Handguns
A pistol or handgun is a small firearm intended to be used with one hand.
Overview
All handguns are divided into one of two major groups depending upon the location of the chamber. Revolvers have a revolving chamber; pistols have a chamber integral with the barrel. There are various sub-types.
Some handguns are: single-shot pistols, revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, and fully automatic pistols. In the 15th century the term "pistol" was used for small knives and daggers which could be concealed in a person's clothing. By the 18th century the term came to be used exclusively to refer to hand-held firearms.
Handgun Information
Etymology
The term "pistol" is derived from the French pistole (or pistolet),
which has these possible origins:-
* From the Czech píšťala (flute or pipe, referring to the shape of a
Hussite firearm).
* From the city of Pistoia, Italy, where perhaps a manufacturer was
one Camillio Vettelli in the 1540s.
* That early pistols were carried by cavalry in holsters hung from
the pommel (or pistallo in medieval French) of a horse's saddle.
Types of handgun
Varieties of handgun: "automatic" self-loading pistols, revolvers
(including black powder revolvers), multi-barreled pistols,
single-shot hunting or target pistols and finally flintlock pistols.
In a pistol, the chamber, in which the cartridge is held for firing,
is the rearmost portion of the barrel. Thus the term "pistol"
technically excludes revolvers, although this distinction is often
ignored in colloquial usage, where revolvers are commonly referred
to as "pistols."
Flintlock
The flintlock firing mechanism dates back to the 16th century,
although it was another hundred years before it was generally used
in infantry muskets, by which time it had been perfected. It
survived well into the 19th century and was often known as the
French lock because Marin le Bourgeoys, a French gunmaker working in
Paris for Henry IV's Louvre, had invented it - in about 1610. He had
modified a much more complicated mechanism into a simpler one-piece
mechanism. It was also called a firelock. The basic action is that
the trigger is pulled and a spring causes the striker, the frizzen,
to strike the flint which showers sparks on to the gunpowder in the
priming pan.
Multi-barreled
Multi-Barreled pistols such as some variants of Derringer and
Pepper-box pistols are still in circulation today. The Pepper-box
pistol is a multishot handheld firearm, which was popular in North
America around the time of the American Civil War. The pepperbox was
invented in the 1830s and was meant mainly for civilian use. It
spread rapidly in the United Kingdom and some parts of continental
Europe. It started disappearing gradually in the 1850s with the
manufacture of true revolvers by Colt, Webley and others. It was
similar to the revolver since like it, it held bullets in a rotating
cylinder, in separate chambers. Unlike the revolver however, each
bullet had its own barrel.
Revolvers
Revolvers feed ammunition via the rotation of a cartridge-filled
cylinder, in which each cartridge is contained in its own ignition
chamber, and is sequentially brought into alignment with the
weapon's barrel by a mechanism linked to the weapon's trigger
(double-action) or its hammer (single-action). These nominally
cylindrical chambers, usually numbering between five and nine
depending on the size of the revolver and the size the cartridge
being fired, are bored through the cylinder so that their axes are
parallel to the cylinder's axis of rotation; thus, as the cylinder
rotates, the chambers revolve about the cylinder's axis. Due to
simplicity of construction and operation, revolvers are considered
to be more reliable than semi-automatic pistols.
Semi-automatic pistols
Semi-automatic pistols fire one round after each pull of the
trigger, without the need to manually cock the hammer. After a round
is fired, the pistol will cycle, ejecting the spent casing and
chambering a new round from the magazine, allowing another shot to
take place immediately. One of the main advantages of semi-automatic
pistols is that many of them can hold more rounds than can a
revolver. The term automatic pistol is occasionally used to refer to
a semi-automatic pistol.
Machine pistols
A machine pistol is generally defined as a firearm designed to be
fired with one hand, and capable of fully automatic or selective
fire. While there are a number of machine pistols such as the GLOCK
18 and later models of the Mauser C96, these are rare; the light
weight, small size, and extremely rapid rates of fire of a machine
pistol make them difficult to control, making the larger, heavier
submachine gun a better choice in cases where the small size of a
machine pistol is required. Most machine pistols have the ability to
attach a shoulder stock (the Heckler & Koch VP70 would only fire
single rounds unless the stock was attached) while others, such as
the Beretta 93R, add a forward handgrip. Either of these additions
technically create a legal non-pistol under the US National Firearms
Act, as pistols are by definition designed to be fired with one
hand. The addition of a stock or forward handgrip is considered a
design change that creates either a short-barreled rifle or any
other weapon, and therefore such additions are generally only found
on legal machine guns.
