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Handgun is a firearm that is operated with one hand. Other types of guns, such as rifles and machine guns, require the use of both hands, a tripod (three-legged stand), or a shooting rest.
Handguns are carried primarily by the police and by the armed forces. But in the United States, private citizens own about 100 million handguns, and about 1 million are owned by private citizens in Canada. These citizens use handguns for target shooting, hunting, and protection. Some people also collect antique or classic handguns. Nevertheless, about 20,000 handgun-related deaths occur in the United States annually, and about 2,000 in Canada. They include suicides, homicides, self-defense killings, and accidents.
Parts of a handgun Handguns vary in appearance, size, type of ammunition used, and method of operation, but they all include the same basic parts. These parts are the frame, the grip, the barrel, the sights, and the action.
The frame is the main body of the gun that connects the other parts. The grip is the handle of the gun, and the barrel is the metal tube through which the bullet is fired. The lands and grooves are alternating raised surfaces and channels inside the barrel. They cause the bullet to spin and thus make it travel in a direct path.
The shooter uses the sights to line up the handgun with the target. Some sights can be adjusted to help aim the gun more easily. All handguns made for target shooting have adjustable sights.
The action includes the main working parts of the handgun. It consists of such parts as the trigger, the hammer, and the cartridge chamber. The type of action determines how the handgun is loaded and fired.
Types of handguns
There are five main types of handguns: (1) single-action revolvers, (2) double-action revolvers, (3) single-action semiautomatic pistols, (4) double-action semiautomatic pistols, and (5) single-shot pistols. Revolvers carry ammunition in chambers in a rotating cylinder. Most pistols are loaded with clips of ammunition. Clips are metal holders inserted in the gun's butt (thicker end).
Single-action revolvers typically hold six cartridges. An arm near the hammer rotates the cylinder one-sixth of a turn when the hammer is cocked. This movement puts a cartridge into line with the barrel and the firing pin (part that strikes the primer to fire the cartridge). After cocking the hammer, the shooter pulls the trigger. The hammer unlocks and falls, exploding the cartridge. The Colt single-action Army revolver, first produced in the 1870's, is the most famous weapon of this type.
Double-action revolvers, like single-action revolvers, typically hold six cartridges. But, unlike single-action revolvers, double-action revolvers do not require the user to manually cock the hammer before firing. Instead, the gun is fired by only pulling the trigger. When the trigger is pulled, a lock that holds the cylinder in place is released and the hammer revolves the cylinder. When the next chamber is lined up with the barrel, the cylinder locking bolt is raised into the locking notch, securing the cylinder. The hammer then falls and fires the cartridge. The cycle is repeated for the next shot.
The main advantage of the double-action revolver over the single-action revolver is that it can be fired rapidly. The Smith & Wesson military and police revolver is one of the most popular double-action revolvers. This weapon was first introduced in 1905.
Single-action semiautomatic pistols are fired by first pulling back a device called a slide to cock the hammer. When the slide is released, it moves forward and feeds a round from the clip into the cartridge chamber. When the shooter pulls the trigger, the hammer falls, striking the primer and exploding the gunpowder in the cartridge. The explosion causes the slide to move backward. This recoil automatically removes the empty cartridge and recocks the gun. When the slide moves forward again, it reloads the chamber. The most famous single-action semiautomatic is the Colt .45 automatic pistol. It served as the standard sidearm of the U.S. armed forces from 1911 until 1985.
Double-action semiautomatic pistols operate somewhat like double-action revolvers. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer goes through the firing cycle and fires the cartridge. After the initial shot, the pistol begins to operate like a single-action semiautomatic pistol. The recoil of the first shot forces out the empty cartridge case, cocks the hammer, and inserts a new cartridge from the clip into the cartridge chamber. Double-action semiautomatics are widely used by sports enthusiasts and police officers. In 1985, the 9-millimeter Beretta, a double-action semiautomatic pistol, became the standard sidearm of the U.S. armed forces. Other popular models include the Smith & Wesson Model 39 and the Walther PPK.
Single-shot pistols are used chiefly in international target-shooting competitions. To load a single-shot pistol, the user moves the operating lever (part that opens and closes the action) forward and down to lower the breech block and to cock the firing pin. The breech block closes the breech of the gun--that is, the part behind the barrel. After the breech block has been lowered, the cartridge chamber is exposed. The user then inserts a cartridge into the chamber. Next, the operating lever is pulled up and back to close the chamber and move the cartridge into the closed position. The pistol is then ready to fire. When the trigger is pulled, the firing pin drops, exploding the cartridge. The procedure is then repeated to remove the cartridge and reload the pistol. Famous single-shot pistols include the Hammerli Free Pistol, the Walther, and the Martini.
