distance away...

** Another episode has an FBI agent who got raped joining in with the arrest of the perp and scaring him by shooting at the wall next to him. [[RealityEnsues The bullet ricochets and (non-fatally) hits Det. Stabler]]. She does get in trouble for this (and for turning up to the arrest in the first place, since she'd been directly told not to come so she wouldn't be tempted to do something stupid,) and she fully accepts that she was completely in the wrong here.

** The [=MythBusters=] [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/mythbusters-cannon-ball-accident-caused-by-unforeseen-bounce/2011/12/08/gIQABK68fO_story.html fired a cannonball]] that missed its target, deflected off of a safety berm, and flew into a residential neighborhood; causing no injuries, but [[RealityEnsues inflicting quite a bit of property damage]]. Despite safety experts and sheriff's office personnel being on-scene for the test, everyone seems to have broken one of the cardinal rules of firearm safety: Always be aware of what is beyond your target.

* In ''Series/PawnStars'', quite a few of the customers have brought in a gun that turned out to be loaded (a couple of the muskets and at least once a Winchester), but averted for the Pawn guys, who always check to see if those guns are loaded before they start dealing. In the case of the Winchester, the "load" was an empty shell casing, but it illustrated that the owner didn't check and clear it. Also, later in that same episode Rick put the rifle down on its butt and looked down the barrel. Granted, he had cleared it himself moments earlier and he was very skittish about doing it, but he shouldn't have done that nonetheless.