Finger Firearms

For when your friends won't lie down when you say, "Bang! You're dead!"

Gemini: Here, let me give you a hand.
Kim Possible: How often have you used that line?

— Kim Possible

Various parts of the body have been weaponized in fiction and the fingers are no exception despite their small size. Aside from Rule of Cool, the two most common reasons given for this setup are increased firepower and concealment.

Firepower

Fingers weaponized for firepower are usually a specific variation of the Arm Cannon which involves placing a ranged weapon in every finger and occasionally the thumb as well. Smaller machines may have all fingers linked to a common magazine or ammo management system while larger units can have a separate system in the same finger as its gun. There are also cases where the fingers are merely barrels.

This layout is more often used in 'raw power' machines to indicate their destructive ability. The implication is that the unit has many times the firepower of a grunt's main weapon- by having eight or ten of that weapon in its hands alone.

The primary claimed benefit of this design is that it offers More Dakka without sacrificing finger articulation. This ignores the fact that flexible or folding barrels would severely reduce the durability of the guns. Proposed workarounds include housing the entire weapon system in the fingertips, reducing the power of the weapons, making all the fingers rigid rather than articulated or having articulated fingers that go rigid before firing- all of which sacrifice either hand or weapon functionality. In the end, Rule of Cool is the only proper justification.

Pay special attention to the fingers of a Humongous Mecha if they appear to be flexible hollow tubes or if they sport openings or lenses at the ends because these indicate guns. 'Mittens' with rows of barrels are sometimes used by designers who want to mix things up, though these are even less practical as they lose all but the most basic hand functions. Some less humanoid designs may have hand-mounted guns that double as fingers rather than fingers with guns inside, usually in cases where the machine has fewer than five fingers on each hand.

Concealment

Concealed finger guns can be made virtually indistinguishable from unarmed fingers, particularly if the user's unarmed fingers also look mechanical. Any gun parts that appear on security scans can be handwaved as part of the hand's mechanisms (which they technically are). Mechanical or mechanically augmented characters who have not previously been shown with weapons can be revealed to sport these without stretching Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

Apart from the design difficulties listed in the firepower section, concealed finger guns also need an even greater degree of miniaturization or integration with the rest of the hand to keep them from being detected, placing further limits on their functionality. Cruder designs that impede the function of the fingers to allow greater power also make detection easier. Finally, risk of detection by internal scans complicates the inclusion of any built-in magazine as most ammunition has a distinctive appearance, limiting the guns to a small number of shots per weapon if solid rounds are needed.

Due to all these limitations, concealed finger guns are usually used for assassination or self-defense. However, Humongous Mecha may make effective use of this design by concealing anti-personnel weapons in their fingers- these may not be effective on other large machines but are enough for infantry and light vehicles or aircraft.

NOTE: Guns installed in the metacarpal region (i.e. behind the base of the finger or even further back) should go under Arm Cannon, Power Palms or Hand Blast instead. For the gesture involving making a gun with one's fingers, see Finger Gun. The use of said gesture to channel magic or psionics belongs there as well. Stuffing the finger in a gun is Finger in a Barrel. For other deadly uses for fingers, see Finger Poke of Doom.

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Examples:

Firepower:

