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"I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'Science Fiction' and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Spring-Rifle  
  Projectile weapon designed to be resistant to countermeasures.  

Weapon for weapon, any thug in the back alley of a large city had more, and more modern firepower; but the trick with modern warfare was not to outgun the enemy, but carry weapons he could not gimmick. Chemical and radiation armament was too easily put out of action from a distance. Therefore, the spring-rifle with its five thousand-sliver magazine and its tiny, compact, non-metallic mechanism which could put a sliver in a man-sized target at a thousand meters time after time with unvarying accuracy."
Technovelgy from Dorsai!, by Gordon R. Dickson.
Published by Ace Books in 1960
Additional resources -

Compare to the needle pipe from Ray Cummings' 1928 novel Beyond the Stars, the needle gun from Malcom Jameson's 1941 story Slacker's Paradise, the maula pistol from Frank Herbert's Dune, the needle rifle from David Gerrold's 1983 novel A Matter for Men, and the ice dart from Bart Kosko's 1987 novel Nanotime.

Thanks to Gatomon41 for contributing this item.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Dorsai!
  More Ideas and Technology by Gordon R. Dickson
  Tech news articles related to Dorsai!
  Tech news articles related to works by Gordon R. Dickson

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