
A gun is a
ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (
gun barrel) to launch
projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized
liquid
A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, an ...
(e.g. in
water guns/
cannon
A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder duri ...
s,
spray guns for
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
or
pressure washing,
projected water disruptors, and technically also
flamethrowers),
gas (e.g.
light-gas gun) or even
charged particles (e.g.
plasma gun). Solid projectiles may be free-flying (as with
bullets and
artillery shells) or tethered (as with
Taser gun
A taser is an electroshock weapon used to incapacitate people, allowing them to be approached and handled in an unresisting and thus safe manner. It is sold by Axon, formerly TASER International. It fires two small barbed darts intended ...
s,
spearguns and
harpoon guns). A large-
caliber gun is also called a ''
cannon
A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder duri ...
''.
The means of projectile propulsion vary according to designs, but are traditionally effected
pneumatically by a high
gas pressure contained within the barrel tube, produced either through the rapid
exothermic combustion of
propellants (as with
firearms), or by mechanical compression (as with
air gun
An air gun or airgun is a gun that fires projectiles pneumatically with compressed air or other gases that are mechanically pressurized ''without'' involving any chemical reactions, in contrast to a firearm, which pressurizes gases ''chemical ...
s). The high-pressure gas is introduced behind the projectile, pushing and accelerating it down the length of the tube, imparting sufficient
launch velocity to sustain its further travel towards the target once the propelling gas ceases acting upon it after it exits the
muzzle. Alternatively, new-concept
linear motor weapons may employ an
electromagnetic field
An electromagnetic field (also EM field or EMF) is a classical (i.e. non-quantum) field produced by (stationary or moving) electric charges. It is the field described by classical electrodynamics (a classical field theory) and is the classica ...
to achieve acceleration, in which case the barrel may be substituted by
guide rails (as in
railguns) or wrapped with
magnetic coils (as in
coilguns).
The first devices identified as guns or proto-guns appeared in
China from around AD 1000. By the end of the 13th century, they had become "true guns," metal barrel firearms that fired single projectiles which occluded the barrel. Gunpowder and gun technology spread throughout Eurasia during the 14th century.
Etymology and terminology

The origin of the English word ''gun'' is considered to derive from the name given to a particular historical weapon. ''Domina Gunilda'' was the name given to a remarkably large
ballista
The ballista (Latin, from Greek βαλλίστρα ''ballistra'' and that from βάλλω ''ballō'', "throw"), plural ballistae, sometimes called bolt thrower, was an ancient missile weapon that launched either bolts or stones at a distant ...
, a mechanical bolt throwing weapon of enormous size, mounted at
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history.
The original c ...
during the 14th century. This name in turn may have derived from the
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
woman's proper name ''Gunnhildr'' which combines two Norse words referring to battle. "Gunnildr", which means "War-sword", was often shortened to "Gunna".
The earliest recorded use of the term "gonne" was in a Latin document circa 1339. Other names for guns during this era were "schioppi" (Italian translation-"thunderers"), and "donrebusse" (Dutch translation-"thunder gun") which was incorporated into the English language as "blunderbuss". Artillerymen were often referred to as "gonners" and "artillers" "Hand gun" was first used in 1373 in reference to the handle of guns.
Definition
According to the
Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States.
In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...
dictionary, a gun could mean "a piece of ordnance usually with high muzzle velocity and comparatively flat trajectory," " a portable firearm," or "a device that throws a projectile."
Gunpowder and firearm historian Kenneth Chase defines "firearms" and "guns" in his ''Firearms: A Global History to 1700'' as "gunpowder weapons that use the explosive force of the gunpowder to propel a projectile from a tube: cannons, muskets, and pistols are typical examples."
True gun
According to
Tonio Andrade
Tonio Adam Andrade (born 1968) is an historian of East Asian history and the history of East Asian trading networks.
Bibliography
* ''Commerce, Culture, and Conflict: Taiwan Under European Rule, 1624–1662''. Yale University Press, 2000.
* ''H ...
, a historian of gunpowder technology, a "true gun" is defined as a firearm which shoots a bullet that fits the barrel as opposed to one which does not, such as the shrapnel shooting
fire lance. As such, the fire lance, which appeared between the 10th and 12th centuries AD, as well as other early metal barrel gunpowder weapons have been described as "proto-guns" Joseph Needham defined a type of firearm known as the "eruptor," which he described as a cross between a fire lance and a gun, as a "proto-gun" for the same reason. He defined a fully developed firearm, a "true gun," as possessing three basic features: a metal barrel, gunpowder with high nitrate content, and a projectile that occluded the barrel. The "true gun" appears to have emerged in late 1200s China, around 300 years after the appearance of the fire lance. Although the term "gun" postdates the invention of firearms, historians have applied it to the earliest firearms such as the
Heilongjiang hand cannon of 1288 or the vase shaped European cannon of 1326.
