[Ads-l] Saturday night special (cheap handgun; 1912)

Mon Aug 3 21:16:47 UTC 2026

OED is late, sharing a 1959 citation for this type of handgun. I thought we
could do better, not imagining the direction this would take me in, but
I'll save that for later.

Indeed, "Saturday night special" goes back to at least 1912. It seems to
have co-existed with or perhaps been preceded by "Saturday night gun," used
in the same way. (The earliest reference I've seen to a "Saturday night
gun" goes back to 1901.) All from Southern newspapers and often employed in
reports on Black-on-Black crime. These examples can be found far below.

When I began this search, I hadn't realized that Jennifer Behrens and
Joseph Blocher had already undertaken an in-depth look at how this kind of
weapon may have acquired its name. See "A Great American Gun Myth: Race and
the Naming of the 'Saturday Night Special'," Minnesota Law Review
Headnotes, 108, 293-313 (2024),
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/4343/.

There, Behrens and Blocher tackle the frequently cited ca. 1970s etymology
that the term is rooted in Black gun violence, sometimes passion-inflamed.
The principal claim that they dismantle is (and they're quoting someone
else),

"It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the 'Saturday night special'
is emphasized because it is cheap and it is being sold to a particular
class of people. The name is sufficient evidence – the reference is to
'[n___er]-town Saturday night.'" [p. 294]

Behrens and Blocher argue that the coining of "Saturday night special"
doesn't have to do with offensive racial stereotypes and that it's a
mistake to perpetuate the belief that it does. Rather, they hold that
"Saturday night special" is patterned in part on store sales of the same
name (where customers could purchase inexpensive goods) that were popular
in the first 20 years of the last century and that "Saturday night"
specifically had a general meaning signifying "cheap." It's an attractive
conclusion.

As they sum up,

"The majority of these definitions [for 'Saturday night'] share a general
theme of cheapness and/or convenience commonly associated with the phrase
'Saturday night special' in the first half of the twentieth century: cheap
sales, convenient train routes, easy dates. It would seem natural for law
enforcement in that era to extend the phrase to mean cheap handguns,
particularly when the 'Special' designation was already in widespread use
for certain categories of small firearms." [p. 308]

But given that a few of the earliest sightings of "Saturday night special"
(for the gun; see below) reference .38 specials, I now suspect that's how
we arrived at "special" in the first place.

Further, the "Saturday night" part is also problematic to me. Was "Saturday
night" a race-based allusion to Blacks specifically? Behrens and Blocher
say no.

After looking at sources from a century ago, though, I'm not sure I'm
completely on-board with this, mostly because I don't think there's enough
evidence to know what exactly Americans of the period (white, Black;
police, reporters, newspaper writers, and "civilians") thought of the term
and how they were using it orally.

Now, I suppose it's possible that "Saturday night" here was not racially
tinged or associated with race, but -- for those of us familiar with ca.
1900 newspapers -- it wouldn't be surprising that a term for a cheap
handgun (one usually associated with Blacks in crime reports) could be
based in racial stereotype when in these same newspapers "Saturday night"
was sometimes also referred to as "nigger night" and cheap guns were
sometimes called "nigger guns."

-- Bonnie

1. Early sightings of "Saturday night special."

I don't know who found the previously-earliest designation for this kind of
cheap revolver (September 1917, Kansas), but it was clipped at
newspapers.com in 2021. It also shows up in Behrens's and Blocher's 2024
essay and on the Wikipedia page for this term.

See
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-coffeyville-daily-journal-fair-notes/84588072/
under "Had Crooked Dice."

Here are some earlier ones.

-------------------

Over a difference of 30 cents in a crap game near Caseyville, Henry Coleman
shot Jim Blake through both lungs with a .38 caliber "Saturday Night
Special." Blake will not recover. Coleman escaped and is still at large.
Both are negroes.

["Mississippi Matters," The Times-Democrat (New Orleans), 5 April 1912, p.
10;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-democrat-saturday-night-specia/202910116/
.]

---------

The woman then got a 38-caliber "Saturday night special," and shot her
husband, the bullet entering the face about two inches in front of the left
ear, and ranging through the root of the ear, came out just back of it.

["Negress Defends Self With Pistol; Varius Johnson Wounded in Head by Wife
During Family Row," The Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock), 28 June 1913, p. 4;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-arkansas-gazette-saturday-night-sp/202905594/
.]

---------

[The Black brothers] were arrested late last night by Patrolman Carter, who
detected Jess with a 38 "Saturday Night" special.

["Weapon 'Toters' Fined," The Arkansas Democrat (Little Rock), 14 September
1915, p. 5;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/arkansas-democrat-saturday-night-special/202909833/.
Note that "Saturday Night" is set off from "special."]

---------

Daniels' disposition to follow Casey and "rock" him caused Casey to arm
himself with a "Saturday night special."