History
Early handguns. The first gun that could be operated with one hand was the matchlock gun, which appeared in the 1400's. It was fired by attaching a burning cord or match to the end of an S-shaped holder called a serpentine. In the early 1500's, the wheel-lock gun was invented. Its metal wheel struck a spark when it revolved against a piece of pyrite. With the wheel lock, soldiers no longer had to carry flames to ignite the gunpowder.
During the mid-1500's, snaphance pistols, which were easier to operate than the wheel lock, came into widespread use. In the 1600's and 1700's, many kinds of gunlocks were developed, including the flintlock (see FLINTLOCK). In 1807, Alexander Forsyth, a Scottish inventor, introduced the percussion system. Percussion-system pistols were loaded from the muzzle, with a sliding can of priming powder on the breech. Small handguns called derringers are descended from percussion- system pistols, but are breech loaded. They are named for Henry Deringer, Jr., a U.S. pistol maker of the 1800's.
Rapid-fire handguns. One of the first practical revolvers was the Colt Paterson, patented in England in 1835 by Samuel Colt, a U.S. inventor. In 1857, the U.S. inventors Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson began producing revolvers that used cartridges.
The Borchardt, the first self-loading semiautomatic pistol, appeared in 1893. It had an eight- cartridge clip placed in the hollow of the grip. George Luger, an Austrian-born inventor, improved the Borchardt in the early 1900's. In 1897, John M. Browning, a U.S. inventor, patented an automatic pistol that became the basis for later automatics, including the Colt .45.
Gun control
In the United States, more than 22,000 federal, state, and local laws restrict the use of firearms. Thousands of these laws pertain to handguns. Some laws prohibit the ownership of handguns. Others require investigations of the background of anyone wishing to buy a handgun.
In Canada, people seeking to buy a handgun must have a specific reason for owning one. Few Canadians are allowed to own handguns only for protection. Most European countries require handguns to be licensed or registered. But enforcement of these laws varies widely.
People who favor handgun control laws believe these laws reduce crime and handgun-related deaths. Many of them say there are no legitimate reasons for private ownership of handguns. Opponents of handgun control say handguns have many legitimate uses. They argue that laws against owning handguns affect only law-abiding citizens and not criminals. They also believe that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees individuals the right to own firearms.
Gun control is an effort to fight violent crime by strengthening laws on the ownership of firearms. The use of a gun in a crime is more likely to result in a person's death than is the use of most other kinds of weapons, including knives. Many people own guns for the protection of their home, for use in hunting or target shooting, or for other legitimate reasons. Gun control laws aim to reduce the criminal use of guns as much as possible and, at the same time, to interfere as little as possible with other gun use.
Approaches to gun control.
The federal government and all U.S. states have some gun control laws. These laws use two main approaches to reducing gun violence. The first approach involves keeping certain high-risk people from obtaining firearms. The second prohibits high-risk guns from being acquired by anyone but the police.
High-risk people are those whom authorities consider most likely to misuse firearms. They include alcoholics, drug addicts, mentally unbalanced people, and people with criminal records. Federal and state laws prohibit these people from owning guns. The laws also prohibit sales of firearms to minors.
In the United States and other countries, special laws have been adopted to give law enforcement officials a chance to make sure the potential buyer is not a high-risk person. For example, some U.S. communities require a person who wishes to own a gun to first get a license. In 1994, the U.S. Congress passed the "Brady Bill," which makes gun buyers go through a waiting period of five working days between the time they purchase a handgun (revolver or pistol) and the time they take possession of it. Some U.S. states also have laws that provide for even longer waiting periods before a person can take possession of a newly purchased handgun or that impose a waiting period on the purchase of other types of firearms. Under Canadian law, gun buyers must wait 28 days to buy a gun.
High-risk firearms are those considered more likely to be misused than ordinary firearms. Since 1934, for example, U.S. federal law has placed special restrictions on machine guns--which can fire many bullets with a single pull of the trigger--and sawed-off (short-barreled) shotguns. A law passed by Congress in 1994 bans the sale of certain semiautomatic guns, often called assault weapons. These guns require a separate pull of the trigger to fire each bullet but can quickly fire many bullets.
Some communities have laws that forbid the ownership of handguns by ordinary citizens. Backers of such laws argue that handguns are involved in many accidental shootings and have little value in household self-defense.
Opposition to gun control.
People opposed to gun control argue that taking guns from law-abiding citizens does not prevent the possession of guns by criminals. People who oppose licensing and waiting periods argue that legitimate gun owners must pay the cost of the procedures and bear the inconvenience of waiting periods.
U.S. citizens who oppose gun control argue that such regulations violate their right to own guns. Many of these people claim that this right is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment reads: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." However, in 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the amendment does not prohibit most gun control laws.