Doesn't Like Guns

Then he shot a mutant in the face.

Rose: Doctor, they've got guns.

The Doctor: And I don't. And that makes me the better person, don't you think? They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine.

—Doctor Who, "Army of Ghosts"

There are lots of reasons that some people hate guns, but in the real world, these are most often linked to hating the thing that people with guns can easily do, which is turning living people into non-living people. But in fiction, the gun-hater's reasons are often different. He just specifically dislikes guns. He has no problem whatsoever with other, less efficient means of turning living people into non-living people.

Sometimes there's a specific reason that their distaste is limited to the gun, such as a particular incident from his past or a sense that guns are "unsportsmanlike". Some characters will even take a Heroic Vow against the use of guns. But most of the time, there's just a Writer on Board who wants to show that the character is moral enough to hate guns as overt tools of violence without actually dealing with the fact that this is the kind of show where a lot of violence has to be unloaded on people.

Often it's to reduce gun-violence in media, as well as to portray An Aesop by anti-gun writers. While other forms of lethal violence is still lethal in media, it translates less literally to real life (since it's less probable) while being more action-oriented (compared to "BANG-- ooh, ya got me!").

Most superpowered beings don't use guns, because frankly they don't need them. Why use a gun when you have energy blasts or the ability to wield melee weapons at hypersonic speeds?

This can also be an excuse for the hero to MacGyver up some Bamboo Technology rather than just shooting the bad guy. Remember, MacGyver himself may normally refuse to use guns, but even he's not above above firing a steering wheel knob out of a cannon, as long as he converted the cannon out of a car muffler with his own hands.

Common in the Blood Knight, who will often think guns make things over too quickly. See Technical Pacifist as well, where, even if a Technical Pacifist still beats the crap out of people on a heartbeat, he will generally not use a gun.

Sometimes brought on by Executive Meddling or by the Media Watchdogs stooping over the cartoons, and may forego replacing guns by removing them altogether.

Con Men Hate Guns is a specific subtrope. The opposite trope to the Gun Nut.

Examples of Doesn't Like Guns include:

Anime and Manga

• Roger Smith from The Big O, though its not much of a surprise since he's anime Batman.
  • Though his reason is because it's not "gentleman"-like. He will use it if pressured, but won't directly attack people.
  • And he's just fine with using the guns on his mecha.
    • Again, just like Batman has no problem arming his vehicles with enough guns and explosives to take out a small country.
• Yajiro Kojima from Grenadier uses a sword instead of guns because he thinks a person who kills with a gun doesn't feel the weight of the life he or she takes. Traveling with Rushuna makes him rethink that point, though.
• The Takamachi family in Triangle Heart 3 ～sweet songs forever～ despise guns and only use swords. Which puts Kyoya Takamachi at odds iwith Ellis McGaren, who despises swords and only uses guns.
• This may be why Shenhua of Black Lagoon doesn't use guns. She's far too fond of the knives.
  • Also Rock - he'd rather use words. In the yakuza arc, he refuses the pistol Balalaika offers him as a souvenir (after killing several former allies with it on his more or less indirect suggestion) but says he "won't forget that he pulled the trigger". Of course, if there's any shooting to be done, Revy's happy to do it for him.
• Aiber from Death Note hates guns, and violence in general. But then, he is a con man.
  • Interestingly, he is very skilled with a firearm, as he demonstrates when he reluctantly picks one up chasing Higuchi. We're only told that he dislikes guns for personal reasons, and those reasons are never elaborated on.
  • Some areas of Fanon have it that Light also falls under this Trope, given his... less than pleasant experiences with them in the series.
• In the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, Ed says that he doesn't like guns and freaks out when he has to use one; this is consistent with his refusal to kill anyone throughout the series.
  • Inverted with Riza Hawkeye, who says she prefers guns to swords and knives because with guns, "The sense of death doesn't linger on the hands."
    • But as Roy says, she isn't being truthful. Snipers kill in a very personal way, even if they aren't physically close to their victims.
• In End of Evangelion, after Shigeru Aoba hands Maya Ibuki a gun, she expresses dislike of using guns and killing human beings even as NERV is being invaded by SDF.

Shigeru Aoba: [hands Ibuki a gun] Release the safety.
Maya Ibuki: I can't! I just can't shoot this thing, Aoba!
Shigeru Aoba: Of course you can! You've had basic training!
Maya Ibuki: But I shot at targets, not at other human beings!
Shigeru Aoba: Idiot! You kill or you die!

• In Cat's Eye, policeman Utsumi never uses a gun. The reason, as revealed later, is that he's actually a crack shot, but that caused him to become overconfident and do gun tricks at the shooting range; one of those tricks went awry, and he shot himself in the leg, causing him to start disliking firearms.
• On a related note, Prince Philionel and his daughters Naga and Amelia from The Slayers, who Don't Like Swords, and as such are mostly Technical Pacifist martial artists.
  • Then there's the otherwise boisterous Naga, who's so Afraid of Blood she faints at the sight of it owing to the trauma of witnessing her mother's assassination but is perfectly happy to freeze people solid and crush them with golems.
• Master Asia from G Gundam is a mecha example of this trope, always insisting to fight bare-handed and considers all guns as for cheaters in a fight.
• Kimba from Kimba the White Lion due to the deaths (including his father) guns cause in his animal kingdom.
• Several characters in Rurouni Kenshin. At one point, Yahiko snatches a gun away from a mook. The mook panics, but Yahiko throws it away and says, "Like I would really shoot. I'm a swordsman, guns are for sissies!"
• Played around with in Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt - while Panty is rather trigger-happy, that's with her magic panties that turn into a Heaven gun. On the one occasion she's forced to use normal guns, she complains about how bad the used gunpowder smells.

