A gun is a normally tubular weapon or other device designed to discharge project

iles or other material.[1] The projectile may be solid, liquid, gas or energy an
d may be free, as with bullets and artillery shells, or captive as with Taser pr
obes and whaling harpoons. The means of projection varies according to design bu
t is usually effected by the action of gas pressure, either produced through the
rapid combustion of a propellant or compressed and stored by mechanical means,
operating on the projectile inside an open-ended tube in the fashion of a piston
. The confined gas accelerates the movable projectile down the length of the tub
e, imparting sufficient velocity to sustain the projectile's travel once the act
ion of the gas ceases at the end of the tube or muzzle. Alternatively, accelerat
ion via electromagnetic field generation may be employed in which case the tube
may be dispensed with and a guide rail substituted.
The first devices identified as guns appeared in China around CE 1000. By the 12
th century the technology was spreading through the rest of Asia, and into Europ
e by the 13th century.[2]
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 History
3 Operating principle
4 Components
4.1 Barrel
4.2 Projectile
5 Terminology
6 Types of guns
6.1 Military guns
6.2 Machine guns
6.3 Handguns
6.4 Autocannon guns
6.5 Artillery guns
6.6 Tank guns
6.7 Hunting guns
6.8 Rescue equipment guns
6.9 Training and entertainment guns
6.10 Fictional guns
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
Etymology
The origin of the English word gun is considered to derive from the name given t
o a particular historical weapon. Domina Gunilda was the name given to a remarka
bly large ballista, a mechanical bolt throwing weapon of enormous size, mounted
at Windsor Castle during the 14C. This name in turn may have derived from the Ol
d Norse woman's proper name Gunnhildr which combines two Norse words referring t
o battle.[3] In any case the term gonne or gunne was applied to early hand-held
firearms by the late 14C. or early 15C.
History
Further information: History of the firearm
Hand cannon from the Chinese Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)
Western European handgun, 1380
Depiction of a musketeer (1608)
The first device identified as a gun, a bamboo tube that used gunpowder to fire
a spear, appeared in China around AD 1000.[2] The Chinese had previously invente
d gunpowder in the 9th century.[4][5][6]

An early type of firearm (or portable gun) is the fire lance, a black-powder fille
d tube attached to the end of a spear and used as a flamethrower; shrapnel was s
ometimes placed in the barrel so that it would fly out together with the flames.
[6][7] The earliest depiction of a gunpowder weapon is the illustration of a fir
e-lance on a mid-10th century silk banner from Dunhuang.[8] The De'an Shoucheng
Lu, an account of the siege of De'an in 1132, records that Song forces used fire
-lances against the Jurchens.[9]
In due course, the proportion of saltpeter in the propellant was increased to ma
ximise its explosive power.[7] To better withstand that explosive power, the pap
er and bamboo of which fire-lance barrels were originally made came to be replac
ed by metal.[6] And to take full advantage of that power, the shrapnel came to b
e replaced by projectiles whose size and shape filled the barrel more closely.[7
] With this, we have the three basic features of the gun: a barrel made of metal
, high-nitrate gunpowder, and a projectile which totally occludes the muzzle so
that the powder charge exerts its full potential in propellant effect.[10]
One theory of how gunpowder came to Europe is that it made its way along the Sil
k Road through the Middle East; another is that it was brought to Europe during
the Mongol invasion in the first half of the 13th century.[11][12] English Privy
Wardrobe accounts list "ribaldis", a type of cannon, in the 1340s, and siege gu
ns were used by the English at Calais in 1346.[13] The earliest surviving firear
m in Europe has been found from Otep, Estonia and it dates to at least 1396.[14]
Around the late 14th century in Europe, smaller and portable hand-held cannons w
ere developed, creating in effect the first smooth-bore personal firearm. In the
late 15th century the Ottoman empire used firearms as part of its regular infan
try.
The first successful rapid-fire firearm is the Gatling Gun, invented by Richard
Gatling and fielded by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 186
0s.
The world's first sub-machine gun (a fully automatic firearm which fires pistol
cartridges) able to be maneuvered by a single soldier is the MP18.1, invented by
Theodor Bergmann. It was introduced into service in 1918 by the German Army dur
ing World War I as the primary weapon of the Stosstruppen (assault groups specia
lized in trench combat).
The first assault rifle was introduced during World War II by the Germans, known
as the StG44. It was the first firearm which bridges the gap between long range
rifles, machine guns, and short range sub-machine guns. Since the mid-20th cent
ury guns that fire beams of energy rather than solid projectiles have been devel
oped, and also guns that can be fired by means other than the use of gunpowder.
Operating principle
Most guns use compressed gas confined by the barrel to propel the bullet up to h
igh speed, though devices operating in other ways are sometimes called guns. In
firearms the high-pressure gas is generated by combustion, usually of gunpowder.
This principle is similar to that of internal combustion engines, except that t
he bullet leaves the barrel, while the piston transfers its motion to other part
s and returns down the cylinder. As in an internal combustion engine, the combus
tion propagates by deflagration rather than by detonation, and the optimal gunpo
wder, like the optimal motor fuel, is resistant to detonation. This is because m
uch of the energy generated in detonation is in the form of a shock wave, which
can propagate from the gas to the solid structure and heat or damage the structu
re, rather than staying as heat to propel the piston or bullet. The shock wave a
t such high temperature and pressure is much faster than that of any bullet, and
would leave the gun as sound either through the barrel or the bullet itself rat
her than contributing to the bullet's velocity.

