|
Prior to about 1950, the term "pistol" was in common use for a gun designed to be aimed and fired with one hand, or what we now call "handgun". Laws and documents written before that time usually referred to "pistol", to include revolvers and pistols. Then some purists began to insist that the term "pistol" applied (or should apply) only to semi-auto pistols, repeating pistols, and single shot pistols, with the term defined as a gun designed to be held in one hand, and having a single chamber. Revolvers, these folks insisted, were not pistols (by their definition) and the term pistol did not include revolvers. Even a few lawyers got into the act, claiming that their clients could not be convicted of carrying a "pistol" since the defendant was carrying a revolver.
As a result some legal definitions were changed, and the term "handgun" was adopted to include both pistols and revolvers, in other words to take the place of the previous term "pistol". It was nonsense then, and it is still nonsense, a petty argument not unlike the silly ranting about the terms "silencer" and "suppressor".
Jim
|