[samadams2000]

I want the thank the inventor of the Gatling gun. I assume its John Gatling or something. I often wondered why such a weapon was designed, it, and like the fuel air bomb, but when I see the contorted faces of these screaming 6th century koranimals it suddenly makes a lot of sense.

[ThreePuttinDude]

John Gatling

Would he be from Gatlingburg??

[Rummyfan]

I want the thank the inventor of the Gatling gun. I assume its John Gatling or something. I often wondered why such a weapon was designed, it, and like the fuel air bomb, but when I see the contorted faces of these screaming 6th century koranimals it suddenly makes a lot of sense.

Or as Kipling put it

We had the Maxim gun, and they did not!

[Rummyfan]

From Wikipedia:

The Gatling gun was the first highly successful rapid-repeating firearm. It was the first firearm to combine reliability, high firing rate and ease of loading into a single device. It was designed by the American inventor Richard J. Gatling, in 1861 and patented on May 9, 1862. In modern usage it typically refers to guns with a similar rotating barrel design.

Depending on how one defines the term, the Gatling gun is not the first "machine gun", despite frequent references to it as such; machine guns operate entirely on a fraction of the power of the fired cartridge, while the Gatling relies on external power (hand crank, or electric/hydraulic motor).

The slang term 'gat' for gun is derived from the Gatling gun.