c.f. this BBQ thread
Is there a gennerally accepted legal definition of these terms within the USA.
Are revolvers a sub-set of pistols, or are revolvers and pistols two distinct subsets of hand guns?
Are their members of the set of Hand Guns that are neither revolvers nor pistols?
‘Pistol’ comes from, IIRC, Pistola, Italy. It was a muzzle-loading handgun. A revolver is a handgun that has a revolving cylinder within which the ammunition is kept. In my mind, a ‘pistol’ is a handgun that is not a revolver that is either fed by a magazine or is single-shot.
However, the early revolvers (e.g., Colts) were called pistols. For example, the Colt 1849 Pocket Pistol was a muzzle-loading revolver.
Pistols are just an alternate term for a handgun in my experience. It applies to any of the normal ones and usually wouldn’t include things like small submachine guns.
A revolver is a certain type of handgun. It has a revolving chamber that most commonly holds 6 shots although there are other configuations. The chamber turns to feed new cartridges into the barrel.
Handguns that are not revolvers are often semi-automatic and feed through a clip as well as some single-shot models.
A nicely broken-down definition, courtesy of Wikipedia.
You might also note that this page from [url"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pistols"]Wikipedia - a list of pistols includes no revolvers. One might also look at their article on handguns.Both of these contradict the information in the pistol article. Wikipedia, therefore, cannot be considered a definitive source and should be disregarded.
One might also wish to consider the terminology employed by the manufacturers of handguns. Immediately below is a sampling of what one encounters when perusing the various handgun manufacturer websites (I have pasted this here from the thread referenced in the OP):
• Browning, a company which makes no revolvers, calls their handguns Centerfire Pistols and Buckmark Pistols - the Buckmarks are distingushed from the centerfires because they are rimfire.
• Smith & Wesson, similarly to Ruger rmakes a distinction between revolvers & pistols.
• Taurus revolvers & Taurus pistols.
• Beretta, just like Browning makes no revolvers and calls all their handguns pistols.
• Colt makes pistols & revolvers.
Wikipedia - a list of pistols
Here’s that first link repaired.
Has the term “hangun” been in widespread use all that long? My father was a gun dealer in a long-line of gun dealers and he definitely used “pistol” to refer to revolvers and most other handguns. He has a .44 magnum that he always carried with him that I know he called a pistol.
This was in Louisiana up through the 1980’s. The first time I ever heard “handgun” in widespread use was from the gun control movements of the 1980’s. I always associated “handgun” with a newer, more PC term.
Was that just a regionalism?
Maybe we could consider court cases that have occured in theSupreme Court of the USA. If there is mention made of a pistol in the documents, do the documents also include definitions of what the word pistol means? If they don’t, does the word pistol commonly get used when discribing something that is a revolver.
Also thanks for the link from wiki that said pistol was a common term for a conceilable knife or dagger in the 15th C.
I would suggest that clearly the possible restriciton or not on the use of the word pistol to include revolvers has difference to different people. As such Wikipedia is an invalid source either way due to its lack of strong editorial control.
It is clear that at some time pistol was frequently used to discribe any sort of hand gun c.f. Revolvers called “pistol revolvers” by their manufacturers.. But I am wondering if the usage in legal documentation has been standardized to one way or the other.
The term “handgun” - or at least “handgonne” - dates back to the 15th century, although I think the term originally referred to all hand-held firearms.
We kinda tried that in the original BBQ pit thread except we used the defintions provided in the USC under which the ATF is compelled to operate. No agreement seemed to come of it.
See these five posts:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7246899&postcount=35
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7248202&postcount=39
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7248202&postcount=41
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7248202&postcount=49
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7248202&postcount=51
The label “pistol” at that cite isn’t necessarily used by the manufacturer to describe the handguns shown; its manner of usage has been chosen by the website authors who’re almost certainly from the U.K.
I think the problem here is that firearms have such a long history, from so many places, that it is difficult to find any standardization in this field.
Heck, look at all the different ways the ammo alone is denoted: .308, .30-06, .45-70, 7mm, and so on ad nauseum. Sometimes my wife gets these terms in medical dictation and she just calls me and asks “How do you type ‘Thirty Aught Six?’”
I don’t really know of a standard, universally accepted definition except for “revolver.”
Oh, and if you’re in basic training, you DO NOT call it a “gun.” 
Okay. I’ll call uncle now. I am wrong. The NRA itself says this about handguns, pistols, revolvers and semi-automatic:
http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FireArmsGlossary/Default.aspx
Handgun - Synonym for pistol.
Pistol - Synonymous with “handgun.” A gun that is generally held in one hand. It may be of the single-shot, multi-barrel, repeating or semi-automatic variety and includes revolvers.
Revolver - A gun, usually a handgun, with a multi-chambered cylinder that rotates to successively align each chamber with a single barrel and firing pin.
Semi-automatic - A firearm designed to fire a single cartridge, eject the empty case and reload the chamber each time the trigger is pulled.
I agree with the weakness of that cite. Since I can find no other support. I am surprised at the Museum for using such labels whilst other items on that page were just called webley revolvers.
It would be interesting to find if such weapons were ever referred to as Pistol Revolvers during their heyday. Though ieven if they were t could also have been a term used simply to distinguish them from revolving rifles or carbines, and not a suggestion that they were thought of and called pistols.