Comic Books

• Batman's hatred of the gun is well known, so much that he, as Bruce Wayne, bars his company from producing military contracts (uh...huh...) and will refuse to use a firearm even if it seems to be the only way out of a deadly situation. This is carried over into The DCAU as well, possibly best shown in Batman Beyond when what finally pushed Batman to retire is that he was forced to use a gun to threaten a kidnapper who was about to bash in his skull after he had been crippled by a bad heart during the fight.
  • Technically the military contracts thing isn't true, as we've seen various examples of military-grade hardware produced by WayneTech, from night vision goggles to attack helicopters. Presumably Bruce is fine with it as long as his company isn't manufacturing any weapon systems (those can be sourced from other contractors).
    • Bruce tends to outsource a lot of WayneTech's R&D to other DCU corporations; he tends to use external tech more in the comics than, in, say, the Nolanverse.
  • One Nightwing comic book features a scene with Batman and Robin on the firing range in the Batcave. Robin is confused as to why they're doing this, since they never use guns. Batman says that they need to understand the exact capabilities and limitations of guns in order to better defend against them, and that they need to not be afraid of them. Which is entirely logical given that 99.9+% of the thugs that the Bat-Family fights will be throwing lead at them constantly.
    • Robin, likewise, gives this same explanation after a special ops member mentions while he beat her in a sparring match, she'd have an edge on the firing range. He also adds that part of the reason they don't use guns is, unlike police, they can't appear in court to defend the use of lethal force, so they don't use tools (like guns) that would result in deaths.
    • After Dick became a Bludhaven police officer, Bruce made it clear that he didn't like him wearing his service revolver around the cave.
    • Assuming that you ignore the fact that Batman's been shot numerous times, and at one point wore a costume with a prominent target on his chest so that he'd be shot in the place where he had the most protection.
  • Final Crisis takes this to a symbolical level as Batman makes an "once in a lifetime" exception and shoots "poisons" Darkseid with an anti-New God gun only to be "killed" by the villain's eye beams a mere second after pulling the trigger. Much to the chagrin of fans, though it should be noted that Batman was going for a what could be a suicide run (as this was the "Day That Evil Won" and was most likely the last thing he could have done being trapped in Command-D) and of all places, Batman shot Darkseid in the shoulder.
  • With a bullet that was, as he himself pointed out, like Kryptonite to Darkseid's kind. All that means is that instead of dying instantly Darkseid's body took a few moments to savour the poisonous effects.
  • In another Batman story by Grant Morrison, Joe Chill in Hell, a young Batman confronts his parents' killer, Joe Chill, and torments the man, depriving him of sleep, sneaking up on him in disguise, and generally just scaring the crap out of him for a month, all building up to the point where Batman drives Chill to commit suicide.
  • It's amazing how strict some Batman adaptations are about this, even when you'd think they'd ditch it. In The Dark Knight Returns, Batman hospitalizes countless Mooks, snaps the Joker's spine (paralyzing but not killing him), and even has machine guns on his car. When he uses the guns, he internal monologues to the reader, "Rubber Bullets. Honest."
  • The reasons vary from writer to writer. Originally, the idea that Batman hates guns was linked to his parents' murder when he was a child. There are practical and legal reasons, too—self-awareness that he's a vigilante and the knowledge that in being so he has no business killing, while guns make it much too easy to kill and much too hard to be nonlethal. On a historical note, in his original Detective Comic appearances, he frequently used firearms and lethal force against villains. The creators only removed his use of firearms when they worried that it would make him resemble the Shadow too closely. Today, most depictions have Batman bending enough to arm his vehicles, for disabling vehicles and removing obstacles of course.
  • In a particularly amusing inversion, in an early Detective Comics appearance Bats comments that he hates taking human life - immediately before machine-gunning a car full of baddies from his biplane. This blog has a good rundown on instances where he used a gun.
  • In fact, in the The Golden Age of Comic Books, he didn't even have the "dislikes guns" angle, and had a handgun that he wasn't afraid to use.
  • While Batman's aversion to guns has generally grown over time, there are some situations in the older comics where Batman refuses to use a gun. In Detective 453 (the same series in which Batman fires a machine gun into a car full of bad guys), Batman is told to shoot a single bullet into the ground to prove he isn't really Batman, or be shot to death by a room full of criminals. He doesn't do it. This is probably due more to the inconsistency of older comics and a lazy writer, but it's probably the most extreme example of this rule.
  • On the other side, the Joker in The Dark Knight doesn't like them because they make things end too quickly, and prefers knives, so that he may savor the reactions of his victims. Of course, that doesn't stop him from using everything from shotguns to rocket launchers.
    • In that trilogy, Bruce's aversion to guns is cast differently. While the comic book Batman essentially doesn't like guns because a gun was used to kill his parents, this Bruce Wayne was willing to shoot Chill and have vengeance until that was denied him. Later, after realizing what really killed his parents, Bruce's approach eschews guns because they represent that wrong minded mindset of vengeance he once had.
