You never have to regret a stun shot. —Iella Wessiri

"'Set phasers to 'stun.' " —Star Trek

Weapons that will cause the target they hit to lose consciousness for a certain period of time. Extra points if they cause a person to be mistaken for dead by a casual observer.

Unlike real world weapons made by Taser, which work by a very powerful electric shock, many of these show no clue tohow they incapacitate a target, simply acting like a nonlethal version of theInstant Death Bullet. And like theTap on the Head often used for similar purposes, in fiction they almost never cause someone to be killed accidentally. In real life, Taser weapons have infamously caused several heart attacks, although they're still much safer than coshing or shooting someone. If they intentionally cause pain, can be anAgony Beam.

Useful whenThou Shalt Not Kill is in effect. Ideal asFamily-Friendly Firearms and often part of aNon-Lethal Warfare.

CompareInstant Sedation (especially in the form of firearms firing tranquilizer darts) andStatic Stun Gun for the electric-powered variant (For the last time,Real Life equivalent: the T.A.S.E.R.).

Anime andManga

• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has two types of damage: Physical and Magical. Physical damage can kill you, while Magical damage will only knock you out at most. The latter is the reason why Nanoha canmake friends byblowing them up with ahigh-powered magical beam of pure energy. This works even whenthe entire area around you is destroyed. Inthe third movie, Nanohaexplicitly sets Raising Heart to stun.
• Several anime (Lost Universe andGasaraki immediately come to mind) treat rubber and plastic rounds this way, as somehow enacting theInstant Death Bullet without the death, rather than justhurting.
• Higurashi no Naku Koro ni's Shion Sonozaki has a habit of knocking people out with tasers, often by pushing it very hard into theirneck. She has never given anyone more than a few hours of unconsciousness (at least,that's all she's done with thetaser...).
  • However, she accidentally killed her grandma with it. Tasers don't go well with the elderly apparently.
• Several uses inGreat Teacher Onizuka.
• Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid. Sousuke gives Kaname a taser weapon on her request, which she later uses to defend herself against an assassin in what most fans agree is herCrowning Moment of Awesome.

Comic Books

• At one point (probably not any more) thePunisher carried "mercy bullets" for use on interfering superheroes and bystanders. Spider-Man was once shot at point blank range with one; considering that even a blank can kill under circumstances like that...
• Blasters inStrontium Dog have a 'stun' setting in order to avoid harming civilians. In the "Bitch" story, Johnny ordered Red to keep her blaster set to 'stun' at all times as he was sympathetic to the Kaiak-K.
• TheLawgiver MkII inJudge Dredd has a stun setting. However, it's notoriously unreliable and, as a result,highly unpopular among street judges.

Film

• TheStar Wars universe is rife with stungun technology:
  • Many blaster pistols in theStar Wars universe have a stun setting in addition to the kill setting (A feature commonly lacking in the FPS games). Without this, Leia wouldn't have made it throughA New Hope.
  • Parts of theStar Wars Expanded Universe note various side effects.The Thrawn Trilogy, where Thrawn's forces are out to capture a pregnant Leia, reveals that they can't just stun her, since it sometimes causes miscarriages. In theX Wing Series Corran Horn is stunned and is conscious but paralyzed until it wears off, unhappily remembering that this happens to him sometimes when he gets stunned.Survivor's Quest has theAurek Seven stormtroopers checking someone they'd just stunned for heart palpitations.
  • InAllegiance, Mara Jade confronts a shady warehouse dealer who doesn't believe her when she tells him that he's not going to like the penalties for assaulting an Imperial agent. He orders his thugs to restrain her. One of them pokes her with the muzzle of his blaster just before firing; she twists around and uses the Force and some fancy moves to shoot all of the thugs, ending with the one who poked her, with that blaster, and aims it at the warehouse dealer. All very quickly.

"Stun settings," she commented approvingly as the triple thud of falling bodies faded away. "So Pirtonna wasn't nearly as ready to play all-or-nothing with me as you are. Smart man. Means he gets to live through the night. What do you thinkyour odds are?"