To understand that cite, you need to understand British Military Designation Conventions.
A Webley Mk VI’s official name is Pistol, Revolver, No 1 Mk VI. It’s not “Pistol Revolver”.
Think of it as a grouping and categorisation thing:
Family: Pistols
Genus: Revolver
Species/Type: No 1 Mk VI.
Similarly, a Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III is a Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield, Mk III (indicating that the SMLE is a Rifle, shorter than the Long Lee, Magazine fed, Lee-Enfield type, Mk III)
In short, as far as the British Government (and therefore the rest of the Commonwealth) is concerned, Handgun and Pistol are synonymns, referring to any firearm under about 75cm in length and capable of being fired with one hand.
Revolver and Semi-Automatic are different types of pistol, but pistol does not automatically mean “Self-loading one-handed firearm” in Britain or the Commonwealth.
British firearm nomenclatures are an absolute nightmare for collectors… prior to the mid-1920s, for example, a Webley Mk VI was a “Webley Mk VI Revolver” and an SMLE Mk III* was exactly that. After 1926, they went to a form involving Arabic numbers (rather than Roman numerals), with a Webley Mk VI becoming the “Pistol, Revolver, No 1 Mk VI”, the SMLE Mk III* becoming the “Rifle, No 1 Mk III*”, and seeing the introduction of things like “Rifle, No 4 Mk I” and “Rifle, No 5 Mk I” during WWII.
This is why some of the guns on that page are called “Webley Revolvers” and others “Pistol Revolvers”, in short. Like I said, it’s a nightmare, especially when trying to explain to a new collector or historian that SMLE Mk III is the same as a Rifle No 1 Mk III, and there’s no such thing as an SMLE No 4 (No 4s are NOT SMLE rifles, you see…)
More information here if anyone’s interested in the Lee-Enfield, and if anyone wants more information on British Military Firearms 1780-1980, let me know and I will be glad to share and enlighten!
Back to our regularly scheduled discussion though, first of all, kudos to UncleBeer for admitting he was incorrect, and secondly, I suspect it is a regional/national thing regarding the naming conventions.
As someone pointed out in the Pit Thread, “Long Guns” in the US encompasses all rifles and shotguns, whereas in this part of the world the term is “Longarms” and generally only refers to rifles, with “Shotguns” being a separate category, although I think that’s a legacy from our days as an English Colony, when it was generally accepted that Shotguns were a useful and necessary part of life for the man on the land (and hence very easy to get), and therefore seen as less “dangerous” than, say, a Magazine Lee-Enfield. (Interesting note: Australia had no gun laws before the 1930s…)
Pistol/Handgun: A firearm which is designed to be operated by one hand, though two hands may be used.
Examples:
Revolving Pistols: These pistols have a cylindrical magazine, in which rounds are rotated to and from the barrel. Double-action revolvers operate entirely on the mechanical action of the trigger, which when squeezed draws back the hammer, rotates a round into place and then drops the hammer onto the firing pin, firing the round. Single-action revolvers require the hammer to be manually drawn back, and the trigger squeeze merely fires the round. Many modern revolvers operate by default as double-action revolvers, but frequently allow the hammer to be manually cocked. The revolver’s cylindrical magazine may be accessed by a hinging action, in which the cylinder swings out, or by a hinge that swings the entire barrel/cylinder assembly forward.
Self-loading Pistols: These pistols typically consist of an upper section (slide) which contains the actual firing pin assembly and loading/ejection/reloading action, and a lower section which contains the trigger/hammer/magazine well parts. The barrel is usually physically mounted or fixed to the lower portion of the weapon.
Most pistols of this type are strictly semiautomatic: one trigger pull = one round fired. The energy of the round drives the process that ejects the remains of the fired round, reloads the weapon and cocks the firing mechanism for the nex shot. The trigger action itself can be single action (the trigger action only drops the hammer), or double/single action (the hammer, when down, can be raised and dropped by a trigger squeeze. The hammer is then cocked after each shot by the reaction energy of the previous shot. Some models are double-action-only, the hammer is left down after each shot, and each trigger pull must both raise and drop the hammer. Some designs only use a spring-loaded firing pin, without an external hammer (e.g. Glock).
Breech or Chamber-loaded pistols The original pistols were loaded from the front: everything was stuffed down the barrel: powder, sealer, round. An external trigger/primer/hammer action was used, and in very early models a lit fuse was used. More modern examples include the Thompson Center Contenders, single shot pistols chambered for rifle rounds, and used for target shooting or hunting. Smaller examples include the derringer type pistols, pistols with one or two barrels. One modern design (the COP) is effectively a four-barreled .357 magnum pistol.
Oh , just to add to the confusion , there is another subset called machine pistols
Declan
Except for that old handful of semi-auto revolvers - like the Webley-Fosbrey.
Ah, the Webley-Fosbury revolver… a fascinating anomaly in the history of handgun development, and worth a fortune to collectors.
And we haven’t even started on the Gyrojet Rocket-pistols (as seen in You Only Live Twice- they were a real gun, albeit a working prototype), or the Dardick experimental handguns and the “Tround” cartridges they used…