Flare gun
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A flare gun is a gun that shoots flares. They are a common item in rescue kits.
Flare guns are sometimes called Verey pistols, this term was named after Edward Verey (1847–1910), an American naval officer who developed and popularized a single-shot breech-loading snub-nosed pistol that fired flares. Modern varieties are frequently made out of brightly-colored, durable plastic.
Flare guns may be used whenever someone needs to send a help signal. The flares must be shot directly above, making the signal visible for a longer period of time and revealing the position of whoever is in need of help.
While not intended as a weapon, they have been used as one in emergencies. In 1942, at Pembrey Airfield in Wales, a German pilot mistakenly landed at the field. The Duty Pilot, Sgt. Jeffreys, did not have a conventional weapon; he grabbed a Verey pistol and used that to capture the German pilot, Oberleutnant Arnim Faber.
Flare guns have also been used in fiction as weapons. In the movies Captain Ron and Sahara, they were used to shoot at boats, and in Sahara, an automobile. In the film version of From Russia with Love, James Bond, while being chased by boat, uses one to ignite floating fuel to deter those chasing him. In the Tim Dorsey novel Florida Roadkill, a man was accidentally shot and killed with one. In Season 2 of the television series 24, Jack Bauer shoots a terrorist in the chest with a flare gun from a plane's wreckage. In The Breakfast Club, the character Brian states that he is in Saturday detention because a flare gun went off accidentally in his locker. He admits that he was contemplating using it to commit suicide. In the video game TimeSplitters Future Perfect, the flare gun is featured as a powerful one-shot weapon and in The Ship it is used as a weapon to ignite quarries (Uses the same model as picture). In the PC game Blood the flare gun is the first ranged weapon the player encounters and a staple throughout the game, capable of igniting enemies with a single hit (though this does not kill them immediately). In the classic Erich Maria Remarque novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator's classmate and friend Mueller is killed when he is shot point blank with a "Verey light," causing him to suffer in great pain before his death.
In the Deep Purple song Smoke on the Water (which refers to a real event), a Swiss fan of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention shot a flare gun in the ceiling, causing a fire.