Anime & Manga

• Black★Rock Shooter: Strength's Ogre Arms are a pair of mechanical fists bigger than she is, and have what appear to be gatling guns in each finger and thumb.
• 004 from Cyborg 009 has finger machine guns as part of his arsenal.
• The Troopmon that appear in Digimon Fusion and Digimon Adventure: (2020) have energy weapons built into their fingers, but they mostly prefer to use rifles instead. The only ones to actually use their finger-weapons are a group of brainwashed Troopmon cultists serving a Mephistomon in the latter series. Just like with their rifles, though, their aim is terrible.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops introduces a new character, Riruru the Robot Girl, whose finger can fire energy bolts. Her first scene sees Riruru using her finger-beams to take down a polar bear.
• Giant Robo has missile launchers in its fingers.
• GunBuster:
  • GunBuster fires its Buster Missiles from its fingertips complete with the same symbols as the ones from the aforementioned Giant Robo
  • Several machines from the sequel Diebuster have finger guns as well.
• Since the Zeong from Mobile Suit Gundam, Gundam series have occasionally put beam guns in the fingers of enemies they want to make especially threatening. The earlier Gouf from the same series had machine gun fingers.
• This is Franklin's signature ability in Hunter × Hunter. Justified in that the fingers themselves are fully biological and functional, but what he's shooting are Ki Manipulations. They still fall under this trope, however, as his stance and hand gestures when he shoots, and the damage and destruction they inflict, are as if he's wielding ten miniature machine guns.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run: Using the power of the Spin, Johnny Joestar, in tandem with his Stand, Tusk, is able to convert his fingernails into actual bullets.
• Mazinger Z:
  • In episode 10, Mazinger-Z shows he can shoot missiles from its fingers. That weapon is never used again, though (surely because the animators realized how silly and dangerous was storing missiles into a Rocket Punch).
  • Several Mechanical Beasts are armed with this weapon (for example, Danchel in one of the earlier episodes. Or one Beast from the Mazinger-Z vs Devilman feature).
• A minor villain from the USJ incident in My Hero Academia (named Victor in The Strongest Hero) has a Quirk that gives him gun barrels for fingers. While he can normally shoot bullets out of them, he only ever succeeds in the game, as in the manga and anime Eraserhead erases his Quirk and takes him out before he can get a shot off.
• Naruto: Kimimaro, with his power to remove and regenerate his bones, is capable of shooting his fingertips at enemies like bullets.
• One of Blackbeard's henchmen in One Piece has these.
• The Moskas in Reborn! (2004) fire out of their fingers and Mini Moska fires popcorn out of his fingers.
• Robot Romance Trilogy:
  • Combattler V's Rock Fighter.
  • Voltes V's Finger Missiles.
• Wing Saber from Transformers: Cybertron Transforms into some sort of Attack Plane, with his hands transforming from the miniguns mounted on its wings, he's perfectly capable of using them as miniguns in his robot mode as well.
• Among many other armaments, the cyborg Grey the Ninelives had machine guns in each of his fingers in the anime of Trigun. For contrast, the protagonist Vash has an Arm Cannon.
• Undead Unluck: One of Andy's attacks involves him biting his fingers before launching them like bullets, courtesy of his "Undead" ability. Hell, he can even shoot his entire hand

Comic Books

• Marvel Comics:
  • A somewhat obscure villain named Professor Power fought many heroes using Power Armor. One version of the armor included guns located in each fingertip of his gauntlets which he used in a fight against Spider-Man and the original members of the X-Men.
  • Baron von Strucker's Satan Claw weapon varies in some of the weaponry built into it, including the occasional fingertip blaster.
  • The Marvel Comics hero Machine Man is capable of firing .357 Magnum rounds from one of his fingers.
  • The Green Goblin had circuitry in his suit's gloves that fired electrical blasts from the fingertips.
  • A one-off villain in an X-Men title is a mutant tattoo artist that can give power-granting tattoos, who has variously empowered an entire gang. One of them has a gun tattoo on his hand and index fingers he can fire with the appropriate gesture.
  • Some models of Sentinel robots in X-Men feature energy weapons in each of their fingers instead of a single energy weapon in each palm the way most models do.
• In one issue of New Gods, Desaad is introduced by producing a "killglove" to Darkseid. This weapon is an ornate gauntlet with each fingertip being a powerful gun, impressed Darkseid enough to make Desaad his main weapon manufacturer.
• British comics hero The Steel Claw has a mechanical right hand, the main benefit of which is that he can become invisible by passing a large electrical current through it (no, we don't get it either). However, it also conceals numerous handy gadgets, including a finger-mounted gun that fires armour-piercing ammunition.

Fan Works

• In the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, a Lancre-trained witch visits Howondaland. She has heard of the native magicians' use of the pointing bone as the equivalent of a wizard's staff to channel and direct magic. She duly extends a pointed finger at several natives and, via an interpreter, points out the pointing bone is a dead skeletal thing with a feather attached. If they stop to think about it, a bone is being pointed at them right now. And this bone is a living thing, inside the finger of a Witch. And right now it is pointed at you. Do you feel lucky? The native warriors get the point — literally — and fall to their knees begging for mercy.

Films — Live-Action

• Voyage into Space, being based on the earlier Giant Robo manga, features a giant robot whose main armament is missiles he can shoot from his fingertips.
• The 1974 incarnation of Mechagodzilla in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla can fire missiles from his fingertips.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron has finger lasers, understandably as Iron Man was involved in his creation.

Live-Action TV

• In The Aquabats! Super Show!, Jimmy the Robot has lasers built into his fingers.
• Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future: Blastarr, a Super Prototype of robot soldier, has laser guns in each of his fingers, and greatly enjoy blasting things with them, including sometimes gratuitously firing at the scenery. There is a scene where, after testing his weapons this way, he checks out each of his fingers, unscrews one which is malfunctioning, and takes a look through the barrel.
• Doctor Who:
  • The episode "The Android Invasion" features creepy, radiation suit-clad androids with guns built into their fingertips.
    The Doctor: ...Is that finger loaded?
  • Similarly, the living-plastic Autons have guns concealed inside half of their hands — the fingered half drops away on a hinge, revealing the hidden ray-gun.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Den-O: Battle Butler Deneb. And when he possesses his partner Yuuto to transform into Kamen Rider Zeronos Vega Form, his hands become shoulder-mounted machine guns.
  • Kamen Rider Drive: The standard ranged attack for Roidmude Mooks. As individual Roidmudes climb the ranks, they lose access to this ability.
• Power Rangers / Super Sentai
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers has the Dragonzord launch missiles from its fingertips. Tor did the same thing in season 2.
  • Frax from Power Rangers Time Force could swap in a set of finger cannons if he needed to blast the Rangers.
  • The Delta Command Megazord of Power Rangers S.P.D. does the same with lasers. Its Sentai counterpart Dekabase Robo also uses finger-mounted missile launchers.
  • In Power Rangers Jungle Fury, the Rhino Ranger's arm-mounted weapon had laser barrels on one side, looking similar to fingers when that side was used.
  • The Ultimate Legendary Megazord got this on one hand, while the other became a giant, spiral grooved spear.
• In Ultraman Ace, several chojus have this ability, including the Terrible Trio Verokron, Vakishim, Doragory, and a few others.

