the.com/gun
a tube that turns a chemical tantrum into someone else's worst day
means a weapon that uses an explosive charge to fire a projectile through a tube, or any device shaped or working like one.
from The word likely comes from a woman's name. Medieval war machines were sometimes given pet names, and one large ballista-like engine at Windsor Castle, recorded in a 14th-century inventory, was called 'Domina Gunilda' — Lady Gunilda — from the Old Norse woman's name Gunnhildr, itself built from two words for 'war' (gunnr and hildr). So a name meaning 'battle-battle' got shortened to 'gunne,' and the term stuck even as the machines became the firearms we know.
- oldest one
- China's 12th-century fire lance predates the cannon
- recoil math
- every shot kicks back equal force, per Newton
- sound speed
- the crack is the bullet breaking the sound barrier
- naval origin
- early cannons named after the woman Gunilda
- barrel grooves
- spiral rifling spins bullets for gyroscopic accuracy
colt peacemaker — revolver manufactured since 1873, iconic american west handgun with .45 caliber
ak-47 — assault rifle designed by mikhail kalashnikov in 1947, most widely used firearm globally
m1 garand — semiautomatic rifle standard issue for us military in world war ii