Components
Barrel
Rifling of a 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7 tank gun.
Barrel types include rifled a series of spiraled grooves or angles within the barr
el when the projectile requires an induced spin to stabilize it, and smoothbore wh
en the projectile is stabilized by other means or rifling is undesired or unnece
ssary. Typically, interior barrel diameter and the associated projectile size is
a means to identify gun variations. Bore diameter is reported in several ways.
The more conventional measure is reporting the interior diameter (bore) of the b
arrel in decimal fractions of the inch or in millimetres. Some guns such as shotgu
ns report the weapon's gauge (which is the number of shot pellets having the same
diameter as the bore produced from one English pound (454g) of lead) or as in some
British ordnance the weight of the weapon's usual projectile.
Projectile
A gun projectile may be a simple, single-piece item like a bullet, a casing cont
aining a payload like a shotshell or explosive shell, or complex projectile like
a sub-caliber projectile and sabot. The propellant may be air, an explosive sol
id, or an explosive liquid. Some variations like the Gyrojet and certain other t
ypes combine the projectile and propellant into a single item.
Terminology
The term gun may refer to any sort of projectile weapon from large cannons to sm
all firearms including those that are usually hand-held (handgun).[15] The word
gun is also commonly used to describe objects which, while they are not themselv
es weapons, produce an effect or possess a form which is in some way evocative o
f a handgun or long gun.
The use of the term "cannon" is interchangeable with "gun" as words borrowed fro
m the French language during the early 15th century, from Old French canon, itse
lf a borrowing from the Italian cannone, a "large tube" augmentative of Latin ca
nna "reed or cane".[16] Recent scholarship indicates that the term "gun" may hav
e its origins in the Norse woman's name "Gunnildr" (which means "War-sword") (or
"Gunnild", possibly Queen Gunhild of Wenden, wife of King Sweyn Forkbeard[citat
ion needed]), which was often shortened to "Gunna".[17] The earliest recorded us
e of the term "gonne" was in a Latin document circa 1339. Other names for guns d
uring this era were "schioppi" (Italian translation-"thunderers"), and "donrebus
se" (Dutch translation-"thunder gun") which was incorporated into the English la
nguage as "blunderbuss".[17] Artillerymen were often referred to as "gonners" an
d "artillers"[18] Early guns and the men who used them were often associated wit
h the devil and the gunner's craft was considered a black art, a point reinforce
d by the smell of sulfur on battlefields created from the firing of guns along w
ith the muzzle blast and accompanying flash.[19]
The word cannon is retained in some cases for the actual gun tube but not the we
apon system. The title gunner is applied to the member of the team charged with
operating, aiming, and firing a gun.
Autocannons are automatic guns designed primarily to fire shells and are mounted
on a vehicle or other mount. Machine guns are similar, but usually designed to
fire simple projectiles. In some calibers and some usages, these two definitions
overlap.
In contemporary military and naval parlance the term gun has a very specific mea
ning and refers solely to any large-calibre, direct-fire, high-velocity, flat-tr
ajectory artillery piece employing an explosive-filled hollowed metal shell or s
olid bolt as its primary projectile.[citation needed] This later usage contrasts
with large-calibre, high-angle, low-velocity, indirect-fire weapons such as how

itzers, mortars, and grenade launchers which invariantly employ explosive-filled

shells. In other military use, the term "gun" refers primarily to direct fire w
eapons that capitalize on their muzzle velocity for penetration or range. In mod
ern parlance, these weapons are breech-loaded and built primarily for long range
fire with a low or almost flat ballistic arc. A variation is the howitzer or gu
n-howitzer designed to offer the ability to fire both low or high-angle ballisti
c arcs. In this use, example guns include naval guns. A less strict application
of the word is to identify one artillery weapon system or non-machine gun projec
tile armament on aircraft.
A related military use of the word is in describing gun-type fission weapon. In
this instance, the "gun" is part of a nuclear weapon and contains an explosively
propelled sub-critical slug of fissile material within a barrel to be fired int
o a second sub-critical mass in order to initiate the fission reaction. Potentia
lly confused with this usage are small nuclear devices capable of being fired by
artillery or recoilless rifle.
In civilian use, the captive bolt pistol is used in agriculture to humanely stun
farm animals for slaughter.[20]
Shotguns are normally civilian weapons used primarily for hunting. These weapons
are typically smooth bored and fire a shell containing small lead or steel ball
s. Variations use rifled barrels or fire other projectiles including solid lead
slugs, a Taser XREP projectile capable of stunning a target, or other payloads.
In military versions, these weapons are often used to burst door hinges or locks
in addition to antipersonnel uses.