What the heck is a Saturday Night Special?

My dad (born 1914) always told me that a saturday night special was an inexpensive, snub-nose, 38 special that anyone could carry in their pocket for personal protection during weekend adventures in an urban setting.

I've heard others say that a SNS is a 380 semi-auto.

I believe the SNS is a term relating to any small inexpensive easily concealed handgun. Another term you will hear sometimes is belly gun. That's because you probably couldn't hit anything with it unless you poked it in your agressor's belly.

SNS is any low cost, cheap short barrelled 38 special hand gun. They were mainly targeted toward the lower income inner city types. So in a way, your father is correct. Most places have inacted laws to try to ban these types of weapons.

I think you are all basically correct with the idea that it is acheap piece of crap that is good only for close-up work, but it sure didn't have to be a .38 SPL. Any caliber would do...

1. saturday night special
60 up, 5 down
A slang term for an inexpensive, small-caliber revolver. Dave Kopel, Research Director at the Independence Institute, explains:

The “Saturday night special” is in part a linguistic descendant of the racist phrase "******town Saturday Night." The obvious implication of the phrase "Saturday night special" is that it is a gun used by "******s" to shoot each other with during their wild Saturday nights. No one denies that the people disarmed by a "Saturday night special" ban would be predominantly poor and non-white.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=SATURDAY+NIGHT+SPECIAL


The term 'saturday night special' was used to denegrate people who owned guns that were cheap and often owned by people with little money- former slaves. Up to 15 years or so ago, there was still a big push to ban cheap handguns, now the spotlight is on demonizing 'assault weapons' and the people who own them which ironically are mostly middle class white men.

What the wife gives me once a week wether I want it or not!

ROTFLMAO

I have always heard the definition of "cheap, low-quality, easily obtainable", etc. But I was not aware that it had to be a revolver ora.38 Special-any caliber would fit the description, semi-auto, or revolver. Many were .22 RF's, .32 S&W, .38 S&W, and in the semi-autoi version, .22 RF, .25's, .32 ACP, etc.

Lynard Skynard knows about them??!!

Caliber's got nothing to do with it. The term just means a cheaply made, junk pistol...often with trashy alloy frame and about the only steel on it is a barrel liner. Cops often refer to them as "throw down guns." Frequently they are held together with duct tape...literally.[:'(]