  • Batman's distaste for guns gets lampshaded in Grant Morrison's JLA/WildCATS crossover, in which the League hooks up with the premiere heroes of Jim Lee's Wildstorm line. At one point when both teams go up against Epoch the Time Lord, Batman asks the raygun-toting Grifter just how good he is. When Grifter brags that in his universe Batman would have been his kid sidekick, Batman then adds, "Then you won't mind doing this without the guns." Grifter pauses for a Beat, then quips, "Aw, why not? I'll try anything once!" The beginning of the crossover features an encounter with Epoch and Wally West while he was still Kid Flash, who sizes up his new foe's huge high-tech rifle by commenting, "One of the first things I've learned in the superhero game. 'Gun' equals 'bad guy'."
  • Batman the Brave And The Bold used this as a plot point in the final episode. Bat-Mite is trying to get the series cancelled and Ambush Bug attempts to stop him, but Batman refuses to listen when Bug tells him that the world has been changed. That is, until Batman uses a pair of handguns to fight crime, which Bug points out is an insanely Out-of-Character Moment; at this point Batman finally realizes that Bug is right and starts fighting back against Bat-Mite.
• One Batman related character, the Huntress, is willing to kill uses a crossbow and throwing knives to get the job down. Unlike most other examples, she doesn't avoid guns because she looks down on them, she's stated that she's just not very good with them.
• In Watchmen, Nite Owl says that Rorschach didn't shoot Moloch because that way of killing someone is too ordinary. Presumably this is why Rorschach chose to improvise when he is cornered by the police instead of picking up the gun. The gun was also empty, and Rorschach only kills criminals; crazy as he is, he doesn't bear ill will against police officers, and only fights them at all in order to escape.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles notice on several occasions in the comics that they hate guns. At one point where they use some as a part of disguise Leonardo points out that he do not want any shooting and another of the turtles have already unloaded his gun. And in the Archie comic they think that lasers may be cool but also boring and too effective.
  • Raphael is the only one to break the rule twice in fact, the first time being in the Image series in which during the Bodycount series he guns down many gangsters and in a story in the Archie comics he used a laser gun to shoot a villain he survived though.
    • Actually, they do use guns on several occasions in the first volume of the Mirage comics, either laser guns or regular lead spewing ones. They don't intentionally bring guns to a fight, but they're perfectly willing to pick one up if the situation demands it.
  • Or it could just be that they can't use guns. Have you seen their hands? Two big fat fingers and one big fat thumb.
• Nny from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac never kills with a gun (with only one exception, though that was for a murder-suicide). His stance on it is that they should only be used on oneself.
• Bullseye doesn't like guns because they're boring. He'd much rather kill someone with a playing card, or a shuriken, or his own poop. Which isn't to say he'll never use them. During the "Guardian Devil" Daredevil arc, Bullseye admitted that Daredevil was "almost" his better, so he decided to subvert his principles and shot Daredevil. He also tried to kill Deadpool with a rocket launcher. It didn't work because...it's Deadpool.
• Modesty Blaise's sidekick Willie Garvin, whose CQB weapon of choice is the throwing knife. His weapons of choice have also included short pieces of pipe, boomerangs, bricks, rocks, and large coins. Subverted in that he does it for a practical reason - while he is quite likely the world's single greatest marksman with thrown and improvised weapons, he just can't hit the broad side of a barn with a handgun. He certainly has no problems palling around with Modesty, who is an expert handgunner.
  • Apparently that only applies to handguns - although a hopeless pistol shot, Willie's a first-class sniper and heavy machine-gunner.
• Detective-Judge Armitage, a Judge Dredd spin-off character. His general attitude is deconstruction of the Technical Pacifist: he absolutely refuses to carry or use a gun, but has no qualms about, for instance, broken bottles.
  • However, it is stated that Detective-Judges don't carry firearms generally. There was a more recent story where Armitage did carry a gun on a raid.
• This trope holds true for several of the heroes in Squadron Supreme, and leads them to ban and destroy all guns as part of their Utopia Project. The trope later causes a Heroic BSOD for one character when, in a panic, he grabs an automatic weapon and opens fire on a team of villains.
• In the Italian comic book Diabolik, the eponymous Villain Protagonist never uses a gun. Not from having issues with killing (he'll immediately kill you if he thinks it's useful), but because their noise tend to give away the stealth element he always counts on and he's way better with knives.
• Steve Rogers as Captain America (comics) averts this considering he originally did not have a problem carrying a pistol along with his original triangular shield. He drops the side arm later because he finds that his newer circular shield is so useful as a weapon that he decides that is typically the only one he needs most of the time.
• Mr. X, formerly of the Thunderbolts, is an... interesting case. He doesn't like guns because he thinks they aren't personal enough; he's a peerless killer who forms an empathic bond with his victims, relishing the moment of their deaths, so up-close killing is extremely important to him.
• Tintin frequently uses guns, but admits at one point that he's never entirely comfortable with the idea of handling one.
• An early issue of the Buffy Season Eight comic book had this to say:

No Slayer carries a gun, ever. End of talk, good talk.