• The already-absurd-in-many-ways Vin Diesel vehicleXXX takes this particular trope to an absurd degree, with the movie's version of Q giving Vin Diesel a gun with an assortment of incredibly expensive "specialized" ammunition with various bizarre functions, including a highly complex bullet that not only knocks out its target with a harmless tranquilizer but contains a blood-squib to create the flawless illusion of an actual shooting to any witnesses. Vin Diesel, of course, is almost immediatelygiven the opportunity to use these in a staged assassination.
• Since the premise is centered around law enforcement,Minority Report shows off quite a few nonlethal weapons. The closest thing they have to a stun gun is a gun that shoots a huge shockwave of air powerful enough toblow people across the room.
  • Another hilarious example is the Sick Stick. It's a nightstick that causes a person toinstantly vomit. Of course, the question is, what if the person didn't eat anything?
    • He probably vomits gastric juice as in real life.
• The Psychlo handguns inBattlefield Earth have a stun setting, which they use to capture rogue humans for their labor camps.
  • It seems like it's two weapons in one, especially since they use different barrels. The lethal mode is basically aHand Cannon that can blow holes in a person's body. The stun mode shoots a green pulse that knocks out a target cold.
• The wimpy police inDemolition Man use "glow rods", which somehow use electricity to render the target unconscious. John Spartan is unimpressed when he has to confront Simon Phoenix armed with one of these, but he quickly discovers what happens when you add water to the equation.

Literature

• ForStar Wars examples, seeFilm, above.
• Doc Savage and his "mercy bullets" may have created this trope.
• Larry Niven'sKnown Space has mercy needles, slivers ofanesthetic that dissolve in the bloodstream of whoever is shot with them.
• InLois McMaster Bujold'sVorkosigan Saga, stunners are standard issue for police or anyone else who might want to be able to shoot first and ask questions later. Hangover-like symptoms are a nearly universal side-Effect, and at one point something like "we don't have to worry about heart conditions with this lot" is mentioned, implying that there is a risk of causing more severe damage than intended.
  • She also points out a problem with stunners: If they're all you've got, then you can be killed by an unarmed mob, since they won't be afraid of attacking you, and with sufficient numbers they can overwhelm you, and kick you to death. If you were carrying a lethal weapon, they wouldn't dare try it.
• In Margaret Atwood'sThe Handmaid's Tale, the Aunts wield cattle-prods.
• E. E. "Doc" Smith'sFamily D'Alembert series (mostly ghostwritten by Stephen Goldin after Smith's death) features a stun gun with settings from one to ten. #1 is a mild shock that will sometimes not render the finest physical specimens immediately unconscious; #3 or #4 will put you out for up to an hour; #8 will put you down for many hours, and SOME victims suffer permanent neurological impairment; #10 is uniformly lethal. Weak or infirm victims may react worse to any given setting. Preferred by law enforcement because in moments of doubt you can shoot everybody and not worry about the consequences, but it backfires on them when the bad guys start usinghumaniform robots, against which they are ineffective.
• Andre Norton's science fiction stories had stunners, pistol-like devices that rendered their victims unconscious.
• Zoe ofMatthew Reilly'sSix Sacred Stones uses one to incapacitate guards at Stonehenge.
• InSergey Lukyanenko'sThe Stars Are Cold Toys, the Russian government has managed to develop one-shot paralyzers that become useless after discharging with no way to recharge the battery. Unlike the typical examples of this trope, the target remains fully conscious but is incapable of movement. It is proven to work on at least one other race. Interestingly, the paralyzer is made by a think tank specifically charged with reading/watching science fiction for ideas. Their other known invention is anExplosive Leash.
• Phule's Company got Zenobian stun-ray. Which in the third book their sergeant plainly called "the first non-lethal weapon worth a damn". Naturally, they quickly figured out the tactical solution maximally exploiting its advantage: friendly fire usually is acceptable, so if there's hand-to hand fighting or hostage situation, a shooter can simply hose everyone now, and sort later.
• "A Touch of E Flat" by Joe Gibson describes the invention of a cheap and very effective sleep gun.