Tabletop Games

• Shadowrun. Guns in cybernetic fingers were first mentioned in the 2nd Edition Cybertechnology supplement.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • Obliterators are infected with a "virus" that turns their whole body into Shapeshifter Weapon. They sometimes manifest this trope (especially older models).
  • Some of the more obscure factions (you can find them in the Inquisition codex, for example) of 40K have the Jokaero relics known as digital weapons: miniaturized versions of lasguns, flamers, and needleguns that could be fitted onto fingers like rings. They also popped up as equipment cards in the Spin-Off boardgame Space Crusade and are an available weapon on the Fantasy Flight Games roleplaying games starting with Rogue Trader.

Video Games

• The WA-FINGER weapon and its variants in the Armored Core series are multi-barreled machine guns designed to look like hands, probably just to justify the name.
• In Cuphead, the Cuppet marionette that Djimmi the Great pulls out in the third phase of his fight fires energy projectiles from its index finger,◊ with the fingertip hanging loose on its hinge. This is an imitation of the titular protagonist's power to shoot energy blasts with his Finger Gun.
• Earthworm Jim gets to use a multidirectional gun that fires out of the three fingers on his suit's hand. It burns through ammo very quickly, but damn if Jim doesn't look like he's having a blast while firing it.
• The player's ship in Freedom Finger is shaped like a hand, so it's only natural that it shoots from its fingers.
• MACE, the Humongous Mecha Final Boss of Intrusion 2 has these. It can fire both fireballs and homing missiles from them.
• Mega Man X:
  • Sigma has these in the manga. After he fires it, he uses the heat residue to scar his eyes.
  • Violen from Mega Man X2 also sports these.
  • Mega Man ZX's Serpent also has this.
  • In the remake Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X Vile has 3 sets of weapons, his fingers are one of them (for the Vulcan slot).
• Aigis from Persona 3 has machine gun fingers fed by an external drum magazine.
• The SRX from Shin Super Robot Wars and any Super Robot Wars series that feature the SRX Team, due to its fingers being formed from the shoulder cannons of one of its components.
• Super Mario RPG:
  • One of Geno's weapons is the Finger Shot, which fires bullets out of each of his fingers.
  • In the same game, one of Smithy's true form's attacks involve using these.
• In Tales from the Borderlands episode 5, Gortys gains the ability to fire powerful energy blasts from her fingers due to Rhys's skill at Finger Gunfighting.
• Warhammer 40,000: Gladius has digiweapons from the tabletop game appear as a weapon purchasable for Hero Units
• In Xenogears, Maria's Seibzehn has missile launchers in its fingers.

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • Robot!Batman in "His Silicon Soul" fires at human Batman with a finger laser in the Batcave's lab before starting the fire on the table (setting off the sprinklers) and getting the chemical thrown in his face.
  • In "Christmas with the Joker", when Batman enters the building that's relaying the Joker's hijacked broadcast, he's greeted by joker statues with machinegun hands.
• Kim Possible: The villain Gemini has an artificial hand with missile-launcher fingers.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): DYNAMO has finger missiles.

Concealment

Anime & Manga

• This is The Reaper's method of killing in Assassination Classroom. His index finger bone is replaced with a low-caliber gun, which is used to shoot his victim's aorta, causing the victim's blood to spill out.
• The 1980 version of Astro Boy has Astro given a laser built into his finger as self-defense and a cutting tool, but this weapon was seldom used given how strong Astro Boy was.
• Gorgeous Irene: In "Lauper's Palace", Irene wears a set of false nails that she can launch from her fingertips like bullets in a pinch.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean: Using the massive plankton colony inside their body, Foo Fighters is able to use individual plankton as bullets by creating a slit in their finger and propulsing them at breakneck speeds. They later stop concealing this method of weaponization by using more plankton to form a gun handle on their thumb and index finger.

