Pop gun

For the comics anthology, see Popgun (comics).

A pop gun.

A pop gun (also written as popgun or pop-gun) is, in contemporary times, a toy gun that often uses air pressure to fire a small tethered, or untethered, projectile (for example, cork or foam) out of a barrel, most often via piston action. This mechanism consists of a hollow cylindrical barrel which is sealed at one end with the projectile and at the other with a long-handled plunger. In this type, the plunger is rapidly forced down the barrel, building up internal air pressure until the projectile is forced out with the "pop" sound that. to contemporary users, lends the toy its name.

Spring-loaded mechanisms are also common in pop-guns, the spring supplying power in lieu of compressed air.

The projectile may be tethered to the toy to prevent loss or for safety. Older versions of the toy employed untethered dried peas or pieces of potato as projectiles. The potato version was self-loading as the shooter pressed the barrel into a potato to cut loose a piece, as the "bullet." Pop-guns were not only made for childrens' use. A tethered version has a fairly long history as a comical stage prop. When "fired," a flag would pop out of the barrel. It might be a patriotic flag or a plain flag imprinted with the word "Bang!" or "You're dead," or something simlar on its face.

Another, more primitive pop gun mechanism dispenses with the piston altogether and requires the user simply to squeeze the flexible rubber body of the gun to expel the cork. There may be a variety of other designs, since the pop-gun dates back to at least the mid-18th century. In 1757, Benjamin Franklin spoke of "soldiers under commanders 'whom a child might outwit or terrify with a popgun.'” (Quoted in The American revolution, Volume 4 By George Bancroft p. 256.) Perhaps better known is "the pop-gun plot," as it was popularly called, a 1794 plan to fire a poisoned dart -- yet another type of pop-gun projectile-- from a pop-gun at King George III, while in the theatre. (From: http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/392.html and Wikipedia article on James Parkinson, the alleged mastermind of the plot.) Around 1800, in discussing the merits of English carbine rifles, an officer of the British 95th Dragoons remarked that the "little pop-gun of a carbine was so inferior to that of the French that the enemy often dismounted and shot at our dragoons at a distance which rendered our short carbines almost useless." (From: http://www.16ld.org/abt_weapons.html, accessed Feb. 5, 2012.) In 1819, poet John Keats refers to a pop-gun in a letter to his family. (http://englishhistory.net/keats/letters/georgekeatsseptember1819.html ,accessed Feb. 5, 2012.) In 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson said the following in an oration, "Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, tho the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom." (http://www.bartleby.com/268/8/33.html , accessed Feb. 5, 2012.) In his 1821 novel, The Spy, James Fenimore Cooper has one of the characters taunt a soldier by calling him "Master Popgun."

None of these quotations tells us anything about the design of the pop-gun in question, and only Franklin specifically connects it with a child's toy. It may be, though all of the quotes refer to the ineffectiveness of the pop-gun, that they had other uses than those of children. One such use might be for military training, much as a dummy rifle is used, though this is speculative. It appears unlikely that a device which might shoot a poison dart was designed for a child's use. Possibly this particular "pop-gun" was a blow-gun style weapon.

Children's pop guns were quite popular in the early twentieth century, and may still enjoy some popularity in the twenty-first. Children have often made use of them while playing make-believe games such as war, and cowboys and indians and for target practice. As with many types of toy guns, the barrel and other parts may be factory-painted in various bright colors to signify that it is indeed a toy and not a real weapon.