Live-Action TV

• In the 1963Doctor Who serial "The Daleks", the Dalek's weapons are shown to have a secondary 'stun' function which is used on one of The Doctor's companions. However, it should be noted that the blast does not render him unconscious, it only temporarily paralyzes his legs.
  • In their defense, Ian was prettystunned when they blasted him.
  • The Fourth Doctor gets knocked out by such a weapon in "The Ark in Space". "Stun guns; I hate them."
  • K9's nose blaster had a stun setting.
• In the episode "Meat",Torchwood use stun guns against people who they don't think are dangerous. It turns out these people have guns and Ianto ends up tasering someone in the forehead, saying "Pray you survive." Indeed.
  • Also used in the episode "They Keep Killing Susie."

Jack: "This is for Ianto! Risen Mitten, Life Knife, and that old classic...Stun Gun!"

• Lost's Others have weapons similar to tasers, with multiple settings. They also have dart guns, whose darts inflict an electrical shock that can kill or merely incapacitate a victim.
• Phasers in theStar Trek franchise developed with the times.
  • The original series featured astun setting (which would handily knock out any non-godlike humanoid) and akill setting which wouldmake things go away (unless, again, the target was just plain immune). "The Man Trap" and "The Conscience of the King" featured lethal settings that left a body,with no visible damage, as per typical television standards of the time. Something similar may have featured in "What Are Little Girls Made Of", when anandroid has a hole shot in it, revealing its electronic workings. Ironically, this is the first episode to show disintegration. On the other hand, phasers also could heat rocks (or heat coffee) as a story might allow, which might have involved a specialtoast setting unmentioned in the canon media.
    • An intermediate "Heat" setting was mentioned in theTNG Technical Manual... but TNG is not TOS.
  • AfterThe Undiscovered Country, it became canon that movie-era phasers on Stun could kill at point blank range (to the head). On occasion, phasers have been set to "maximum stun" when facing unusually tough enemies, which is implied to have a higher risk of killing someone.
  • Scriptwriter guidelines forThe Next Generation specified hand-phasers had about ten settings, fromgive someone a headache tovaporize a chunk of granite. They started making marks on walls around 3 or 4. This was later expanded to sixteen settings, with level 3 capable of knocking an average humanoid unconscious for about an hour and level 7 treated as deadly force.
  • Similarly, in one episode ofStar Trek:Deep Space Nine, we see Miles O'Briencontemplating suicide. He cycles the phaser through about five yellow settings and then five red settings to what we can only assume is 'Maximum Kill.'
  • In theStar Trek: Enterprise episode "North Star" a mook from a primitiveSpace Western society puts a revolver to T'Pol's head, holding her hostage. Reedsimply stuns T'Pol, then the mook while he's still gaping at Reed's apparently ruthless action.
  • InEnterprise, and sometimesVoyager, phasers and similar weapons can be seen to have no effectat all, maybe causing a slight limp from a shoulder wound (Enterprise pilot).So they work a bit like electrolasers, maybe?
  • Stun grenades, utilizing phaser technology, have also been featured inEnterprise.
  • In theStar Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Hunted", certain humans in the military of the planet Angosia are altered to increase their fighting abilities, and are also resistant to phaser stun.
• Alias uses "tranq guns" a lot (seeInstant Sedation).
• Stargate SG-1 also make use of Goa'uld-made semi-lethal stun guns, called "Zat'nik'tel" or "Zats": one shot will knock the target out (originally anAgony Beam but no longer starting around season three), two shots are fatal, and three shots completely vaporize a body or a light object. The show's creators later regretted adding the third function, so the Zat never gets used this way anymore.
  • There are also some training weapons called Intars. An intar is a close replica of another weapon, but with stun bursts instead of whatever the weapon normally fires, and is identifiable by a yellow light on the weapon. (This is because the war games were a know-your-enemy sort of thing; they were first encountered at a Goa'uld mock-up of an army camp, with all the soldiers given human names, etc.)
  • And inStargate Atlantis,all of the Wraith's handheld weaponry are alien stun-guns. Justified in that the Wraitheat their human enemies alive, so they wouldn't want any wasteful deaths.
    • Ronon's weapon also has various power settings, which at the lower end seem to act in a similar manner.
  • The Bedrosians in "New Ground" also have staff-like weapons that fire a yellow knockout blast. Their shields also double as stunners.
  • The Tollan, beingTechnical Pacifists, equip their security personnel with triangle-shaped Stun Guns.
• InFirefly, Alliance police officers generally carry some kind of concussion/stunning rifle that knocks people off their feet and leaves them dazed, though it doesn't appear to have any effect on inanimate objects like doors, as Jayne finds out in "Ariel" as he's trying to get the Tams out of the hospital before the Hands of Blue get them:

