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"This category [science fiction] excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy."
- Robert Heinlein

Sliver Gun  
  A firearm that shoots fine darts.  

"Don't move - I got two sliver guns and you're centered to hell. Ever see a guy shot by a sliver gun? Sure is fun to watch...

There were two soft whooshes as the guns discharged into the carpet...

The sliver gun was murmuring softly beside his right ear. The magazine held about two hundred darts.

From The Unreliable Perfumist, by Margaret St. Clair.
Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1953
Additional resources -

From Sacred Martian Pig:

The dart from a sliver gun is instantly fatal to human beings in a few spots; but over most of the body area, puncture with it produces a horrible tetany. In the agonized tonic spasm victims not infrequently snap their spines or fracture their own jaws.

Compare to the needle pipe from Beyond the Stars (1928), by Ray Cummings, the needle gun from The Empress of Mars (1939), by Ross Rocklynne and the mercy rifle from Grendel (1968), by Larry Niven.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Unreliable Perfumist
  More Ideas and Technology by Margaret St. Clair
  Tech news articles related to The Unreliable Perfumist
  Tech news articles related to works by Margaret St. Clair

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