Can You Pierce Using a Gun?
The gun is a tool originally used for punching holes in earlobes. In time, it’s been more broadly used, and in many shops and studios around the world it’s also being used to punch the upper part of the ear (Helix) and the nose. Irresponsible shops, would agree to punch holes in other parts of the body. By the way, by the Israeli law, you can only use the gun to punch holes in the earlobe and the nose, and in other states (England, for example) – the use of the gun is totally illegal.
The earlobe and nose can also suffer complications from the use of a gun. The complications are rarer in the earlobe but are very frequent in the nose.
These are the disadvantages of the gun as opposed to needle piercing:
* The gun cannot be sterilized, meaning, it’s not disposable, and there’s no way of killing the germs passed on by previous costumers. The only way of getting rid of all the germs is sterilizing it in an “autoclave” machine, and this, as mentioned before, is impossible to do. Disinfecting with alcohol does kill some of the germs, but the strongest ones (and obviously most dangerous) will pass on to you during the piercing. In a needle piercing, on the other hand, the whole process is completely sterile, and everything that isn’t disposable – gets sterilized.
* The object that punches the hole when using a gun – is the earring. The gun has a very strong spring that forces the earring into the body. If you look at the earring – you’ll notice that it isn’t even sharp! It is simply forced into the body! The trauma caused to the body will result in a number of things: the pain will be much greater than the pain from punching the hole with a needle, the recovery process will be much slower, and the scar – in case you take the piercing out – will be more noticeable. This trauma can be much more severe in the upper part of the ear, where most people who pierce it using a gun suffer complications. On the other hand, the needle used for piercing, is very sharp, and so penetrates much more gently, without traumatizing the body.
* When you get pierced with a gun, you are committed to stay with the temporary earring, at least for a few days, before you can replace it with a quality earring. And these first few days are the most critical… The temporary earring is made of a very low-quality metal, and the body might be allergic to it. When piercing using a needle, on the other hand, the earring that the piercer puts on you, is a high quality, sterilized piercing, made from surgical-steel or titanium (detailed in the article “What Types of Jewelry Are There?). By the way, the temporary gun earring is ugly and awkward. If you get the piercing done with a piercing needle, you can pick a piercing from a large selection of high quality, beautiful piercings.
Gun-piercing has only one advantage: it’s cheaper. And that, as I’ve already explained in previous articles, does not play a part when your health is at stake! And anyway, if you do punch the hole with a gun, and a week later replace the temporary earring with a high-quality piercing – you’ll come pretty close to the price you’d pay, if you’d pierced with a piercing needle…
Recently you can find in many studios a disposal gun, which pierces sterilely almost like a needle piercing, and its earrings are made of much higher quality materials than the usual gun’s. The price of a disposal gun piercing is just a little higher than the usual gun’s.