Classic gun
Historians consider firearms to have reached the form of a "classic gun" in the 1480s, which persisted until the mid-18th century. This "classic" form displayed longer, lighter, more efficient, and more accurate design compared to its predecessors only 30 years prior. However this "classic" design changed very little for almost 300 years and cannons of the 1480s show little difference and surprising similarity with cannons later in the 1750s. This 300-year period during which the classic gun dominated gives it its moniker. The "classic gun" has also been described as the "modern ordnance synthesis."
History
Proto-gun
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate ( saltpeter) ...
was invented in China during the 9th century.
The first firearm was the
fire lance, which appeared in China between the 10–12th centuries. It was depicted in a silk painting dated to the mid-10th but textual evidence of its use does not appear until 1132, describing the
siege of De'an. It consisted of a bamboo tube of gunpowder tied to a spear or other polearm. By the late 1100s, ingredients such as pieces of shrapnel like porcelain shards or small iron pellets were added to the tube so that they would be blown out with the gunpowder. It was relatively short ranged and had a range of roughly 3 meters by the early 13th century. This fire lance is considered by some historians to be a "proto-gun" because its projectiles did not occlude the barrel. There was also another "proto-gun" called the eruptor, according to Joseph Needham, which did not have a lance but still did not shoot projectiles which occluded the barrel.
Transition to true guns
In due course, the proportion of
saltpeter in the propellant was increased to maximise its explosive power. To better withstand that explosive power, the paper and
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...
of which fire-lance barrels were originally made came to be replaced by metal.
[ And to take full advantage of that power, the shrapnel came to be replaced by projectiles whose size and shape filled the barrel more closely. Fire lance barrels made of metal appeared by 1276. Earlier in 1259 a pellet wad that filled the barrel was recorded to have been used as a fire lance projectile, making it the first recorded bullet in history. With this, the three basic features of a gun were put in place: 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. The metal barrel fire lances began to be used without the lance and became guns by the late 13th century.
Guns such as the hand cannon were being used in the Yuan dynasty by the 1280s. Surviving cannons such as the Heilongjiang hand cannon and the Xanadu Gun have been found dating to the late 13th century and possibly earlier in the early 13th century.
In 1287, the Yuan dynasty deployed Jurchen troops with hand cannons to put down a rebellion by the ]Mongol
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...
prince Nayan. The '' History of Yuan'' records that the cannons of Li Ting's soldiers "caused great damage" and created "such confusion that the enemy soldiers attacked and killed each other." The hand cannons were used again in the beginning of 1288. Li Ting's "gun-soldiers" or ''chongzu'' () carried the hand cannons "on their backs". The passage on the 1288 battle is also the first to use the name ''chong'' () with the metal radical ''jin'' () for metal-barrel firearms. ''Chong'' was used instead of the earlier and more ambiguous term ''huo tong'' (fire tube; ), which may refer to the tubes of fire lances, proto-cannons, or signal flares. Hand cannons may have been used in the Mongol invasions of Japan. Japanese descriptions of the invasions mention iron and bamboo ''pao'' causing "light and fire" and emitting 2–3,000 iron bullets. The ''Nihon Kokujokushi'', written around 1300, mentions ''huo tong'' (fire tubes) at the Battle of Tsushima in 1274 and the second coastal assault led by Holdon in 1281. The ''Hachiman Gudoukun'' of 1360 mentions iron ''pao'' "which caused a flash of light and a loud noise when fired." The ''Taiheki'' of 1370 mentions "iron ''pao'' shaped like a bell."
Spread
The exact nature of the spread of firearms and its route is uncertain. One theory is that gunpowder and cannons arrived in Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...
via the Silk Road through the Middle East. Hasan al-Rammah had already written about fire lances in the 13th century, so proto-guns were known in the Middle East at that point. Another theory is that it was brought to Europe during the Mongol invasion in the first half of the 13th century.[
The earliest depiction of a cannon in ]Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...
dates to 1326 and evidence of firearm production can be found in the following year. The first recorded use of gunpowder weapons in Europe was in 1331 when two mounted German knights attacked Cividale del Friuli with gunpowder weapons of some sort. By 1338 hand cannons were in widespread use in France. English Privy Wardrobe accounts list "ribaldis", a type of cannon, in the 1340s, and siege guns were used by the English at Calais
Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. The p ...
in 1346. Early guns and the men who used them were often associated with the devil and the gunner's craft was considered a black art, a point reinforced by the smell of sulfur
Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formul ...
on battlefields created from the firing of guns along with the muzzle blast and accompanying flash.