• In the Doctor Strange mini-serial "The Oath," Doc tracks down a man who shot him (with a silver bullet, fired from the Walther P-38 that was Hitler's personal weapon) and later uses the gun himself. Once. And promptly dissolves it into fireflies.

Doctor Strange: Ghastly. Last time I touch one of these things..

• Barbara Gordon doesn't like guns, which makes sense since she was shot by The Joker and was left paralyzed from the waist down. This event remains in her backstory post-Flashpoint and it's left its mark on her as seen in her current series. One of her first attempts to get back into the swing of things as Batgirl (her paralysis was treated with surgery overseas) went poorly when Mirror pulled a gun on her (aiming at the exact same spot where the Joker shot her) and she froze in fear.

Film

• Obi-Wan Kenobi dislikes blasters, considering them synonymous with uncivilized aggression, preferring to use diplomacy and swordsmanship instead. As a Call Forward to his introduction to the lightsaber from the original trilogy, he discards Grievous' blaster after using it -to save his own life, no less- with a dismissive "so uncivilized."

Rifftrax (*aping Ewan McGregor's stuffy Obi-wan accent) Sometimes I think these coolies don't deserve the British Raj.

• Guns are the Berserk Button of The Iron Giant. And he is quick to remind you that he is not one.
• Princess Vespa in Spaceballs says she doesn't like guns. But when they singe her hair, she goes Rambo on them.
• Wong Fei Hong in Once Upon a Time in China starring Jet Li, however He doesn't even need a gun, since he can flick a bullet from his fingers into a person head.
• In The Rundown, the Rock's character shows a strong dislike of guns. One of the people in the film even comments, "I never met an American that didn't like guns." However, during the climactic gunfight, his Berserk Button is pushed when Travis is under fire and in need of help - deciding to put aside his disdain for firearms, he proceeds to open a can of lead whoopass on the enemies. For a person that doesn't like guns, he sure as hell is quite handy with 'em. In his earlier conversations, he implies that he used to use guns all the time, which wound up with him in debt to a crime boss in the first place.

Travis: Let me get this straight - you never use guns?
Beck: No.
Travis: Never.
Beck: Never.
Travis: What if your best friend was gonna die, you wouldn't pick up a gun?
Beck: No guns.
Travis: Santa Claus would pick up a gun to save his best friend.
Beck: Do I look like Santa Claus?
Travis: What do you say? Guns make you whooh-poco-loco? Bang-bang-crazy?
Beck: I pick up guns, bad things happen to people. I don't like that.
Travis: What kind of things?
Beck: Very bad things, Travis. Walk.
Travis: What about knives?
Beck: Move.

• Diary of the Dead. After giving one of their colleagues who's turning into a zombie the coupe-de-grace, The Professor hands the pistol over to someone else, saying it's too easy to use. Later however he picks up a bow saying that it "feels friendlier, somehow" (we later discover that he's a former member of the archery team at Eton).
• Craig's father in Friday gives a Father and Son Talk to Craig about how guns symbolize a lack of strength and foresight, and reminisces about a time when problems would be solved with fists instead.
• Semi-Averted in Quigley Down Under, as lead character Matthew Quigley uses a tricked-out Sharps rifle but in his own words "never had much use" for handguns. When he ends up in a four-way duel with only a revolver, he quickly dispatches all of his assailants, remarking to the last one alive that "I just said I never had much use for one. I didn't say I didn't know how to use it."
• In Gangs of New York Bill the Butcher doesn't like to use guns when he fights, preferring to stick to meat cleavers and butcher's knives, because he follows a strict code of honor. His arch-rival Priest Vallon held the same belief, so when Bill's Natives faced off against Vallon's Dead Rabbits the fight included just about every weapon but guns. This also goes for later in the movie when young Amsterdam Vallon and the resurrected Dead Rabbits negotiate a duel with Bill's gang, and when agreeing on what weapons will be allowed, Amsterdam specifies that there will be no pistols, to which Bill replies "Good boy."
• Most slasher movie killers will kill someone in every which way possible, but almost never use guns. In the Halloween series, however, Michael Myers does use a shotgun to stab somebody.
• As Drew Barrymore directed the Charlie's Angels films, the Angels use martial arts instead of guns, even though their iconic pose from the series has them holding guns.
• Parodied in MacGruber, where the main character insists that "he don't roll that way" without giving a good reason why he refuses guns in favor of pitifully MacGyvering up gadgets. When he's actually handed a gun, he learns that firing a gun is awesome but is terrible with it.
• Jason Bourne, after the first film. Having declared his intention to give up killing people, he spends the next two films beating the living hell out of every enemy to cross his path but, despite killing three of them, never once fires a gun. He's even seen taking guns off opponents and then throwing them away a couple of times.
  • In the most recent film (the titular Jason Bourne) Jason uses a gun, but that was because the target was well out of arms' reach and it was immediately necessary to stop him from firing a sniper rifle at someone else. While the sniper isn't hit and Jason has to beat him to death with his bare hands later, the context of the scene appeared to be less 'was just using suppressive fire' and more 'even Jason Bourne finds it a little difficult to hit a guy with a pistol from over 50 yards away through an air vent'.
• Blue Jones of Sucker Punch admits that he hates guns, and holds one by his fingers in disgust as he passes it to the Mook behind him. This is after he has murdered Blondie and Amber. He shot Blondie to death.
• Averted in Kick-Ass where Big Daddy and Hit-Girl have no problems shooting people. Made extra delicious by the fact that Big Daddy looks a lot like another black-costumed superhero who is famous for hating guns.
• Captain Nemo in the film version of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, when told to draw his gun, proudly states "I walk a different path" and proceeds to kick ass with indian martial arts. He does use a pistol in the ending scenes of the film, but only because the enemies he's engaging are above him and out of melee range.

