Slingshot

Other names include catapult (United Kingdom), peashooter (United States), gulel (India), kettie (South Africa), or ging, shanghai, pachoonga (Australia and New Zealand).

Use and history

Slingshots depend on strong elastic materials for their projectile firepower, typically vulcanized natural rubber or the equivalent such as silicone rubber tubing, and thus date no earlier than the invention of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear in 1839 (patented in 1844). By 1860, this "new engine" had established a reputation for use by juveniles in vandalism. For much of their early history, slingshots were a "do-it-yourself" item, typically made from a forked branch to form the Y-shaped handle, with rubber strips sliced from items such as inner tubes or other sources of good vulcanized rubber, and using suitably sized stones.

While early slingshots were most associated with young vandals, they could be effective hunting arms in the hands of a skilled user. Firing projectiles, such as lead musket balls, buckshot, steel ball bearings, air gun pellets, or small nails, a slingshot was capable of taking game such as quail, pheasant, rabbit, dove, and squirrel. Placing multiple balls in the pouch produces a shotgun effect (even though not very accurate), such as firing a dozen BBs at a time for hunting small birds. With the addition of a suitable rest, the slingshot can also be used to shoot arrows, allowing the hunting of medium-sized game at short ranges.

While commercially made slingshots date from at latest 1918, with the introduction of the Zip-Zip, a cast iron model, it was not until the post–World War II years that slingshots saw a surge in popularity, and legitimacy. They were still primarily home-built; a 1946 Popular Science article details a slingshot builder and hunter using home-built slingshots made from forked dogwood sticks to take small game at ranges of up to 9 m (30 ft) with No. 0 lead buckshot (8 mm [0.32 in] diameter).

The Wham-O company, founded in 1948, produced the Wham-O slingshot. It was made of ash wood and used flat rubber bands. The Wham-O was suitable for hunting, with a draw weight of up to 200 newtons (45 pounds-force), and was available with an arrow rest.

The National Slingshot Association was founded in the 1940s, headquartered in San Marino, California. It organised slingshot clubs and competitions nationwide. Despite the slingshot's reputation as a tool of juvenile delinquents, the NSA reported that 80% of slingshot sales were to men over 30 years old, many of them professionals. John Milligan, a part-time manufacturer of the aluminium-framed John Milligan Special, a hunting slingshot, reported that about a third of his customers were physicians.

Slingshots are also occasionally used in angling to disperse bait over an area of water, so that fish may be attracted.

A home-made derivative of a slingshot also exists, consisting of a rubber balloon cut in half and tied to a tubular object such as the neck of a plastic bottle, or a small pipe. The projectile is inserted through the tube and into the cut balloon, and the user stretches the balloon to launch the projectile. These so-called "balloon guns" are sometimes made as a substitute to ordinary slingshot, and are often used to create the "shotgun" effect with several projectiles fired at once.

In modern times the slingshot has been used by civilians against governments. Examples of this are Hong Kong during the 2019-2020 protests where they were used against the Hong Kong Police Force, by the Palestinians against Israeli forces. and by the Ukrainians during the Maidan Revolution in 2014.