Comments on: Five Innovative But Impractical Handguns

By: James R. Rummel

James R. Rummel — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:06:51 +0000

Christophe left a comment…

“Another shot at the French military history”

Actually, only three of the five handguns featured are French in origin. The other two are, respectively, Austrian and American.

Also, only one of the guns was ever intended to be a military arm. That is the one that was designed by an American, the LeMat pistol. All of the others were designed for, marketed, and sold to civilians for personal self defense.

It is true that I crack wise about how the French tend to come up with odd pistol designs at the end of the essay, but that is simply because I suddenly realized that the majority of the examples I used came from that country while I was writing the Epilogue. My apologies if I caused any offense.

By: Sonuvah

Sonuvah — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:01:11 +0000

I think I saw that 20-shot revolver in a Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam cartoon.

Just like anything else, more doesn’t necessarily mean better of course.

By: Christophe

Christophe — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:01:57 +0000

Another shot at the French military history

By: Kalel

Kalel — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:20:13 +0000

Seems like everyone was taking a shot at pistol design.

By: Foreigner1

Foreigner1 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:19:50 +0000

I love these freakshows of weaponry.
People go outside themselves to create this revolutionary piece of hardware, even better than anything that already is there. They even succeed in placing their brainchild in the shops- Only to have forgotten one or two essential practical things.

In a next life I think I’ll start to collect these objects myself. For now I am very happy with sites like Neatorama that once in a while present these neat gadgets to us.

By: Gauldar

Gauldar — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:13:54 +0000

I find it so much more interesting to explore creative ideas and inventions that have failed in practice, instead of reading about successful ones. The LeMat revolver looks stylish but quite impractical, since you may as well have a musket in your hands.