Literature

• Quiller, from the Spy Fiction novels by Adam Hall, doesn't like guns for several reasons. They give him away as a spy, they cause overconfidence, and they're noisy. He prefers to rely on his martial arts skills.
  • He's occasionally referred contemptuously to gun-carrying adversaries as "gun-dependent," indicating that if you get the gun away from them they're psychologically paralyzed and helpless against you.
• Odd Thomas hates guns, mainly because his mother frequently threatens suicide with one and also threatened to shoot him because he wouldn't stop crying while he was sick.
• In The Destroyer books, assassins Remo Williams, and Chiun don't like guns. They consider them toys for amateurs. Compared to them, they are right.
  • However, Chiun has used a gun at least once. When a Big Bad was escaping by helicopter, he used a pistol to shoot the pilot from very, very far away.
• Doc Savage doesn't normally carry a gun (his reasoning is that anyone who carries a gun comes to depend on it and is thus less effective when disarmed). That doesn't stop him from using one when necessary (with the obligatory Improbable Aiming Skills).
  • It also doesn't stop him from travelling around with an arsenal of automatic weapons and grenades, and hauling them out whenever he's expecting serious resistance. Doc's policy is to not routinely carry guns, as he feels confident of arranging his everyday self-defense needs without them.^[1] But if he's preparing to go on an assault vs. a fortified enemy position, he'll bring whatever amount of firepower he thinks the job requires.
• Jay (Popinjay) Ackroyd of Wild Cards hates guns. Of course when you can teleport people anywhere just by pointing at them that's not really an issue.
• In The Saga of Darren Shan, the honor code of vampires and vampanezes forbids them to use guns; they feel that guns are for cowards. The problem is circumvented by hiring regular humans as soldiers.
• The aversion is lampshaded in The Dresden Files, when Kincaid congratulates Harry for his unusual foresight in carrying a gun. In fact, this pragmatism is one of Dresden's advantages over his supernatural enemies, who will show (entirely warranted) caution where his magic is concerned, but neglect to protect themselves from things like bullets.
• Alex Rider averts this, despite the publisher's best efforts. Anthony Horrowitz has said that the reason MI 5 never give Alex a gun is because the publishers got very nervous when he said that of course Alex was going to shoot people if he had one. However, Alex always moans about not being allowed one, and when he occasionally manages to find one somewhere he doesn't seem to have much issue with taking it.
• Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird used to be called "Ol' One Shot" and used to be the "deadest shot in Maycomb County in his time"...but his children don't even realize he knows how to fire one until he has to shoot and kill a rabid dog.
• The dinosaurs from Anonymous Rex are like this, notably Ernie. They prefer to do their fighting hand-to-hand, since they're well equipped for that, and consider firearms unnatural.
• Wayne from The Alloy of Law doesn't use guns due to a traumatic incident in his Backstory.
• Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon.