Jayne:Shee-niou high-tech Alliance crap!

• • They're sonic weapons, at least according tothe RPG.
    • Wow, the weapon designed not to cause collateral damage doesn't cause collateral damage.
• Space: 1999 used laser Stun guns, which were called this despite a highly visible KILL option on the weapon.
• Red Dwarf. A newsreader reports that "rubber nuclear weapons" (presumably the WMD version of rubber bullets) were used to suppress a riot over the latest virtual reality game.
  • A simulant incapacitates the crew with a laser weapon for a period of three weeks. Somehow, this works on all four of them, considering two are flesh and blood, one is a droid and the other is a hologram.
• In the remake ofBattlestar Galactica, a flash-bang grenade is used to knock out Tigh and Adama duringThe Mutiny; this of course is a weapon developed for anti-terrorist use inReal Life.
• For the most part, theLaw and Order franchise pretends that stun guns don't exist, seeing as they would suck the drama out of chases and stand-offs.
  • To be fair, hitting a person while they run away with a taser (let alone a gun) isn't an easy prospect, and trying to take out a crook has a gun to a hostages head with something that makes them twitch a lot isn't the best of ideas. Also of note tasers aren't legal to own in New York.
• The Tomorrow People used stun guns, due to the "Prime Barrier" preventing them from killing.
• OnLeverage, Parker loves zapping people with various tasers and other stun guns.
  • Her old mentor/father-figure has two nearly identical specialty canes, one extends a six-inch blade from the tip, the other acts as a taser. When a hacker makes some rude comments about Parker,the old man places his cane's tip against the guy's crotch and asks him if he'd like to find out which one he was using today (later, the same guy continues making rude comments so he hits him in the neck with it and discovers it was the taser after all).
• In an early episode ofBurn Notice, Fiona zaps a Russian Mobster with a stun gun. However, since the mobster is currently grappling with her, the zap renders both of them unconscious. Note that in real life, stun guns neither cause unconsciousness, nor pass their current by physical contact with another person.
• The standard sidearm of a UEO naval officer inSeaQuest DSV is a sleek-looking energy pistol with a variable charge. The lowest setting ("green") stuns, while the highest ("red") blows stuff up spectacularly.
• J. Michael Straczynski explicitly forbid these fromBabylon 5: "Stun settings are for people who can't commit." If you're fighting someone, either hit him orJust Shoot Him - if you're not,talk to him.
• 1960sBatman episode "That Darn Catwoman". Catwoman's goons use electric cattle prods to stun Batman into unconsciousness.

Radio

• TheGreen Hornet used a gas gun toknock out criminals (or anyone else he needed to shoot).
• Spoofed inKremmen Of The Star Corps with the Valium Ray. Also...

Karla: Should we set our lasers on stun?" Captain Kremmen: No, this is serious. Set them onCringing Agony!

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

• Eddie Izzard parodied this once in a routine about less and less damaging settings for Star Trek Phasers: "Limp," "Bit of a Cough," "Depression," "Bad Eyesight," "Ice Cream Van Nearby," "Sudden Interest In Botany," "Water In The Ear After Swimming," and "Left The Oven On At Home."
  • By Voyager the default setting seems to be "mildly annoy".

