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screenplay Let's all quit writing scenes where people cock their guns

I know it's effective, but in 2022, it's getting a bit old. A person points a gun at someone, and says "stop, I'll shoot" then the other person says "what if I don't stop" then person one cocks their gun. If you think about it, this is a stupid trope. By cocking your gun only after threatening to use it, it should be obvious that you weren't planning to use the gun in the first place. So character one just made an empty threat right? I get that it's a standard way to escalate tension in a scene, I just don't think it's particularly clever, or believable. More of a copy paste from 1000 other movies.
 
I agree. For me, it's especially funny when it's a shotgun.

As for hand guns, here's the thing; If it's a single action pistol, you must cock the hammer before firing. if it's a double action pistol, you can fire the gun with an uncocked hammer or you can choose to cock it manually before getting ready to fire. Most semi-auto handguns are double action. You don't need to cock the hammer. The semi auto handguns that are single action only have to be cocked to fire the first round. After that, the hammer is automatically cocked by the recoil action of the guy.

For me the cool thing about writing is that you must learn about things you might not otherwise know anything about.
 
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