Live Action TV

• Micheal on Burn Notice isn't above using guns, but he doesn't like them: "Don't fight your wars with guns. Guns make you stupid. Fight your wars with duct tape. Duct tape makes you smart".
• In Doctor Who, The Doctor doesn't like guns. In the vast majority of stories he does not handle guns, even when they are available, and even on the odd occasion that the enemy is not Immune to Bullets. He does use a variety of super-science methods that usually turn out to be no less lethal. For example, he often uses his sonic screwdriver as a projectile weapon. When he does use a gun, it's usually to show that the Godzilla Threshold has been crossed or do something besides shoot directly at the enemy. Examples and exceptions include:
  • The 1966 Western episode "The Gunfighters": "All these people are giving me guns -- I do wish they wouldn't."
  • In "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky", after repeatedly telling UNIT to not open fire on the Sontarans and getting guns pointed at him, the Doctor finally gets fed up. When Luke Rattigan tries to hold him at gunpoint, the Doctor simply takes the gun out of Luke's hand and throws it away, muttering "If I see one more gun...", "The people with the guns are usually the bad guys".
  • The Fifth Doctor blasted the hell out of the Cyberleader with his own weapon in "Earthshock," and shooting an uncased Dalek with a common gun in "Resurrection of the Daleks." He also seems fairly comfortable around guns in "The Visitation."
  • The Seventh Doctor is perfectly willing to empty a clip of silver bullets into one of the nasties from "Battlefield." And from his reaction post-sucker punch, this isn't a plot to get Lethbridge-Stewart to take the job instead.
  • The Ninth Doctor carries a gun in the episode "Dalek". Granted, he ended up not using it.
  • The Tenth Doctor gets into an argument with Jenny in "The Doctor's Daughter" about how he won't use guns. She insists that the tools that he does use would still classify as weapons, so the distinction is arbitrary. In "The End of Time," the Doctor borrows Wilf's old service revolver when he realizes that the Time Lords are escaping the time lock but ultimately only uses it to destroy a machine.
  • The Eleventh used a pistol in "The Time of Angels", though not to kill. He was surrounded by Weeping Angels on all sides and he used destroyed the gravity bubble in the room to pull him and his friends up to the crashed ship Byzantium's artificial gravity.
  • Former companion Sarah Jane Smith herself is not a fan of guns. As she said to Captain Jack Harkness in "The Stolen Earth", "I've been staying away from you lot. Too many guns." She later tells her Kid Sidekick Clyde that guns rarely solve problems without worsening them first. That said, we know from Pyramids of Mars that she's a pretty decent shot with a rifle.
• MacGyver doesn't like guns; the episode "Blood Brothers" explained that this was due to a childhood incident where he accidentally shot one of his friends. He has no problems with using them as impromptu tools, however (such as when he took a revolver, removed the bullet cylinder part and used the frame as a improvised wrench to close a needed valve), or as some sort of Rube Goldbergian "something to make a loud noise to distract the bad guys" device. However, at time his aversion bordered on the ridiculous: Once, to open a door that was locked, Mac dismantled a bullet, filled the keyhole with the gunpowder, inserted the blasting cap, then hit the cap with the butt of the gun, igniting the gunpowder and blowing up the lock. A solution that (as demonstrated on Mythbusters) was not only impractical but pointless, as that particular kind of lock was the kind that easily broke open when shot.
  • In one episode, MacGyver almost uses a pistol for its primary purpose. He pulls a pistol on a man who had murdered his friend, but someone snapped him out of it.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "These things? Never helpful." Guns can hurt vampires, but not kill them, whereas the Slayer is just as vulnerable to guns as any human. If vampires are given the idea to load up on guns fighting them would be much tougher.
  • However, she's perfectly alright with using crossbows, which are effective against vampires.
  • On the other hand, there was one case where a bazooka was rather useful in the Buffyverse. "What's that do?"
  • Of course the Slayer, not being bullet proof, has a vested interest in preventing gun play from breaking out. Spike nearly shoots her in "Fool for Love", but, finding Badass Decay has set in, is unable to go through with it. And Warren almost kills her with a single pistol shot in "Seeing Red".
  • In the episode "Angel", the vampire Darla takes out two pistols to hunt down Buffy and Angel. Of course, as she acknowledges, Angel will not die from being shot (also being a vampire), but it will still hurt like hell. It will also slow him down enough for Darla to stake him -- something she normally can't do, as Angel is both larger and stronger than she is and a superior hand-to-hand combatant.
  • As of the end of Season Six, Buffy has a personal reason to hate guns - She was nearly killed with one in "Seeing Red" and her friend Tara actually was killed.
  • It's suggested Buffy and Slayers have a moral interest in not resorting to guns. The comics play with this idea.
  • Wesley uses them all the time on the show Angel, and they are frequently effective. Vampires can't be killed with guns, but there are plenty of demons that can.
  • In one story Gunn is horrified his old gang now uses guns, even though he spent years leading them in a guerrilla war against a vampire nest. This was before he found out they were the ones responsible for wiping out a number of friendly demons, which proved the weapons effective if nothing else.
• Eliot Spencer in Leverage; he says it's because they are only useful within a certain range, thus not useful in his work as a "Retrieval Specialist".
  • When he is convinced that doing so is absolutely necessary to save his team and take down the Big Bad, he will use guns. Guns Akimbo, to be exact. And he's a One-Man Army.
• Max in Dark Angel turns down the offer of a gun without explanation, immediately followed by a flashback of her sister Eva getting shot and killed early in Max's childhood (directly after stealing a gun—to make the guns=death message doubly clear).
• The sisters of Charmed hate guns. Cole's argument of "But your powers are far more dangerous" goes unheeded.
• Although only use in a fictional context, in an episode of The Famous Jett Jackson, a producer urges to include guns in the show within a show "Silverstone" to increase tension. Jett Jackson refuses in order to be a better role model to the viewers of the show.
• As seen in the quote above from Mash, Hawkeye is opposed to using guns. At one point, Colonel Potter orders him to fire his pistol. In obedience to the order, Hawkeye fires the pistol into the air with no possibility of hitting a person.
  • Except, you know, when the bullet falls back to the ground and can randomly kill anyone unfortunate to be under it. As happens in Real Life when people randomly shoot into the air, and why such is illegal in many countries.
• White Collar: Neal Caffrey. Doesn't stop him from being a crack shot; his dad was a cop.
• Chuck Bartowski doesn't like guns to the point of bringing Nunchakus on his fist solo mission.
  • Of course, this doesn't stop Chuck from bringing tranquilizer guns on missions in lieu of actual guns with bullets.
  • Neither does Shaw (or so he claimed), which doesn't stop him from using a gun every chance he gets.
• Katagiri Takuma in Boss. Became this after a bad experience.
• Jake 2.0 Jake Foley doesn't like to use guns because he hates killing, preferring to use his super-strength to knock enemies out and capture them alive. In one episode, he goes up against a Yakuza assassin, whose martial arts easily overcome Jake's enhanced strength. Jake then undergoes a risky procedure to further increase his enhancements in order to defeat the assassin. This works. Unfortunately, the assassin escapes and tries to kill Foley. He has no choice but to pull a gun and shoot her.
• On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Odo doesn't use or carry phasers for pragmatic reasons. As a security chief, his shape shifting abilities are more than enough to deal with most armed assailants on the station, especially since security measures automatically disable unauthorized energy weapons (except for when the plot decides otherwise). As energy weapons have being shown to be deadly to his people, not carrying one also prevents it from being stolen and used against him. Not to mention that carrying a phaser, like any other object, would impede his shapeshifting.
  • It's also for ethical reasons. Despite being a tough, no-nonsense cop character, Odo had a strong abhorrence of killing. In "The Adversary," he said, "I've never found it necessary to fire a weapon or take a life. I don't intend to start now." In "Playing God," he revealed that he didn't even step on ants.
• On the episode "Penelope" of Criminal Minds, Morgan hands Garcia a gun to defend herself against the psycho heading inside to kill her.

