text: The most common type of pistol used in the contemporary era is the semi-automatic pistol, while the older single-shot and lever-action pistols are now rarely seen and used primarily for nostalgic hunting and historical reenactment, and the fully-automatic machine pistols are uncommon in civilian usage because of their generally poor recoil-controllability (due to the lack of a buttstock) and strict laws and regulations governing their manufacture and sale (where they are regarded as submachine gun equivalents).
  Terminology
  Technically speaking, the term "pistol" is a hypernym generally referring to a handgun and predates the existence of the type of guns to which it is now applied as a specific term, that is: in colloquial usage it is used specifically to describe a handgun with a single integral chamber within its barrel. Webster's Dictionary defines it as "a handgun whose chamber is integral with the barrel". This makes it distinct from the other types of handgun, such as the revolver, which has multiple chambers within a rotating cylinder that is separately aligned with a single barrel; and the derringer, which is a short pocket gun often with multiple single-shot barrels and no reciprocating action. The 18 U.S. Code § 921 legally defines the term "pistol" as "a weapon originally designed, made, and intended to fire a projectile (bullet) from one or more barrels when held in one hand, and having: a chamber(s) as an integral part(s) of, or permanently aligned with, the bore(s); and a short stock designed to be gripped by one hand at an angle to and extending below the line of the bore(s)", which includes derringers but excludes revolvers.