Tabletop Games

• "The List of Character Survival Techniques" (v.1.5) recommends carrying a stun weapon such as tasers andknockout poison darts—sooner or later your teammatewill catchDemonic Possession,Hate Plague or something. And considering it as a primary weapon, to reduceinevitablecomplications.
• GURPS: High-Tech has stun guns/batons as well as tasers, they're nearly useless against people wearing anything but normal clothing. ByUltra-Tech they've been replaced withelectrolasers.
• Shadowrun has stun batons, tasers, stun gloves, etc.
  • One of the provisions of Dunkelzhan's will is a large sum of cash for the developer of an effective, safe, stun weapon. Fifteen in-game years later, there is still mention from time to time of companies trying to win that prize.
  • This is possibly a nod towardGameplay and Story Integration. The rules of the game allow for two separatedamage tracks: Physical and Stun. As the name implies, Stun weapons cause Stun damage, but so do things like physical exhaustion (from a long day of work), powerful medications, andcasting spells. Taking Stun damage in excess of your Stun track will instantly knock you out, but the overflow carries over to physical damage where it is cumulative with existing wounds; if you were about to pass out from stress anyway (9 boxes out of 10 on the Stun track) and had a couple of light Physical wounds (2 boxes out of 10 on the Physical track) and you get hit with an instant-KO shot (10 boxes out of 10 on the Stun track), the Stun overflow can push through and kill you outright.
• TSR'sStar Frontiers game had electrostunners (ranged stunning weapons).
• A relative of the above FASA property, the tabletopMechwarrior RPG features a variety of stun weapons.Chemical,electrical, andsonic stun weapons are available as ranged weapons, though stun batons are also available. An insidious item known as the neural whip could also technically be used to stun victims, but prolonged use could result in crippling injuries and permanent loss of attribute points.
• Warhammer 40,000 setting has a number of such options surprising for something rightly known for ludicrous overkills. Which isnot always a good sign for the target, of course.
  • +++openingWarhammer 40,000 Roleplay armory+++: Stun (as in flashbang) grenade, Howler grenade, Stunner gas grenade plus the same in shotgun rounds, Webbers plus grenade and missile with web splash payload, snare gun and bola launcher, stun shells for shotgun (though these hit hard, if not as hard as a proper slug), more sophisticated and less damaging "capacitor rounds" also made for smaller calibers (much like real world shotgun taser rounds), Sting-Blunt pistol purpose made for lower-tech shock bullets (this means its magazine comes with integrated battery, but easier to procure than even injector darts), hypo pistol (used by Biologis division of Mechanicus, hurls monofilament-tipped injector darts that minimize damage while being able to penetrate light armor), Aegis Anbaric Shock Blaster Pistol (rare zap gun using common las pistol packs, but not for as many shots) and "Screamer" Sonic Rifle. EMP weapons (like Techxorcism rifle and Tempest bolts) and some others have shock as a side effect, but are not designed as less-lethal.

