Mavi Marmara Guns

Have a look at the "weapon" seen above, in a still taken from the video of the IDF storming the IHH-owned Mavi Marmara (which can be seen in full here, fast-forward and pause at 0.51 if you've already seen it more times than you've seen Grease). Odd-looking sort of gun, isn't it? What on earth is that peculiar thing stuck on top of it?

The so-called peace activists who were onboard the ship claim that they were attacked with machine guns. The IDF, meanwhile, claim that they used paintball guns - non-lethal devices used in riot dispersal situations by them and many other military/law enforcement organisations - and only began to fire live ammunition from their handguns after it became obvious that the situation was going to be as violent as it turned out to be.

Now have a look at the paintball guns below. All of them - says Acid Rabbi friend and supplier of links to dubious websites Lenny, who would quite like to be a soldier only he hates the idea of killing anything and is too old (and fat) - the type of guns he sees often when he goes paintballing.

The peculiar things stuck on top of them, by the way, are magazine-like containers called hoppers that store unused paintballs, feeding them into the gun's breech prior to firing. Lenny says he's willing to bet £5 that the gun in the video is in fact a Brass Eagle T-Storm, which he assures us is the second of the guns in the photographs seen above and is popular as it can easily be used either with either one or both hands (the commando in the video is holding his gun in one hand too).

Our expertise is not great in these matters, but we think we'd put a fiver on it too. That's what two pints of beer cost in our local, and for that reason believe us when we say it's a sum we wouldn't risk unless we were extremely keen on the odds of winning the bet.