Capable Of Shooting Pistol Bullets example essay topic

Firearms War. Conflict. Famine. Pestilence - these are the four horsemen of Apocalypse as the people in the mid-ages imagined them. They stormed through countries and cities, leaving thousands dead, injured, frightened or crying behind. The first two - the most merciful ones, or to be more precise, the fatal tools they use to make their evil deeds are the subject of my essay.

To be precise, I'm going to speak about the types of modern firearms - the ones that a single man can handle and which fire bullets - very simple, easy-to-use and deadly. Revolvers - these can be described as pistols with revolving chamber which enables you to fire several shots without reloading. Revolvers were popular in the end of XIX - beginning of XX century because they are quite easy to use, reliable, and cheap, but were soon replaced by pistols because of their limited capacity and mobility. However, revolvers are still used by the policemen -- large-caliber bullets they use ("Magnum" 45 or 36 millimeter) can knock out an outlaw at first shot, even if fired in foot. Revolvers usually hold 5, 6, or 7 bullets. There are 2 major types of revolvers: with single and simultaneous extraction of fired shells.

In the first case, after you " re done shooting, you have to take out every single shell using some sharp object to push on it from the front holes of the chamber. In the second case, the revolver usually opens up, "breaking into two pieces" and you pull out every single shell, or the chamber is shifted left and emptied by pushing on the special rod in the front (i.e. "Colt" or "Smith-Wesson"). Revolvers are also divided into manual and automatic ones. In the manual revolver you have to draw back the firing lever each time to make a shot, in automatic it moves back itself, each time you pull on the trigger.

Pistol - The main difference between revolvers and pistols it that the revolvers use the muscular force of the shooter to recharge, and on the other hand, pistols use the energy of gunpowder gases and don't have revolving chambers. There are lots of different designs of pistols, but the principle of work is the same. Pistol's bullets are usually located in its handle, and are of a smaller caliber than those of revolver. The capacity of the pistol's cartridge can range from 5 to 30 bullets and pistols shoot automatically, as many times as you pull the trigger (of course, until it runs out of bullets). The only thing is that you have to send one bullet in the barrel by dragging the top part of the pistol (or maybe some in some other way, depending on the model of a pistol) before you start the shoot-out. Rifles - first rifles appeared in 14 century and since, they had been the most popular sort of weapon but just until the World War I. Easy to produce, very simple in design, they were favored by many armies, until the machine-guns started to seize the market.

The rifle is characterized by a long barrel, which gives a large-caliber bullet higher velocity, and more killing power. The main disadvantage of the rifle is it's slow rate of fire -- rifles can shoot just one bullet at a time. There are 2 types of rifles - automatic and non-automatic. Non-automatic rifles can be single-shot rifles (you have to reload it each time you make a shot) or might have magazines which hold up to 30 bullets.

The main difference between non-automatic and automatic rifle is that you have to recharge the non-automatic rifle by moving a fire-lever the in some sequence (which is different for various rifles) for each shot, no matter how many bullets it has in the magazine or cartridge. In a Winchester shotgun, (which is a type non-automatic rifle) you have to slide the shifter under the barrel back-and-forth. In automatic rifle you don't have to -- it discharges automatically each time you pull on a trigger - a precious toy of all the snipers, but quite unpopular, because of its big weight, unreliability, and limited mobility. Mini-machine-gun - is a portable automatic weapon, (halfway between a pistol and a machine-gun) which is capable of shooting pistol bullets continuously at a high rate.

There " re lots of types of mini-machine guns, but the principle of operation is the same - they all use reverse motion of their freely moving shutters. The advantages of mini-machine guns are low cost, very high rate of fire, portability and reliability - that's why "Tommy" guns were so beloved by Chicago gangsters. The range and accuracy of mini-machine guns are quite limited - and that's why they are not used in army so frequently. For instance, Israeli "Mini-USI" gun (it quite small, about a size of big pistol) has a capability of firing 1250 bullets per minute - but I would never use it on a battlefield, because it is quite ineffective at distances larger than 600 meters. By the way, its standard capacity is only 20-24 bullets - not big of a deal (try to calculate how long will it take you to completely discharge the gun if you pull and hold the trigger - yes, it is about 0.67 seconds). Machine guns - are the most widespread type of a firearm nowadays.

They use bullets bigger than those of a pistol (which are quite forceless) and smaller than those of a rifle (which are too powerful). This allows machine-guns to maintain a high rate of fire in addition to a long range. Of course, everybody is familiar with Kalashinikoff (or more exactly, AK-47). Effective, reliable, uncomplicated, and easy-to-use, it became the most popular firearm in the world and a true love of all the Islamic terrorists.

In the Vietnam War, it was considered superficial to American M-16, which was even disliked by American soldiers, because it often jammed. There " re also some machine guns which are classified as "attack rifles" - that's because they have longer barrels, and smaller bullets - for instance, M-16 is considered an attack rifle. Chain-guns - these are actually big machine-guns capable of firing powerful, large-caliber rifle-type bullets at big distances. Due to their large "kick-back", chain-guns are usually ground-mounted or carried around by stronger soldiers. If you " re at war, and someone assigns you a chain-gun, don't ever take it -- a person carrying a chain-gun has a higher risk of being shot by a foe, because the enemy usually concentrates his fire on more "valuable" objects.

Well, in conclusion, I don't want to say something like "the firearms are bad, they kill people, let's ban them". No! The weapons have always existed, and will always exist. Unfortunately, death is the principle on which our nature and the world rests - "kill, or be killed" (by the way, heart diseases and road accidents kill more people a day than firearms do), so banning and stopping the production of firearms would not be a smart thing to do.

If the firearms and diseases would have gone and no one would die, can you imagine what would have happened? The population would increase, there would be a lack of food, space to live, etc... All we " re able to do is just to limit the usage of firearms - they exist, and all we can do is just accept that.