Everyone cheered when Indiana Jones, faced with a double-scimitar wielding assassin, effectively said “screw this”, drew his Smith & Wesson and just shot the guy. And there have been innumerable cartoons on the theme of “Dirty” Harry Potter sensibly putting a bullet through Voldemort’s head while Voldy is messing around with incantations and wand waving. The squealing helplessness (and stupidity) of victims in horror movies has drawn perennial comment. So: reimagine a scene where someone should have just gone John Wayne and ended a problem ballistically.
Lion King would be very different
Mr. McGregor is going down.
It’s a Wonderful Life could have been wrapped up in 15 minutes.
If Charlie Brown had a gun, I bet Lucy would have kept that fucking ball on the ground.
Doubtless, but who are you thinking gets the bullet?
The drunk pharmacist does more than box his ear…
I’m amazed the OP didn’t use the example from Wizards, but, hey, to each their own. 
Honestly, Harry Potter is the one that always, always gets me with the assumption, which I’ve made in many grumpy rants over the years. About 3/4 of the various Batman films and series as well, as he constantly racks up a huge list of innocent victims from the revolving door at Arkham. A fact shared with many other brutal, but ‘won’t kill’ heroes and vigilantes.
ETA - and don’t even get me started about various martial arts movies!!!
D’Oh! 
The Night The Reindeer Died. No Lee Majors this time.
As shown in the Simpsons when they uncover the lost original ending of A Wonderful Life, “Killing Spree Ending”
The James Bond movies would have to be the archetype of this, they would end very differently if instead of putting Bond in some easily escapable death trap the villain just pulled out a gun and shot him
I could while away the hours
Midst cemetery flowers
And tombstones in the sun;
And my Colt I’d be reloadin’
While thoughts they are explodin’
If I only had a gun…
I’d riddle your fine torso
With bullets even more so
Your bleedin’ gives me fun
And we’ll carry forth your casket
If by chance you’d opt to ask it
If you’ll let me have a gun
My life could be a lesson
As taught by Smith & Wesson
You’ll learn when you should run
'Cause I’ll see that you deserve it
It’s your fate so I will serve it
Soon as I can get a gun
Psycho is why I always carry a gun when I’m in the shower at a hotel.
Shit, probably every episode of McGuyver. The first episode I watched had him captured by baddies, he escapes, gets recaptured because he won’t shoot people, McGuyvers another escape, gets recaptured again because he won’t shoot people. I didn’t stick around to see if he got away again. I never watched another.
You know, if you’re a pacifist, maybe being in the spy/murdering business isn’t for you?
What about Batman?
He has every “bat” tool on his belt but in the end he and Robin end up duking it out with the bad guys instead of using the bat pistol.
Austin Powers. “Just get a gun, well shoot him.” Instead they are lowered into a tank of ill tempered fish something like that. Didn’t have sharks with lasers on their heads.
How so?
No, Lucy would be dead.
But that’s just it: even when Adam West was, uh, at bat, our hero was seen carrying — and drawing, and firing — a gun; it’s not, per the thread, about the presence of a gun, but that he’d genuinely rather duke it out with the bad guy du jour than shoot.