Weapons in GTA

Updated 30 October 2026 · Fan site. Not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.

Weapons have been part of Grand Theft Auto since the first game in 1997, which had just five. Later games added slots, gun shops, weapon skills and, in GTA V, a weapon wheel that slows time while you choose. Weapons come from pickups, missions, dead enemies and shops such as Ammu-Nation, and being busted usually costs you some or all of them.

How do weapons work in GTA?

GTA Wiki calls weapons a basic part of the series, and every game has them. The player picks them up in the world, takes them from enemies, gets them in missions or buys them. Using them in public draws the police, so weapons and the wanted level go hand in hand. The way weapons are carried and selected has changed a great deal between the top-down games and the modern ones.

What weapons were in the first GTA games?

The original Grand Theft Auto (1997) kept things simple. GTA Wiki lists only five types: fists, a pistol, a machine gun, a rocket launcher and a flamethrower. They came from crates around the three cities or from armed people the player had killed, and ammunition was counted in plain single units. A car bomb was available as a vehicle weapon.

GTA 2 (1999) widened the list. GTA Wiki counts eleven hand-held weapons, among them dual pistols, a silenced machine gun, a shotgun, Molotov cocktails, grenades and the ElectroGun, which needs to stay on a target for two seconds. Cars could be fitted with mines, an oil slick or front-mounted machine guns, and some vehicles carried their own guns, such as a water cannon or a tank gun.

How did weapons change in the 3D games?

Grand Theft Auto III (2001) has 13 weapons, according to GTA Wiki, from a baseball bat to an AK-47, an M16, a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher. Some are handed out in missions, others are pickups that can be missed for good, and Ammu-Nation opened its first stores. Vice City (2002) jumped to 35 weapons, with a large melee range that includes a chainsaw, a katana and a screwdriver, plus the minigun. GTA Wiki notes that hardware stores sell some of the melee weapons.

GTA Wiki adds that Vice City has more melee weapons than any game before GTA V, and that, unlike in GTA III, hitting a car with a melee weapon damages it and can even set it on fire. Some guns are given automatically in missions, such as the chainsaw in Treacherous Swine, while others are one-off pickups that can be missed.

San Andreas (2004) went furthest. GTA Wiki lists 38 weapons and three special items across 13 slots, including a spray can, a camera and a parachute. It also added weapon skill. Using a gun raises CJ's skill through Poor and Gangster to Hitman, and at Hitman level he can hold two at once of a few small guns, such as the 9mm pistol, the sawn-off shotgun, the Micro SMG and the Tec-9.

Why does GTA IV have so few weapons?

GTA IV (2008) cut the list back to 16, GTA Wiki says. Ammu-Nation is gone from Liberty City, so Niko Bellic buys guns from Little Jacob. GTA Wiki notes that enemies can be disarmed with a counter-attack or a shot to the hands, and that ammo for one gun can be topped up from any weapon of the same class.

How does the weapon wheel work?

The weapon wheel replaced the old habit of cycling through guns one at a time. GTA Wiki says it first appeared in Chinatown Wars (2009), where opening it pauses the game. In GTA V and GTA Online, it slows time instead, which helps in a firefight. It has eight segments: handguns, machine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, melee, shotguns, heavy weapons and throwables. The player can switch between guns of the same class within a segment. The wheel was also added to The Trilogy: The Definitive Edition.

GTA Wiki counts 59 weapons in GTA V, 19 of them from DLC, and notes that the player can carry all of them at once. Guns can be fitted with attachments such as scopes, and a weapon stays in the inventory when it runs out of ammo. Online keeps adding new ones through updates.

Some smaller details changed between versions of GTA V. GTA Wiki notes that DLC weapons in the enhanced version were at first available from the start, but after Ill-Gotten Gains Part 1 each one unlocks after a set story mission. The same version lets the player throw a grenade without putting the current gun away. Handguns also reload differently depending on whether the magazine is empty.

What happens to your weapons when you get busted?

In most games you lose them. GTA Wiki says an arrest in the 3D games normally takes the player's weapons and armour, ends the current mission and adds a fine, and GTA IV also confiscates weapons. San Andreas has an exception: if CJ is dating the police officer Barbara, he keeps his guns and pays no fine. GTA V is gentler and only takes the weapon in hand, its ammo and body armour.