Video Games

• Metal Gear Solid 2 saw Snake infiltrating the tanker armed only with a modified Beretta M92F designed to fire anaesthetic darts. Suitable weaponry for infiltrating a tanker filled with loyal US Marines, less suitable weaponry for infiltrating a tanker now filled with faceless terrorists.
  • Ironically, lethal weapons were almost universally outclassed by the M9 since it's perfectly silent, and enemy soldiers finding unconscious guards didn't sound an alarm. Not to mention you only needed one dart; a soldier hit in the arm by the M9 would walk around for a bitand then fall asleep. A soldier hit in the arm with lethal weapons would sound an alarm and return fire.
    • It's less useful on higher difficultly settings, as the effect wouldn't last all that long and the sedated guard would get suspicious and start searching for you.
  • Later in the game it's possible to find aPSG1 that fires tranquilliser darts, and the end gamekatana has a stun setting(beating them with the blunt side of the blade, presumably). These exist solely to enablePacifist Runs.
  • In the fourth game you have a MK. 2 and can unlock theSolar Gun, which is unable to damage anyone (except Vamp) but isvery good at stunning and knocking down opponents.
    • In the fourth game, you have a stunknife.
  • The third game (and its sequelsMetal Gear Solid: Portable Ops andMetal Gear Solid Peace Walker) had the Mk22 and Mosin Nagant.
• In the gameUrban Chaos: Riot Response if you taze someone for too long they will burst into flames killing them.
  • The same happens in theSyphon Filter series.
    • The same thing has happened in real life, too.
• Deus Ex was coded to react differently based on the lethal force the player used. In the immediate sense, death screams were louder than anything short of an explosive, judging by AI reaction to noise. More long term, some NPCs liked taking prisoners or avoiding combat, some liked to shoot things. The game featured a silent 'minicrossbow' that fired tranquilizer darts, a riot prod that looked like a stun gun on steroids with a healthy dose ofMore Power, and tear gas. There was also a baton that could beat someone senseless if the player was inclined to commit suicide by actually trying to use it. The game was inconsistent when determining the casualties caused by the player, however, occasionally marking the player as overly violent because of how many targets had been 'removed' from combat rather than how many had been killed outright.
  • The sequelInvisible War kept these weapons, although the electric prod became worthless while the simple plastic stick is absolutely terrifying in close combat. Also added was a player-controlled drone that could self-destruct with an electric stun blast. Two drones would down most enemies. A definitive game breaker in that the player could easily find a source of unlimited power in most maps from which all enemies could be neutralized without any danger to the player.
  • The prequelDeus Ex Human Revolution has two of its non-lethal weapons in this vein: one (the Buzzkill) fires a shock dart, causing the target to twitch for a few seconds and quietly collapse. The other one (the PEPS) fires a concussion wave that can knock out several targets, although, unlike the shocker, a knockout is not guaranteed. The game also allows the player to knock out target with a well-placed punch or a choke-hold (depending on the animation) or to use the landing system. That or use the tranquilizer rifle.
• TheX-COM series has many weapons that only cause stun damage so you can collect live aliens. The first game started the player off with the melee-only Stun Rod, which was of at best limited use aside from an occasional attack of opportunity, while the other side had a sort ofTechno Babble-powered flashbang fired from a small grenade launcher.Apocalypse addressed this by providing the taser-like Stun Grapple and Stun Gas grenades.
  • The Stun Rod'sTerror From The Deep equivalent, the Thermal Taser, is incredibly useful for one reason: Lobstermen, which arenigh-invulnerable, take full damage from the Taser. Since the only other weapon that does full or more damage to Lobstermen is the equally short-rangedVibroBlade weapons, the Taser can be useful if you encounter Lobstermen before you've researched either the blades or the Thermal Shok Launcher.
• In theSplinter Cell series, Sam's rifle fires a variety of knock-out weapons, including electric bullets, airfoil rounds (which work viablunt trauma to the head), and gas grenades.
  • InSplinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the captain of the ship in the third mission actuallydies if you try to knock him out (presumably from a heart condition or something). It doesn't count as a kill in your mission stats, but if you look at his body in thermal vision you can see it cooling down to corpse temperature.
• Xenogears hasgunslinging Jesiah Black use "stun bullets" once, with no further elaboration.
• InMetroid: Zero Mission, Samus is shot down on her first attempt to escape Zebes; in the crash, she loses her armor and has to infiltrate the Space Pirate mothership armed with only a stun gun. The gun has a ridiculously short range and long recharge time, and it only stuns enemies if fired with a full charge; otherwise it just ticks them off. Worse, enemies shot with a full charge only stay stunned for three seconds, after which they wake up and sound the alarm. Samus herselflampshades the gun's many failings in monologue:

"All I had for protection was my rather useless emergency pistol..."

