A water gun (or water pistol, squirt gun, or water blaster) is a type of toy designed to shoot water. Similar to water balloons, the primary purpose of the toy is to soak another person in a game such as water warfare.
Historically, water guns were made of metal and used rubber squeeze bulbs to load and propel water through a nozzle
Traditionally, water guns have worked on the same principle as a spray bottle. The body is essentially a container for water and the trigger is attached to a pump which squirts water out of a tiny hole at the muzzle or nozzle. However, many modern water guns employ more complex technologies to provide more power and water output than their predecessors. Modern variations may employ compressed air, rubber chambers, springs, peristaltic pumps, or hydraulic pressure to propel the water. Some even use an electric pump powered by batteries. Some employ a combination of technologies to produce better stream performance. A common term for large high pressure water guns is "water blasters".
For several years in the U.S. and Canada, import regulations and domestic laws have required squirt guns to be made of clear or tinted transparent plastic to make them harder to mistake for actual firearms.
Famous quotes containing the words water and/or gun:
“It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace and safety, which all the great powers habitually observe and enforce in matters affecting them, that a shorter water way between our eastern and western seaboards should be dominated by any European government, that we may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be entertained by any friendly power.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)