Basic Trope: The good guys and the bad guys are easily idenfified by the type of firearms used.
- Straight: The heroes and the Red Shirts often use American AR-15 rifles, while the Mooks use old Soviet Kalashnikovs.
- Exaggerated:
- The Hero uses an American .38 revolver, the Big Bad has a Soviet machine pistol, and his Mooks fire Nazi Sturmgewehrs.
- Every good guy exclusively use Glocks while every bad guy exclusively use Walther PPKs.
- Downplayed: The firearms are mixed, but the heroes still have more NATO-standard, and the bad guys have more Warsaw Pact firearms.
- Justified:
- The good guys are part of a NATO force, therefore, use NATO weapons, while the bad guys are a not-well-funded terrorist organization that cannot afford more than old AK-47s.
- The story occurs during World War II, and the Nazis are not supposed to be the good guys.
- Tha nation has strong laws against certain types of firearms (ex. high-capacity, fully automatic guns in New Zealand) that makes anybody who owns them a villain by default.
- Inverted:
- The heroes only have access to older guns like the AK-47 due to their frugal attitude, while the villains have access to higher quality guns like the AR-15 due to being a Technologically Advanced Foe.
- The Protagonist has a Soviet AK-47 and a Nazi P38, which he uses to gun down loads of Mooks armed with US-made M16s.
- The Hero only has a Sawed-Off Shotgun of unspecified model while The Mafia have large number of Mooks carrying Beretta 92s and Model 38s.
- Alternatively, the SWAT Team has wide array of "advanced" weapons such as AUGs, SPAS shotguns, and even an Energy Weapon, while the Gangbangers are stuck with old school weapons like revolvers, P38s and Model 38s.
- Subverted: The Hero finds two weapons: an American AR-15 and a Soviet AK. After some thought, he picks the AR, but after thinking more, he chooses the AK.
- Double Subverted: Then he finds an upgraded M16 with rails, a telescopic sight, vertical foregrip, sound suppressor and armor-piercing ammo.
- Parodied:
- The Hero finds a huge arsenal full of Soviet Kalashnikovs, Austrian AUG rifles and old Thompson submachine guns. Then, among all the options, he picks up an old Single Action Army.
- Even when The Hero is a Russian soldier, he still refuses to uses his country's service rifle, claiming that whoever uses an AK is evil.
- Zig Zagged:
- The Hero uses an AK converted to use the same ammo as a NATO weapon, or some other AK-based weapon used by a NATO country.
- Or, he uses more than one weapon, one good and one bad. He probably doesn't care about the guns he uses; As long as it works, he'll use it.
- Alternately, the hero uses good guns exclusively, but allies himself with a larger force that uses bad guns similar to the enemy, or fights an enemy that also uses good guns.
- In a film where everybody owns a Beretta, the Beretta 92, Cheetah and Px4 Storm are all over the place, but some others like Beretta Model 38 and M12 are used as The Mafia weapons while the SWAT Team equivalent get access to newer, flashier guns like Cx4 and 1301 Tacticals.
- Averted:
- Heroes and villains cannot be identified simply by looking at their guns - who uses what is based on the actual merits of the gun rather than which "side" the gun came from.
- Firearms are not used in the work.
- Enforced:
- The primary characters are all soldiers in wartime, who have been trained not to take enemy weapons and who will get in serious trouble if they do.
- The characters are portrayed by police officers, gangsters, and other trained individuals, to ensure no one should be harmed arbitrarily.
- Lampshaded: "Look! The guys over there have AK-47s on them. Obviously enemies."
- Invoked: The Hero refuses to use an AK-47, saying that only villains would use one.
- Exploited: The Hero takes the AK-47 from a fallen enemy and uses it to infiltrate the enemy organization in disguise.
- Defied:
- The hero's allies try to make him switch to an M16 because that's what they use, but he declines because he likes his AK.
- The hero proclaims that Heroes Prefer Swords and opts to fight with a sword.
- The hero proclaims that Heroes Fight Barehanded and opts to fight with his bare hands.
- Discussed: The hero overhears a story about a friendly unit that stole AKs in desperation, and promptly got bombs dropped on them because the sounds made other friendlies think they were hostile.
- Conversed: The hero and a Red Shirt talk about what they do, and the redshirt wonders why it seems that every bad guy they ever confront uses a Russian weapon.
- Deconstructed: The hero's Single Action Army proves ineffective against the enemy's AK-47s.
- Reconstructed: But then, he picks up his M16 and defeats them all.
- Played For Laughs: The hero uses an AK at a local shooting range. The next day he receives an invitation into The Omniscient Council of Vagueness because, having intentionally chosen to use an AK, he's clearly as evil as they are.
- Played For Drama: The hero uses an AK in a situation where the bad guys also make use of them, and he gets mistaken for an enemy and attacked by other friendlies because of it.
- Played For Horror: Every time a bad guy wields an AK-47 in the story, he commits a merciless, bloody massacre of innocent victims. And if the hero grabs one, it's because he's Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and is going to commit a massacre of his own.
Back to Good Guns, Bad Guns
