BB Guns?

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'tis true that "air" promotes combustion but it is equally true the CO2 extinguishes flame at a rate greater than air promotes it.

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ProShooter wrote:

Armed wrote:

In general terms, the Code of Virginia describes a firearm as:  "....any pistol, revolver, or other weapon designed or intended to propel a missile of any kind by action of an explosion of any combustible material..."   [18.2-308]

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Funny thing too, gunpowder in a casing doesnt really explode - it burns at an extremely rapid rate. Sooo fast that it seems like an explosion.

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There is no quantitative definition of an explosion. Burning gunpowder is just a chemical reaction. At what speed is a reaction considered an explosion? There is a continuum of reaction rates.

I would consider burning gunpowder an explosion, because I've arbitrarily decided that it reacts fast enough, and generates enough energy in a short enough period. I'll bet a jury would too.

The release of pressure (action of an explosion) generated by the reaction (of a combustible (meaning it burns - i.e. reacts with oxygen) material) meets the qualitative definition of explosion.

amentment2 wrote:

tis true that "air" promotes combustion but it is equally true the CO2 extinguishes flame at a rate greater than air promotes it.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chatelier's_principle

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It's not a "firearm", but it is a "gun"; but in Virginia, a rubber band stretched between your fingers like a slingshot, with a paper wad for ammo constitutes a "gun". I was in the clerk's office of a local circuit court once, where they were having trouble with a big, heavy duty stapler. They'd cleared the jam and were shooting staples into a trash can to test it as I was standing there. I reported them to the deputy sheriff standing nearby for the crime ofpossession of a "gun" in the courthouse. That was a joke, of course, and everybody thought it was funny, though it was technically correct, and in theory, each of those three deputy clerks could have gone to jail for twelve months.