Garcia: I don't believe in guns!
Morgan: (Shoves it in her hands) Trust me, they are very real!

• Harrison Blackwood from War of the Worlds refuses to even so much handle a gun. He doesn't seem to be opposed to violence in general (once fashioning an impromptu flamethrower to use against the aliens), but often turns down the offer to possess one, no matter the level of danger he could facing. Of course, this was a characteristic of Blackwood in Season 1. Then came Season 2...
• Hershel Green of The Walking Dead has stated that he knows how to shoot but really doesn't like to. Despite this though he has considerable aim even in a low light situation with an unfamiliar firearm.

Music

• "Saturday Night Special" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
• Ayria's "The Gun Song".
• 311's "Guns (Are For Pussies)"

Tabletop Games

• In Warhammer Fantasy Battle fantasy battles Brettonian knights (the characters) can have this as a virtue, it does however transfer to all ranged weapons and not only guns.
  • The basic code of conduct for Brettonian knights ban gunpowder weapons, in fact, and none of the knight careers grant proficiency in them. The knightly virtue in question only adds a ban on all ranged weapons on top of it.
• In In Nomine, the Archangel David hates all ranged weapons (including guns) because he feels they separate a person from the reality of what they're doing. His angels use melee attacks only.

Video Games

• Vergil in Devil May Cry thinks Guns Are Worthless and, in the universe of Devil May Cry, he might just be right: his magical throwable swords do a lot more damage than most of his brother's guns. Still, near the end he picks up one of his brother's pistols, stating that he'll "try things your way for once" as he and Dante pull of a Combination Finishing Move.
  • Bear in mind that Dante's pistols, while they may take longer, can kill any enemy in the game. Including Vergil. They're usually the way to kill things that won't carry a high risk of you getting swiped by a cheap shot.
• Sonic the Hedgehog mentions a dislike briefly in Shadow the Hedgehog, saying that he "wouldn't be caught dead with one of those!"
  • However, he still uses firearms, such as the ray gun and super scope, in Super Smash Brothers: Brawl.
  • The American comic has this for all the good guys except Julie-Su.
  • Also, briefly, Bunnie.
• In Oddworld: Strangers Wrath, the epoynomous Stranger doesn't care for guns - instead, he uses a double-barreled crossbow that shoots insects and small animals.
  • Heck, it's the first thing he says in the game!

Stranger: *Holding an Outlaw's rifle* ...Never liked guns. *Snaps it in two*

• In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud states that Sephiroth "wouldn't use a gun." The reason for this is most likely arrogance, as Sephiroth goes out of his way to use a six-foot-long katana just because no one else can. Also, in Advent Children, Kadaj does not use guns, although Yazoo & Loz do.
  • Sephiroth cuts through skyscrapers with ease using said ridiculously long katana (officially it's 2.5 meters/8 feet long)... one handed... He also fires energy beams, uses all kinds of game breaking magic, and is stated by Word of God to be the single most powerful being in the FFVII universe... A gun would be a DOWNGRADE.
  • Not to mention that guns are particularly worthless in that universe, and not just in gameplay: In Advent Children, Cloud takes a bullet at point blank to his forehead and all it does is break his sunglasses and leave a scar - although fanon has it that the shot was never intended to kill in the first place. That, or he has really tough sunglasses.
  • Subverted in Crisis Core, where Zack apparently has no issues about using a sniper rifle to eliminate some robotic enemies.
  • Not to mention Barret and Vincent, who are perfectly happy to show what they can do with prosthetic gun arms and pistols, respectively.
• Bayman from Dead or Alive is seen with a gun on his hip. The Fridge Logic comes when you realize "why doesn't he just shoot them?". However the Fridge Brilliance comes later when you realize that a twenty story fall after being knocked through a plate glass window, though a array of neon lights does about the same amount of damage as a few solid punches. Bullets would be a downgrade.
• Justified in In Famous when Cole can't use guns because the ammunition will explode if he touches them. Zeke found the first try to be hilarious.
• Faith in Mirror's Edge really hates guns, as her parents were shot dead during protests. The game rewards you for not using them.

