The big annual gunshow was held in Sioux Falls last weekend and with 1400 tables to inspect, I was worn out by the time I saw them all over 2 days. There was one thing, however that I had not seen or even heard of before. A fellow had on his table what was called a "anti garrotter belt pistol". It seems that at one time in history there was a fear among the public (real or not) that when you were walking around in public places, some one would come up behind you and attempt to "garrotte" you, either in a robbery attempt, or an assassination attempt. Garrotting was done by slipping a piece or rope, wire, or a piece of wood over your head, and pulling with both hands to strangle the victim. So necessity being the mother of invention when this was a public fear in London in the 1850s, fellow named Henry Ball invented a pistol to defend yourself against this type of attack. When in use, the pistol mounted on ones belt behind you to effectively shoot someone behind you with out seeing them.

- anti garroting pistol.jpg (23.5 KiB) Viewed 3665 times
As you can see in this internet photo, it would attach to the belt on the rear of the body, a charge of black powder would be loaded along with a bullet, and a percussion cap would arm the system. The lever at the bottom was for firing the pistol. The guy displaying the one at the gunshow explained that one would run a piece of cord tied to the loop on the lever, run the cord up the sleeve of a garment being worn, and loop the string around the fingers in such a way so that if one was attacked from the rear by a garrottier, all that was needed was to throw the hand straight out in front of you, and the piece would fire. Can you imagine that happening? This would have been at a time before antibiotics, and if you were shot by this device, if it did not kill you immediately, your chances of expiring from infection by pieces of clothing and other debris being forced into the wound would be very high. I also found an internet source linked below for more information on this device and its use.
https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.ph ... c-reacted/