Around the late 14th century in Europe, smaller and portable hand-held cannon
A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder duri ...
s were developed, creating in effect the first smooth-bore personal firearm. In the late 15th century the Ottoman empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
used firearms as part of its regular infantry.
In the Middle East, the Arabs seem to have used the hand cannon to some degree during the 14th century. Cannons are attested to in India starting from 1366.
The Joseon kingdom in Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republi ...
learned how to produce gunpowder from China by 1372 and started producing cannons by 1377. In Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, Đại Việt
Đại Việt (, ; literally Great Việt), often known as Annam ( vi, An Nam, Chữ Hán: 安南), was a monarchy in eastern Mainland Southeast Asia from the 10th century AD to the early 19th century, centered around the region of present-day ...
soldiers used hand cannons at the very latest by 1390 when they employed them in killing Champa
Champa ( Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ; km, ចាម្ប៉ា; vi, Chiêm Thành or ) were a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is contemporary central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd ...
king Che Bong Nga. Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
was confirmed to use hand cannon in 1413 during Zheng He's voyage. Japan knew of gunpowder due to the Mongol invasions during the 13th century, but did not acquire a cannon until a monk took one back to Japan from China in 1510, and guns were not produced until 1543, when the Portuguese introduced matchlocks which were known as tanegashima to the Japanese.
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate ( saltpeter) ...
technology entered Java in the Mongol invasion of Java (1293 A.D.).[Schlegel, Gustaaf (1902). "On the Invention and Use of Fire-Arms and Gunpowder in China, Prior to the Arrival of European". ''T'oung Pao''. 3: 1–11.][Reid, Anthony (1993). ''Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680. Volume Two: Expansion and Crisis''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.] Majapahit under ''Mahapatih'' (prime minister) Gajah Mada utilized gunpowder technology obtained from the Yuan dynasty for use in the naval fleet. During the following years, the Majapahit army have begun producing cannons known as cetbang. Early cetbang (also called Eastern-style cetbang) resembled Chinese cannons and hand cannons. Eastern-style cetbangs were mostly made of bronze and were front-loaded cannons. It fires arrow-like projectiles, but round bullets and co-viative projectiles can also be used. These arrows can be solid-tipped without explosives, or with explosives and incendiary materials placed behind the tip. Near the rear, there is a combustion chamber or room, which refers to the bulging part near the rear of the gun, where the gunpowder is placed. The cetbang is mounted on a fixed mount, or as a hand cannon mounted on the end of a pole. There is a tube-like section on the back of the cannon. In the hand cannon type cetbang, this tube is used as a place to stick poles.[Averoes, Muhammad (2020). Antara Cerita dan Sejarah: Meriam Cetbang Majapahit. ''Jurnal Sejarah'', 3(2), 89 - 100.]
Arquebus and musket
The arquebus
An arquebus ( ) is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier.
Although the term ''arquebus'', derived from the Dutch word ''Haakbu ...
was a firearm that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the early 15th century. Its name is derived from the German word ''Hackenbüchse''. It originally described a hand cannon with a lug or hook on the underside for stabilizing the weapon, usually on defensive fortifications. In the early 1500s, heavier variants known as "musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket graduall ...
s" that were fired from resting Y-shaped supports appeared. The musket was able to penetrate heavy armor, and as a result armor declined, which also made the heavy musket obsolete. Although there is relatively little to no difference in design between arquebus and musket except in size and strength, it was the term ''musket'' which remained in use up into the 1800s. It may not be completely inaccurate to suggest that the musket was in its fabrication simply a larger arquebus. At least on one occasion the musket and arquebus have been used interchangeably to refer to the same weapon, and even referred to as an "arquebus musket." A Habsburg commander in the mid-1560s once referred to muskets as "double arquebuses."
A shoulder stock was added to the arquebus around 1470 and the matchlock mechanism sometime before 1475. The matchlock arquebus was the first firearm equipped with a trigger mechanism and the first portable shoulder-arms firearm. Before the matchlock, handheld firearms were fired from the chest, tucked under one arm, while the other arm maneuvered a hot pricker to the touch hole to ignite the gunpowder.
