Side grip

The side grip is a technique for shooting a handgun in which the weapon is rotated about ninety degrees and held horizontally instead of vertically (as is normally done).

For instance, in the 1894 American novel John March, Southerner, by George Washington Cable,[1] a character orates, "No man shall come around here aiming his gun sideways; endangering the throngs of casual bystanders!"

In Menace II Society this technique is shown in the film's opening scene during the armed robbery of a Los Angeles, California convenience store.

[4] Other filmmakers were fast to pick up the gesture, and it soon came to represent "arrogance and cool power" in Hollywood's visual shorthand,[4] being used in a great number of 1990s action and gangster movies including Desperado, Payback, Seven, The Usual Suspects and Copycat.

[4] In "46 Long," the second episode of the first season of the HBO series The Sopranos, the outcome of a botched robbery is foreshadowed when one of the men recruited to help is scolded for holding his gun in a side grip.