Decocking
 

I'm sitting here watching Three Kings and as they were getting ready to go into Karbala Bunker, I watched Mark Wahlberg readying his 92FS. He put in the mag, racked back the slide, then released the hammer by holding it with his thumb, pulling the trigger, and softly lowering it. I also remember seeing Mel Gibson do this in Lethal Weapon.

I've been wondering is this really smart to do? I could be wrong, but doesn't the Beretta 92FS have a decocker?

It should, and a lot of guns do have decockers, but no one ever uses them in the movies. It's more "cooler" to see a character decock by riding their thumbs on the hammer slowly.

As long as you're careful there's no reason not to decock it manually. My Radom and P.38 both have decockers but I always lower the hammer manually - force of habit, mostly, as most of my guns don't. That said it can even be a good thing - the late-war P.38s are known to have a brittle decocker and using it can cause it to break. If it does, the gun will fire when you put the safety on. The Czech CZ-52 has a similar problem. I just find it easier, and with some guns safer, to lower it by hand.

I heard from watching Magpul Dynamics Art of the Handgun when Chris and Travis was discussing handguns with a decocker, it's best not to ride the hammer down when there is a bullet chambered because the weapon is primed to fire and the potential to set it off is still present. A decocker is there as it is. Why ride the hammer back needlessly when you can press a button and you're done.

In the movie Street King, Keanu decocks his pistol with the decocker. I think it's the only movie showing that. The way the actor handled the part made it seemed like the job was done and so a click of the decocker, and holster made the scene seem over and the action is done. If he had ride the hammer back slowly, then it would drag on the scene. What also works for that scene would have if he flicked the safety and holster. Same effect,

The reason people do this is because that's how you had to do it back in the days when there were single actions without decockers or double action revolvers. In other words, like Nyles said, it's force of habit. For someone like an actor, though, it's probably the fact that they don't know there's a lever there that can decock the pistol, and just go on what they've learned, which is usually old world knowledge.

That being said, if it has a decocker, use it when decocking the pistol. If it doesn't, you should manually lower the hammer very carefully if necessary, pointing the gun in a safe direction. Most of the time, a manual hammer lowering is needed for a single action pistol like a 1911, wherein you should just put the safety on and keep it in Condition One until it's unloaded.

I only use the decocker on my 4506 if there is no mag in the gun, meaning that I cannot ease the hammer down because of the magazine disconnect

I think it mostly comes down to the fact that decocking the hammer with one's thumb just looks "cooler". And in Holllywood, that's what counts.

"Street Kings" is definitely not the only movie. I've seen Michael Chikilis decocking his S&W 4506 with the decocker in "The Shield" (and some other characters, too). I've also seen actors using the decockers on SIGs in at least a few TV shows (including an episode of "Harsh Realm").

Don't know if this counts, but a few of the posters over on the main page have mistaken Daniel Craig's manipulation of the Walther P99's decocker in Casino Royale as him triggering a safety (which the gun doesn't have).

Can you find one of them?