[The Arkansas Democrat (Little Rock), 10 May 1916, p. 4, column 4;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/arkansas-democrat-saturday-night-special/202909714/.
Daniels was Black.]

---------

It was reported that Myrtle ran at Love, flourishing a knife, and that Love
fired one shot with a "Saturday night special."

["Just a Lovers' Quarrel," The Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock), 26 September
1917, p. 9;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-arkansas-gazette-saturday-night-sp/202906073/.
Both participants were Black.]

-------------------

2. Early appearances of "Saturday night gun" and related.

Owing to numerous complaints heard from residents throughout the parish we
publish the law relative to dice playing commonly called "crap shooting."
it seems that the colored fraternity have a knack of gathering at stores,
behind the levees, near the road side and other places, and engaging in
this disrepetable [sic] game, which usually terminates in a grand display
of "Saturday night guns" and Barlows.

[The Pointe Coupee Banner (New Roads, Louisiana), 23 February 1901, p. 3,
column 1;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/pointe-coupee-banner-saturday-night-guns/202967357/
.]

----------

Saturday night guns and big talk played conspicuous parts, but no one was
hurt and the engagement resulted in a draw.

["Residents Annoyed," Newton (Kansas) Daily Journal, 28 April 1902, p. 2;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-newton-daily-herald-saturday-night-g/202967143/.
About a longstanding dispute between a white family and a Black family.]

---------

Hide no more lawlessness around you from the law and you shall have a more
peaceful community about this city, and less burning and less shooting from
those Saturday night guns by the young negro hoodlums on the highways.

["Talks to Race Straight; Communication from a Colored Citizen -- He Gives
Some Good Advice," Jackson (Mississippi) Evening News, 3 June 1902, p. 3;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/jackson-daily-news-saturday-night-guns/202967583/
.]

---------

He says he hasn't got anything but a "Saturday night" gun anyway, and it
would take a brass cannon and more deputies to quiet things here.

[Cato, "County News Notes," The Log Cabin Democrat (Conway, Arkansas), 7
February 1907, p. 7;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-log-cabin-democrat-saturday-night-gu/202965399/.
Note that "Saturday night" is set apart.]

---------

The woman claimed that he came to her house with a Saturday night gun,
which was the vest pocket size, and demanded to see her.

["Difference in Pronunciation," The Daily Arkansas Democrat, 11 October
1907, p. 7;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/arkansas-democrat-saturday-night-gun-10/202968426/
.]

---------

The pistol that Ellis is alleged to have carried is known among the negroes
as a "Saturday night gun." That is, it is a small caliber pistol and is not
the kind generally carried in the army and navy.

["Local and Personal," The Daily Arkansas Democrat, 22 June 1909, p. 3;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/arkansas-democrat-saturday-night-gun-no/202968551/.
Ellis was Black.]

-------------------

A few more notable examples:

-- 24 May 1910, "a 'Saturday night gun,' which means a bad looking revolver
a foot and a half long,"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-picayune-saturday-night-gun-5/202965309/

-- 14 November 1910, "known among the negroes as a 'Saturday night gun',"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-arkansas-gazette-saturday-night-gu/202968672/

-- 15 February 1914, "a pistol of small calibre, it being what officers
term a 'Saturday night' gun,"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-waco-times-herald-saturday-night-gun/202966853/

-- 21 May 1914, the "pistol, described as a 'Saturday night gun,' because
of its cheapness,"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/natchez-democrat-saturday-night-gun-be/202967486/

-- 8 July 1914, "a .38 calibre 'Saturday Night Harrison' revolver,"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-38-calibre-saturday-night-ha/202960586/

-- 28 April 1915, "The revolver is of the cheap variety, known to the
police as a 'Saturday night gun,'"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/arkansas-democrat-saturday-night-gun-r/202968120/

-- 4 January 1920, "a cheap, nickel plated 38 calibre revolver of the type
Southern police call 'the nigger's Saturday night gun,'"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sunday-record-saturday-night-gun-38/202969220/

-------------------

3. Examples of "nigger gun."

A boy who had a nigger gun, having said he was going out to kill a rabbit,
the gentleman said he couldn't kill a rabbit with that thing.

[The Salina (Kansas) Sun, 11 February 1905, p. 1, column 2;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-salina-sun-nigger-gun-2111905/203042180/
.]

---------

Somewhere we have seen the prevailing meat "boycott" compared to the famed
"Nigger's gun" that would shoot a rod and kick a mile.

[Like the "Nigger's Gun," The Princeton (Missouri) Telegraph, 2 February
1910, p. 4;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-post-telegraph-niggers-gun-22191/203041020/
.]

---------

The gun in the case was a regulation "nigger" gun, a thirty-eight caliber,
short barreled affair of cheap make, and generally about as danger to the
shooter as the shootee.

["Charge Attack on Pullman Porter," The Evening Nonpareil (Council Bluffs,
Iowa), 21 February 1911, p. 7;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-evening-nonpareil-nigger-gun-a-3/203041215/
.]

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