• Done realistically in a mission forCommand & Conquer:Tiberian Sun, in which your GDI riot troops are equipped with rubber bullets to put down protests. Using one causes protestors to give up and go home, while using too many will kill the target (and lose you the mission).
• Oni has the Van de Graf pistol, which fires a short-ranged bolt of electricity to briefly stun enemies. It does no damage, but gives time to position oneself for aBackbreaker or other hand-to-hand attack.
• Fallout 3 features theMesmatron an experimental weapon that has a 50% chance of stuning someone, a 30% of making them very angry and a 20% chance of makingtheir head explode.
• SWAT IV features the full range ofless lethal weapons at the disposal of major metropolitan police forces in the US, including CS grenades, Stinger grenades (fragmentation with rubber schrapnel), tasers, pepper spray, beanbag shotguns^[1] and paintball guns loaded with pepper balls. All this gear isnecessary to achieve high or even qualifying scores, since every casualty, suspect or victim, counts against your final score.
• No One Lives Forever: A Spy In Harm's Way features an electric stun gun (the hand-to-hand kind) and a CT-180 utility launcher that can be loaded withtranquilizer darts which will both quickly andquietly take down opponents, leaving them alive. Sadly, they recover inside only a few minutes, and then will manifest weapons (even if searched and disarmed) shortly after that, providing an incentive to take out opponents in a more lethal fashion.
• The only weapon you get inHydrophobia is a stun gun, you're meant to use it to keep enemies at bay while you use the environment to kill them but oddly for this trope it can kill if you shoot it enough times....or change the ammo to something more lethal.
• InTotal Annihilation the Arm Spider unit is armed with a stunner, although this is more probably a weapon to disabletechnology. The spin-offTotal Annihilation Kingdoms has magical stun weapons used by Aramonian Mage Archers and Verunan Lighthouses. Interestingly, the logo for the stun arrow is an arrow with a pair of magically glowing handcuffs wrapped around it.
• In the laterCommander Keen games, your weapon is the Neural Stunner. Most enemies stay "stunned" permanently, but some revive after a few seconds.
• Zub's gun stuns the enemy, causing it to temporarily float away.

Web Comics

• InGirl Genius, Baron Wulfenbach's revenant containment troops are equipped with stun bullets and C-gas grenades, for non-lethally subduing mind-controlled civilians. Tarvek was shot in the back at point blank range with a stun bullet, and survived, though thisdid cost him some time in a hospital.
• InSluggy Freelance Riff subdues ademon-possessed Gwynn by usingthe stun setting on his laser cannon. GivenRiff'spersonality the fact that a weapon he built has a stun settingsurprises everyone.

Torg: I'm surprised the switch didn't rust over by now!

• • Later parodied (along withThe Dog Shot First) inthis strip.
• Schlock Mercenary has "difference-tone stunners", summarizedhere:

Kevyn:It projects two parallel, unidirectional, high-amplitudeVHF audio streams, with slightly differing frequencies. When those streams intersect a target, a high amplitudedifference-tone is generated in the body of the target. This low-frequency tone interferes with the target'ssynaptic refresh, effectively jamming the nervous system and rendering the target instantly unconscious. (Beat) It's amagic sleep gun.

• • They're actually disdained by the mercenary company per se, as they are useless for intimidation.
  • Police in Sol system carries "Massively Multi-Morphological incapacitator", aka "M3 tater", aka "potato gun". The amazingly ugly and widely despised piece has integrated low-grade AI that makes sure it remains non-lethal ("except to the poor fool who is stuck carrying one"),won't fire if there's any risk of collateral damage, and it hasprotection from tampering.
• InThe Lydian Option, the Tha'Latta carry long rods with tasers at the end to subdue unruly prisoners.

