Bang Bang

One thing that bothers me in films is when there is a stand-off with guns (or rather one character has a gun and other does not), someone will, in order to emphasise a point, cock their gun.

Now I know nothing about guns so i have to ask: what does cocking the gun do? If it means the gun can now be fired then why was the second character worried before? If it means the gun can be fired faster then, again, what's the point? Is the difference between half a split second and a split second that noticeable in a gunfight?

I just saw this particular scene standard in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It was possibly the worst use of it as the pistol involved was an old pirate version that requires the hammer to be cocked in order to fire at all. So when the scene starts the pistol is only dangerous as a blunt instrument.

So why is it always in films? Because it always has been, because it's a good expression point in the middle of a scene, because ... because ...

... actually if I could answer that I could write a formula for film cliches.