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In the 2000s, the machine pistol started to be supplanted by the personal defense weapon: a compact, fully automatic submachine gun-like firearm which fires armour-piercing rounds instead of pistol ammunition.Ī Berlin policeman carries an MP 18 in this 1919 photo by special forces attacking buildings or tunnels). They have also been used in close quarters combat (CQC) settings where a small weapon is needed (e.g. In a military setting, some countries issue machine pistols as personal defense side arms to infantry, paratroopers, artillery crews, helicopter crews or tank crews. In a law enforcement context, machine pistols may be used by tactical police units such as SWAT teams or hostage rescue teams which are operating inside buildings and other cramped spaces, although they tend to use submachine guns instead.
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Criminal gang members such as narcotics traffickers also use machine pistols, often cheaper guns such as the MAC-10 or the Tec-9 which have been illegally converted to fire in a fully automatic fashion. Bodyguards from government or private agencies sometimes carry concealed machine pistols when they are protecting high-risk VIPs. Machine pistols are generally more compact to be concealable and can be operated one-handed, while submachine guns are usually designed to be two-handed and tend to have longer barrels for better accuracy.Īs a small, concealable weapon with a high rate of fire, machine pistols have numerous applications. While the dividing line between machine pistols and compact submachine guns is hard to draw, the term "submachine gun" usually refers to carbines designed for automatic fire of pistol cartridges, while the term "machine pistol" usually refers to a weapon built up from a semi-automatic pistol design. The term is a literal translation of Maschinenpistole, the German term for a hand-held automatic weapon firing pistol cartridges.
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It is not to be confused with Semi-automatic pistol.Ī fully automatic Steyr M1912, which was used as a side arm by the Austro-Hungarian ArmyĪ machine pistol is a typically a handgun-style, magazine-fed, self-loading firearm, capable of fully automatic or burst fire, and chambered for pistol cartridges.