Western Animation

• In the 90sMarvelcartoons and various other action shows,energy weapons on low settings are treated this way.
• In theJonny Quest episode "The Robot Spy", the title device had two antennae that could render anyone they touched unconscious.
• G.I. Joe, one of the granddaddies ofFamily-Friendly Firearms, actually showed this... only twice. Once when a character was hit by a laser during a training exercise (and failed to be actuallystunned, merely yelping in pain), and once during a closeup of a Joe setting the power slider on a pistolfrom "stun" to "max."A-Team Firing seemed to be their preferred form of less-lethal attack.
• The season 3 finale ofArcher features "ion pulse" weapons that are supposed to be this. In a bit of a deconstruction, they actually stop your heart and affected persons need immediate defibrillation ("So... 'stun' may be a bit of a misnomer"). Naturally, this doesn't stopArcher from shooting his co-workers with them anyway.

Other

• A cartoon that appeared in one of the science fiction magazines in the 1980s showed a group ofStar Trek-likeRed Shirts, with one whispering to another, "I'm setting my phaser on 'tickle'."

Real Life

• Weapons that render a person unconscious, or incapacitate without causing permanent injury, are rare in real life. The sad fact is that the amount of force necessary to knock a person out is almost as great as the amount of force necessary to kill a person, and it's very hard to hit hard enough to do the former without hittingso hard that you also do the latter.
• Several companies are working on electrolasers, effectively taking the awkward probes and wires out of the Taser by using a high-frequency laser to ionise a path through the air for current to follow. So far, they've developed effectivearea-defense devices, although they're still a long way from pistol or even rifle size.
  • The development problem is, as per all beam weapons, a portable power supply.
  • Another problem with electrolasers is that laser beams powerful enough to ionize air between them and a target are usually powerful enough tomake holes in it. Which kinda defeats the purpose of having them in the first place.
    • Raw power (i.e. the number of photons) is not the issue, but frequency. Each photon must be able to kick off an electron on its own, so what's needed is a fairly modest beam in ultraviolet. This also contributes to the size problem—there is no simple, stable lasing medium that works in that band, necessitating more complicated and bulky designs.
  • There are also a few designs using concentrated jets of salt water, but they face the same issue as peeing on the third rail, lack of a coherent stream.
• Riot level pepper-spray guns (also used to ward off bears) count as something between Stun Guns or chemicalAgony Beams, with better takedown statistics but shorter range than handguns. Sadly, their extracurricular use in back-roompolice interrogation is on the increase.
• Another tool used by riot control police is the "riot ball". This is a big rubber bullet designed to be fired from a shotgun. It will cause a big bruise, and maybe crack a rib, but its intent is to incapacitate its target, not kill it.
• TheMythBusters once took on the notion of a water-based stun gun, with some success. However, they determined that the device they created was, in fact, more likely to kill anyone you shot with it than to stun them.
  • Another note, they could only make it work at all was to fire it from inside giant, specialized lightning generator, and they only had one shot.
• TheTaser XREP (eXtended Range Electronic Projectile) is perhaps the closest there is to a effective multi shot stun gun. Its essentially a miniaturized taser that fits a 12 gauge shotgun. It deploys on contact so its effective range is about 100 feet, more than double to the current stun guns used by police officers. The only real problem with it is that currently its quite pricey at around $100 a round (if you buy a pack), luckily the shells are reusable.
  • And if you liked that, you're gonna love theTaser Shockwave. Call it what they will, I call it a Taser Claymore. (no, notthat kind, although that would also be awesome.This kind.
  • Taser shotguns caused controversy recently when they were used by British police on fugitive gunman Raoul Moat, who thenkilled himself with a sawn-off shotgun. The controversy arose from the fact that apparently the Home Office hadn't approved their use, as they're still under testing.
• Stun guns are "pain compliance" weapons. They do not render people unconscious, nor even physically incapacitate them (admittedly, they can cause muscles in the targeted zone to lock up, briefly). Another problem with stun guns is that they require skin contact, and have no Taser-like barbs to penetrate clothing. It is necessary to press both prongs of the stun gun onto skin to complete the circuit and enable the current to flow.

• Trope
• Guns and Gunplay Tropes
• Index of Exact Trope Titles
• Futuristic Tech Index
• Tropes Examined by the Mythbusters
• Stun Guns