Films — Live-Action

• The assassin Mr. Igoe in Innerspace has a mechanical hand, which in one scene actually fires a bullet from the tip of its index finger - thereby forever one-upping the small child who had pointed his own finger gun at him. (Kid was fine. His balloon wasn't.)
• Yatsu possesses one in Tetsuo 2: Body Hammer, having been turned into a Living Weapon along with Tomoo by his father.

Literature

• Foaly arms Commander Root with the concealed variety in Artemis Fowl because he can't go into a hostage negotiation obviously armed. Foaly mentions that they aren't used often because the concealment is so good that people forget that they're wearing them, resulting in friendly fire incidents (apparently, one officer accidentally set it off while he was picking his nose). Root 'accidentally' uses his to knock out an annoying coworker later in the book.
• E.E. Smith's Family D'Alembert series has family patrician Etienne and his weapon hand. Ostensibly lost in a circus accident (the cover story), it was replaced with something infinitely more useful. The various digits can be retrofitted with mission-specific tools (on one occasion he unscrews his pinkie for use as a grenade), but the index finger is a permanent fixture that contains a small blaster.
• Honor Harrington has a gun built into her finger and, from the description, her hand does move into something approximating the traditional finger gun position when she fires it. Of course, her entire arm is Artificial, and given that assassins keep trying to kill her throughout the books, this seemed like a prudent idea. Her prosthetic eye is specially equipped with targeting software to allow her to shoot from the hip as well - although her keen kinesthetic sense may make such aid superfluous. As you may have guessed from the list of prosthetic limbs Honor has, more than a few people have attempted to kill her over the years.
• In the Phoenix Force novels, Yakov Katzenelenbogen has a .22 Magnum zip gun hidden in his artificial hand.

Live-Action TV

• At one point in Season 3 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Phil Coulson claims that he has one built into his artificial hand. But since he never uses it, he may have been bluffing. It has been confirmed that he has an artificial hand with a sensor system built in and another that can create a Hard Light shield.
• Get Smart
  • "Would you believe this finger is a real gun?" The villains do find it hard to believe, so Max fires the gun in the air to prove otherwise. Unfortunately, it's single shot. Max later reveals that it has a second shot ... and promptly fires it into the air to demonstrate.
  • Max is kidnapped and subjected to a Manchurian Agent treatment. KAOS have to let him "escape" to avoid suspicion, but he repeatedly misses opportunities handed to him. At one point when an agent approaches him, Max raises a finger and the agent "surrenders", wise to the old "finger gun" trick. Max insistently points out it's only a finger until the agent walks out in frustration. Max keeps plotting an escape, muttering "Come on, Smart, use that fantastic brain of yours!"

Music

• The cover of several Stereolab releases (the EPs Super 45, Super Electric, and Stunning Debut Album; the album Peng!; and the compilations Switched On and Refried Ectoplasm [Switched On Volume 2]) feature a grinning cartoon man in a collared shirt, with his forefinger replaced by a gun barrel. In all of these he's pointing straight at the audience, and in Peng! he's firing.

Video Games

• In Pokémon, Inteleon combines this trope with Making a Splash and Cold Sniper. It assumes a sniping stance, makes a pointing gesture with one of its hands, and shoots a single blast of water out of the pointer finger as if it was a Sniper Rifle to use its Signature Move of Snipe Shot. When it Gigantamaxes, it can use G-Max Hydrosnipe, in which Inteleon instead generates a rifle-shaped construct of water from its fingertip, then shoots a much larger blast of water that's no less accurate.
• In Warframe, gunslinger-themed frame Mesa's ultimate ability is to bring out the Regulators, pistols normally holstered on her arm by attaching them to her fingers, letting her blast away at any nearby enemies in her sight.

Visual Novels

• The Lilim Dorothy of VA-11 HALL-A has these, for self-defense. Even though you see her fingers, it can be difficult to notice, but Sei points out that her fingertips are bigger than they should be, and suggests getting smaller caps for the barrels.

Western Animation

• Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot has Rusty given a laser in his finger in a similar scene to that of Astro Boy in the 1980 series getting his.
• A bank robber in the Dexter's Laboratory episode "World's Greatest Mom" has gunbarrel index fingers, though he does not actually use them. Moreover, during his visit to that bank he tried to rob, Dexter's mother, who was accidentally imbued with superpowers due to one of her son's inventions going haywire (thanks to Dee Dee, as usual), assumed he was rude customer cutting in line while she was waiting, and then successfully subdued him.
• Inspector Gadget actually has a laser gun in one of his fingers, but with all the other stuff he has in them it's no surprise that he can't seem to get it out when it would be useful rather than hilarious.

Real Life

• There are novelty guns molded to look like fingers, which if held properly look as if the wielder is pointing with his or her own index finger. Technology does exist to integrate firearms into the fingers of prosthetic hands but the possibility does not seem to have been explored as the hands themselves are still being perfected.

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