Operating Mechanisms
Single-action (SA) handguns have a trigger mechanism whose sole
function is to drop a pre-cocked hammer to discharge a cartridge.
For revolvers, the popular Colt Peacemaker of Old West fame is
typically thought of. Its hammer must be manually cocked for each
shot. For auto-loading pistols the Colt 1911 or Browning Hi-Power
are typical examples. They must be cocked for the first shot, but
subsequent shots are cocked automatically. These types of guns
typically have a very light and crisp trigger pull, making for more
accurate target shooting.
Traditional double-action (TDA) handguns have a mechanism that can
be either pre-cocked, like the above single-action gun, or can be
fired with the gun uncocked. In this case, the gun has an additional
mechanism added to the trigger that will cock the gun (and rotate
the cylinder in the case of revolvers) as the trigger is pulled.
Once the trigger is pulled far enough, the hammer is released and
the gun fired. For autoloading pistols the self-loading mechanism
will also re-cock the hammer after the first shot is fired so that
subsequent shots are fired single-action. For revolvers, each shot
is fired with the hammer initially uncocked unless the shooter
manually cocked the gun. Popular auto pistols in this category
include the Walther P38 and Beretta Model 92. These guns typically
have a longer, heavier trigger pull for the first shot then light,
crisp pulls for subsequent shots. Popular revolvers include the
Ruger Redhawk and Smith & Wesson Model 629. These have long, heavy
trigger pulls for all shots unless the revolver is manually cocked.
Double-action only (DAO) handguns do not have the ability to be
cocked and is usually evidenced by a lack of either the hammer spur
or the entire hammer. A typical autopistol in this category is the
Ruger KP93DAO and Taurus Millennium, and a typical revolver is the
Smith & Wesson Model 640 "Chief's Special". All pistols in this
category have a long, heavy trigger pull for all shots.
Pre-set triggers are only on autoloading pistols. In this case the
pistol mechanism is always partially cocked while being carried and
during firing. The partially-cocked firing pin or striker is not
cocked enough to cause an accidental release to discharge a
cartridge, adding to the safeness of the design, but is cocked
enough to remove much of the trigger pull and weight of a purely
double-action pistol. These types of pistols do not have external
hammers and do not generally have a decock function. Common pistols
in the category are the Springfield Armory XD and the various forms
of the extremely popular Glock. The trigger pull of these guns is
between double-action and single-action pistols. Pre-set triggers
may or may not have a second-strike feature on a dud cartridge.
Some automatic pistol models such as the HK Heckler & Koch USP
(Universal Self-loading Pistol) come in a variety of mechanism types
and can be easily changed by a gunsmith for both left- and
right-handed shooters and for different operating mechanism and
safety features.
Advantages of pistols
Pistols are smaller, lighter, easier to conceal, and faster to bring
to bear.
Disadvantages of pistols
Generally being an emergency self-defense weapon for use under 25
metres, a handgun bullet neither has the energy nor the accuracy of
a bullet shot from a rifle.
Pistols and gun politics
Smaller pistols can also be easily concealed on a person—a trait
that is particularly useful to people wishing to carry a handgun for
self-protection or for criminals wishing to bear arms. Larger
handguns, including many hunting pistols, are often much longer and
thus less concealable. For these reasons, handguns are a particular
focus of debates on gun politics, and in many jurisdictions their
ownership is much more heavily regulated than long arms.
Gun rights supporters argue that wide legal ownership of pistols,
including the right to carry them concealed, actually deters crime
rather than increases it. In the United States, 48 states allow some
form of concealed carry by citizens meeting training or other
requirements. 39 of these states, called "shall-issue" states,
require issue of a permit if there is no compelling reason not to
issue a permit (such as a prior felony conviction, a restraining
order, or history of mental illness). The remaining 9 states, called
"may-issue" states, may deny a permit for any reason, usually at the
discretion of local law enforcement. In the United Kingdom, the
ownership of almost any pistol has been outlawed since the Dunblane
massacre of 1996.
See the main gun politics article or the article on concealed carry
in particular for more details on this debate.