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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

Atom-Gun  
  A handheld device that sprays atomic fire.  

When visiting the satellites of our solar system, defensive weapons are a necessity.

Crane sighted at one of the ocher creatures in the lead, pressed the firing button of his atom-gun, saw the Greenie fall as the thin, crashing bolt of atomic fire streaked and struck...

The atom-guns began to crackle again, this time in irregular rhythm... He fired. The streak of fire from his weapon brought a distant scream of agony.

Technovelgy from Revolt on the Tenth World, by Edmond Hamilton.
Published by Amazing Stories in 1940
Additional resources -

Hamilton uses the same phrase (with illustrations) in The Face of the Deep (1942):

"Something's wrong! If the prisoners --"

The words died on his lips as he burst out into the corridor. A mass of gray-clad convict were pouring into tire fore end of tire passage, In their front rank was Moremos, the Venusian murderer, grasping an atom-gun.


(Atom Gun from 'The Face of the Deep' by Edmond Hamilton)

Of course, there are a great many variations on the blaster idea (first mentioned in When the Green Star Waned (1925) by Nictzin Dyalhis); consider the annihilator beam from The Conquest of Gola (1931) by L.F. Stone, the de-atomizer) and the >disintegrator from Garrett P. Serviss' 1898 novel Edison's Conquest of Mars.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Revolt on the Tenth World
  More Ideas and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
  Tech news articles related to Revolt on the Tenth World
  Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton

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