Happiness is a warm gun. John Lennon & The Beatles, The White Album, 1968
I have a love interest in every one of my films – a gun. Arnold Schwarzenegger, interview Playboy January 1988
You ever shoot a guy in his eyeball? Seven Psychopaths 2012 starring Colin Farrell & Sam Rockwell & Christopher Walken & Woody Harrelson & Tom Waits & Abbie Cornish & Olga Kurylenko & Zeljko Ivanek & Linda Bright Clay & Long Nguyen & Harry Dean Stanton et al, director Martin McDonagh, Tommy
When I was a kid in Nebraska, a cantankerous farmer, known for plinking with his .22 at passing cars in which he perceived enemies, ingeniously rigged up a shotgun in his house, trained on the inside of his front door so as to widely distribute any intruder. Dick Cavett
Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Well, I’m about as tall as a shotgun, and just as noisy. Truman Capote
In 1640, the very first gun control law ever enacted on these shores was passed in Virginia. It provided that blacks, even freemen, could not own guns. Ann Coulter, Negroes With Guns
Don’t ever leave your rifle in the dirt. American Sniper 2014 starring Bradley Cooper & Sienna Miller & Max Charles & Luke Grimes & Kyle Gallner & Sam Jaeger & Jake McDorman & Cory Hardrict & Navid Negahban & Eric Close & Eric Ladin et al, director Clint Eastwood, father to son
You ever think about what happens when there’s a real person on the end of that gun? ibid.
Sooner or later we have to find out which one of us is fastest. El Dorado 1966 starring John Wayne & Robert Mitchum & James Caan & Arthur Hunnicutt & Charlene Holt & Michele Carey & Ed Asnwe & Christopher George & R G Armstrong & Paul Fix & Robert Donner & Jim Davis et al, director Howard Hawkes, McLeod to Thornton
The marshal’s gun has quite a reputation. A Lawless Street 1955 starring Randolph Scott & Angela Lansbury & Warner Anderson & Jean Parker & Wallace Ford & John Emery & James Bell & Ruth Donnelly & Harry Antrim & Michael Pate & Don Megowan et al, director Joseph H Lewis
You hear in the distance quite a mild pop as the gun fired five miles away, and then a humming sound as it approached you through the air growing louder and louder until it was like the roar of an aeroplane coming in to land on the tarmac. I Was There: The Great War Interviews, Charles Carrington, Yesterday 2015
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgement Day. Thomas Hardy, Channel Firing
By 1999 there were more than 1,500 registered ‘private security firms’, employing more than 800,000 people. Of these, almost 200,000 had licenses to carry guns. The Russian Interior Ministry has estimated that there were at least half as many again that remained unregistered. Misha Glenny, McMafia
The trade in illegal weapons, however, began under a different president. At the end of 1991, Ukraine’s then President, Leonid Kravchuk, decreed the establishment of a commercial department at the Defence Ministry, whose main aim was to turn the vast store of Soviet weapons inherited by Ukraine into cash. ibid.
It was states and groups from Africa who sent the greatest number of envoys to Ukraine to broker arms shipments from Odessa. ibid.
With his considerable financial clout, Bout bought up Mafeking airport just south of the Boswana border, lock, stock and barrel, installing mechanics and administrators there and even paying the salaries of immigration officers. This was a key hub in the dispatch of weapons to other southern African countries, from where the planes would return with a payload of minerals and even commodities like rare fish and gladioli (for sale in the United Arab Emirates). ibid.
With this much money up for grabs, likely they’ve got every two-bit gunman in the territory along. The Train Robbers 1973 starring John Wayne & Rod Taylor & Ben Johnson & Christopher George & Bobby Vinton & Jerry Gatlin & Ricardo Montalban & Anne-Margret, director Burt Kennedy, opening scene, gang gathers
Legislation of a legal market is bound to fail when a healthy black market exists for the same product. With guns so cheap and easy to get, the standard criminal has no incentive to fill out a firearms application at his local gun shop and then wait a weak. Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics
And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering. John Steinbeck, of Mice and Men
One of America’s biggest law-enforcement scandals for a generation. Operation Fast and Furious involved agents from the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms or ATF deliberately allowing guns to be smuggling from the United States to Mexico. Sky News 25th March 2016
It has a strange, quick jar upon the ear,
That cocking of a pistol, when you know
A moment more will bring the sight to bear
Upon your person, twelve yards off or so. Lord Byron, Don Juan
I’m all right. Wait till you see what I’ve found. The Weapon 1956 starring Steve Cochran & Lizabeth Scott & Herbert Marshall & George Cole & Nicole Maurey & John Whitely & Laurence Naismith & Stanley Maxted & Dennis Shaw & Felix Felton & John Horsley & Fred Johnson et al, director Val Guest, kid to kid
We build guns for men in America. American Guns, Discovery 2011
A hand-gunner would be lucky to fire a shot a minute … The infantry gun was more novelty than threat …. In the sixteenth century it all changed … The first truly effective battlefield gun. Sam Willis, ‘Sword, Musket and Machine Gun’ II, BBC 2017
The days of armour were numbered. ibid.
Guns could be made smaller than ever before. ibid.
The Saltpeter men became synonymous with the abuse of power. ibid.
A fearsome gun that took soldiers’ firepower to an entirely new level: the musket. ibid.
An eccentric American inventor built a gun that shook the world … This was the Maxim gun. Sam Willis, Sword, Musket & Machine Gun III
We made over three million of them – the Brown Bess musket. ibid.
Shrapnel was still being deployed to deadly effect in the First World War. ibid.
But the British didn’t show the same restraint with their colonies that they did back home. ibid.
More guns than any other country on the planet per head of population. Ross Kemp: Libya’s Migrant Hell, 2017
Although guns are relatively scarce in the UK, police seized more than 800 in a single operation in February 2017. This World: The Attack: Terror in the UK, BBC 2017
‘Our rights do not come from government but from God. Those who try to weaken or eliminate our right to self-defence are controlling statists.’ In Guns We Trust, 12 mins, email response to filmmaker, Youtube 2013
Kennesaw: The gun law states that all heads of households have to own an operating gun and ammunition and that’s within the city limits. ibid.
Guns: the essential tools for criminals worldwide. Colt 45s, AR15s, M4s, Mac10s, all examples of weapons trafficked illegally across the globe. But there’s one gun police fear and all criminals want – a completely untraceable gun – the ghost gun. Underworld Inc s1e1: Ghost Guns, National Geographic 2015
For felons this is the only shopping option in town. ibid.
The M1911 is a .45 calibre semi-automatic handgun originally manufactured by Colt. ibid.
There’s one place where high-quality ghost guns are readily available: the city of Danao in the Philippines. ibid.
When one of these ghost guns hits California its value rises from $230 to around $800. ibid.
Removing a serial number is a federal offence: maximum sentence ten years. ibid.
In Phoenix, Arizona, ‘Cross’ runs a business that’s invitation only. His trade: illegal guns. Cross specialises in dealing to one cross-section of society: criminals. Underworld Inc s3e2: Kings & Queens, National Geographic 2017