[mamelukesabre]

Maybe we should be looking into this. There might be some sinister reason for the FBI/ATF in defining a pistol separate from a revolver.

[supercat]

There might be some sinister reason for the FBI/ATF in defining a pistol separate from a revolver.

Certainly the distinction would seem important from the standpoint of defining things like barrel length. For a typical revolver, the barrel length only includes the portion forward of the bullet's starting position; for a semi-automatic, I think it extends back to the closed breach face.

I would guess that a pepperbox revolver would be considered a "pistol" by the BATF, but I'm not sure.

[Fido969]

The problem is when they try to define guns and “any other” firearm - like cane guns, cellphone guns, bullet-shooting brassieres, etc, they need to know what class those weapons would fall into, hence the tricky definitions.

For example a bullet-shooting brassiere might be an “any other weapon” and require registration and treatment as a Class III item and might require the transfer tax.