The Ottomans may have used arquebuses as early as the first half of the 15th century during the Ottoman–Hungarian wars of 1443–1444. The arquebus was used in substantial numbers during the reign of king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (r. 1458–1490). Arquebuses were used by 1472 by the Spanish and Portuguese at Zamora. Likewise, the Castilians used arquebuses as well in 1476. Later, a larger arquebus known as a musket was used for breaching heavy armor, but this declined along with heavy armor. Matchlock firearms continued to be called musket. They were used throughout Asia by the mid-1500s.
Transition to classic guns
Guns reached their "classic" form in the 1480s. The "classic gun" is so called because of the long duration of its design, which was longer, lighter, more efficient, and more accurate compared to its predecessors 30 years prior. The design persisted for nearly 300 years and cannons of the 1480s show little variation from as well as surprising similarity with cannons three centuries later in the 1750s. This 300-year period during which the classic gun dominated gives it its moniker.
The classic gun differed from older generations of firearms through an assortment of improvements. Their longer length-to-bore ratio imparted more energy into the shot, enabling the projectile to shoot further. They were also lighter since the barrel walls were thinner, allowing faster dissipation of heat. They no longer needed the help of a wooden plug to load since they offered a tighter fit between projectile and barrel, further increasing the accuracy of firearms – and were deadlier due to developments such as gunpowder corning and iron shot.
Modern guns
Several developments in the 19th century led to the development of modern guns.
In 1815, Joshua Shaw invented percussion caps, which replaced the flintlock trigger system. The new percussion caps allowed guns to shoot reliably in any weather condition.
In 1835, Casimir Lefaucheux invented the first practical breech loading firearm with a cartridge. The new cartridge contained a conical bullet, a cardboard powder tube, and a copper base that incorporated a primer pellet.
Rifles
While rifled guns did exist prior to the 19th century in the form of grooves cut into the interior of a barrel, these were considered specialist weapons and limited in number.
The rate of fire of handheld guns began to increase drastically. In 1836, Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse invented the Dreyse needle gun, a breech-loading rifle which increased the rate of fire to six times that of muzzle loading weapons. In 1854, Volcanic Repeating Arms produced a rifle with a self-contained cartridge.
In 1849, Claude-Étienne Minié invented the Minié ball, the first projectile that could easily slide down a rifled barrel, which made rifles a viable military firearm, ending the smoothbore musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket graduall ...
era. Rifles were deployed during the Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included t ...
with resounding success and proved vastly superior to smoothbore muskets.
In 1860, Benjamin Tyler Henry created the Henry rifle, the first reliable repeating rifle. An improved version of the Henry rifle was developed by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1873, known as the Model 1873 Winchester rifle.
Smokeless powder was invented in 1880 and began replacing gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate ( saltpeter) ...
, which came to be known as black powder. By the start of the 20th century, smokeless powder was adopted throughout the world and black powder, what was previously known as gunpowder, was relegated to hobbyist usage.
Machine guns
In 1861, Richard Jordan Gatling invented the Gatling gun, the first successful machine gun, capable of firing 200 gunpowder cartridges in a minute. It was fielded by the Union forces during the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...
in the 1860s. In 1884, Hiram Maxim invented the Maxim gun
The Maxim gun is a recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim. It was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world.
The Maxim gun has been called "the weapon most associated with imperial conquest" by historia ...
, the first single-barreled machine gun.
The world's first submachine gun (a fully automatic firearm which fires pistol cartridges) able to be maneuvered by a single soldier is the MP 18.1, invented by Theodor Bergmann. It was introduced into service in 1918 by the German Army during World War I as the primary weapon of the Stosstruppen
Stormtroopers (german: Sturmtruppen or ''Stoßtruppen'') were specialist soldiers of the German Army. In the last years of World War I, ''Stoßtruppen'' ("shock troopers" or "shove troopers") were trained to use infiltration tactics – part of ...
(assault groups specialized in trench combat).
In civilian use, the captive bolt pistol is used in agriculture to humanely stun farm animals for slaughter.
The first assault rifle was introduced during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
by the Germans, known as the StG44
The StG 44 (abbreviation of Sturmgewehr 44, "assault rifle 44") is a German assault rifle developed during World War II by Hugo Schmeisser. It is also known by its early designations as the MP 43 and MP 44 (''Maschinenpistole 43'' and ''44''). ...
. It was the first firearm to bridge the gap between long range rifles, machine guns, and short range submachine guns. Since the mid-20th century, guns that fire beams of energy rather than solid projectiles have been developed, and als