Webcomics

• A narrator in one of the exposition pages for Finder's Keepers says most magic folk prefer not to use guns specifically because it's actually safer that way. Magical creatures on the other side of the void are more likely to attack a gun-wielder on sight simply because of how dangerous the weapon is, as compared to, say, a sword.
• During the Nanobots arc of Sluggy Freelance, Dr. Schlock ran out at a critical moment in a rescue mission. Bun-bun dispatched Sam the Vampire (the Sampire!) to retrieve him, and gave him a gun. Sam's response: "Sam doesn't do guns." Bun-Bun made him take it anyway, which was fortunate, as Schlock had decked himself out in crosses and holy water. Sam proceeded to shoot Schlock in the leg, forcing him to give Sam permission to enter.

Web Original

• Knightblade from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe not only dislikes guns, he goes out of his way to hunt down gun-traffickers, and tends to permanently cripple criminals who use guns in the commission of a crime. Stone hates them as well, which is ironic because he's a Flying Brick and just bulletproof as that implies.
• Pegs from We're Alive refused to use a gun through most of season 1.

Western Animation

• In The Venture Brothers. Brock Samson doesn't seem to be a huge fan of 'em, going so far as to outright refuse to even touch one during his OSI exam. This may be a bit of a subversion though, since he likes knives better because they're more personal and gory.
• After a Very Special Episode of Gargoyles where Broadway almost kills Elisa by accidentally shooting her with her own gun, he can't stand guns and will destroy any he gets his hands on. In an interesting case, his hatred of them stems from his own guilt rather than the weapon itself; Goliath obliquely mentions in the first episode that the gargs obviously don't have problems killing invaders (like the Vikings) if they can't avoid it.
  • Broadway will, however, leave guns be in the hands of responsible people like Elisa - he only destroys those their enemies (usually petty criminals) are using because they use them to hurt people. The moral of the episode wasn't "guns are bad", it was "guns need to be handled responsibly", something both Broadway and Elisa agree upon at episode's end, and Elisa always locks her gun away from that point on, to emphasise not leaving it around where someone who is irresponsible or ill-intentioned can reach it.
• An amusing scene in the American Street Fighter animated series had Guile given a license to acquire weapons. Being a manly man, he crushes it in his fist and declares "Guns are for wimps!" Just a reminder, Guile is in the U.S. Army. Other depictions of him never show him hating guns, though since the series is all about hand-to-hand combat, it's more of a Hand Wave than anything else.
  • Then again, per the rules for the Street Fighter RPG (and mentioned in the infamous Murphy's Rules column), Guile doesn't know HOW to use the things.
• As mentioned above, the DCAU Batman hates guns, and goes into retirement after being forced to use one as a last resort. Bruce Wayne, though, is seen in one episode participating in target shooting.
  • Well, he does have to keep those Grapple-Gun skills sharp.
  • Bruce Wayne invokes the trope by name in the Superman the Animated Series episode 'The World's Finest', which Lex Luthor tries to persuade Bruce to allow him use the robots they were developing together for military purposes. Bruce tells him 'I don't like guns'.
  • There's a very interesting Justice League episode, "Dead Reckoning", in which Deadman possesses Batman and kills Devil Ray with a gun (in a split second reaction to save Wonder Woman's life). Batman is visibly disgusted afterwards at having any part in killing someone with a gun, even to save a friend.
  • In an episode taking place in an altered timeline, there is a stubble subversion of this, where a resistance fighter Batman grabs a gun and points it at the League, which may of been what convinced them that something has changed with the time line.
• Subverted on The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. Johnny and Jessie have cornered a bad guy who drops his gun. The villain worries for a moment that Jonny will pick up the gun and use it, but Jonny tells him that he doesn't like guns. The villain smirks...for a second, until Jessie points the gun at his head, saying "I, on the other hand, don't have a problem with them."
• Virgil in Static Shock; his mother was killed in a gunfight.
• In Babar, none of the animals like or use guns (for obvious reasons), including the rhinos.

Real Life

• Actor Christopher Walken has an intense hatred of handguns, so much that he doesn't even like holding them.
• This is part of why it was hard to get Sigourney Weaver back for Alien 3. After finishing Aliens, she'd joined Handgun Control, and was not thrilled with the emphasis on weaponry in the third film script. In the final script, there are no firearms.
• Legendary Hawaiian police officer Chang Apana never carried a gun, but managed to be quite the Badass anyway.

1. ↑ Given that the man is six-feet-six and about 250 lbs. of pure muscle and has approximately nineteen black belts, his confidence is entirely justified.