yeah... but Hollywood LOVES it, don't they?
Sort of like the cowboy who racks the lever of his '94 or the Detective cocking the hammer of his double-action .38 when confronting bad guys... it sounds so MENACING!
I was once present at an informal affair when a drunk who had sideswiped a parked car came to advise the occupants that they shouldn't have left it legally parked on the street in front of their home where some poor drunken driver might bump into it. Upon finding out that the car's owner was a smallish female, he began to get really nasty, and I began thinking about the folding stock M1 carbine I knew she had in her bedroom, just in case the guy and his pals decided to push in the screen door.
No need. I was just about to cross the bedroom door threshold, when I heard a very distinctive whack! followed almost immediately by a similar but slightly different snack! And she had the immediate situation taken care of.
No, not a shotgun. One of these. Yes, they do indeed sound menacing. Small wonder Swiss troops haven't been in a shootin' war in some 400 years.
