I got this letter recently:

First of all, I absolutely love your website. In fact, I visit it religiously and have bookmarked it on all of the computers in my school’s lab…but anyway, I have a little suggestion for your website! You seem to know a whole lot about guns, which is very cool. I, however, don’t. I find this to be very sad, seeing as I am an extremely patriotic and violent warmonger-y American. I do own a gun that my father gave me when I left home for the first time, and I know how to use it, but to this day I have no clue what the heck it is. All I know is that it makes a big noise and is extremely effective in killing people. Though I’m sure you’re very busy, I think it would be beneficial if you made a “guns for dummies” type page where you explain different guns and what kind of power they have. This would be great for us females, in case a communist/hippy/ninja/Hillary Clinton shows up at our doorstep while we’re ironing or something. I just thought I’d leave you with that little suggestion, and thanks for the great site!

-Mackynzie G.

I think that’s a great idea, as I always love to help the community. I’ve already written a history of guns and a list of gun safety tips, but I guess I could do more. So maybe now I can start my own series on guns to discuss all other aspects of them. Let’s start with the basics.

There are many different types of guns, but they all work on the same principle in the end: there is a hole you point at who you want dead. That’s called the “kill’n hole”. The kill’n hole is at the end of the tube, known as the barrel. The action of the gun is started by pulling what most people call the trigger, though the technical term is the “kill’n activator”. When you pull the kill’n activator, the hammer is released and the “let’s kill something pin” (a.k.a. firing pin) flies forward. This strikes the cartridge (the “kill’n fuel” of the gun) in its “kill’n catalyst” (a.k.a. primer). This causes a spark which ignites the gun powder (which is only known as the gun powder) which then explodes and sends the bullet or slug or, more scientifically, the “roundy, pointy thing which flies fast does the killer’n” through the barrel. It is stabilized by groves in the barrel known as “grooves” which were initially added to the gun to spice up the opening of James Bond movies.

Here are the different types of guns:

• Revolver: this is a gun with a cylinder that “revolves”

• Semi-automatic pistol: this is a pistol that’s sorta automatic

• Shotgun: this is a “gun” that fires “shot”

• Rifle: I don’t what the hell this is. Apparently it’s rifled or something

• Machine gun: This is a gun that uses a little machine to fire bullets rapidly. Don’t bother looking for the machine; it’s very small.

• Sub-machine gun: Like a machine gun, but it goes underwater.

• Glue gun: Fires hot glue. If you’re creative, it’s great for arts and crafts. If you’re really, really creative, you can kill someone with it.

Let’s see, what’s left about gun basics… Oh yeah, there’s what you hold the gun by. This is either a “grip” or a “butt”. More generally, this is known as the “beat’n end” of the gun.

CAUTION: Never confuse the kill’n end with the beat’n end of a gun. This is especially important when firing the gun and when affixing a bayonet.

Also, there is the way different guns load more ammo. A revolver simply has many chambers with bullets which rotates each bullet into “kill’n position”. This is effective and makes it easier to fire the gun if you have a bullet that doesn’t fire, a.k.a. dud or hippy bullet. For automatics and semi-automatics, the gun loads from a magazine. Sometimes this is called a clip, but never use that term in a post or you’ll get an angry e-mail telling you that you used the wrong nomenclature. To tell how many bullets a magazine holds, keep pushing bullets into it until you finally exclaim, “This is too hard; I give up.” Sometime one more bullet can be put in the magazine if you have a friend helping by yelling at you, “Don’t be such a pussy; you can fit one more bullet in there.”

The last important gun basic is whether you have a single action or double action gun. In a single action gun, you have to cock the gun yourself. That sounds dirty, but it just means to pull the hammer back (that’s located at the top of beat’n end of the gun). Eventually, people got lazy, and then double-action guns were invented so that you just had to pull the trigger and the hammer works itself. Also, for semi-automatics, they’ll cock the hammer for you each time they fire; isn’t that nice of them. Some guns, though, like the Glock, don’t have a visible hammer. That’s just freaky. I don’t know how the hell that works and I’d stay away from one because it might use devil magic.

That’s all the gun basics. With that knowledge, you’ll soon be on your way to kill’n. Next time we’ll discuss calibers.