Hollywood vs Reality

[Grave Grumbler]

5. Racking the slide.

We've seen this in countless movies and tv shows.  Someone has been pointing a shotgun towards his opponent for some time, and then (to be really dramatic) racks the slide.  Ker-chak!  Cool sound effect, but since we don't see a shell fly out, it can only mean that all this time the weapon hasn't had a round in the chamber; if the trigger had been pulled, nothing would have happened.

Then there's the character racking the slide more once, just to be really dramatic. Since no shells come out, this means the gun is unloaded. Tackle him, quick!

What's really dumb is when the ker-chack sound effect is used as a character merely points a gun at someone!  I've seen this done in a number of movies recently.