Ear piercing instrument

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An ear-piercing instrument (commonly referred to as a piercing gun or an ear-piercing gun) is a device designed to pierce earlobes by driving a pointed starter stud through the lobe. Piercing guns are typically used for ear piercing in mall jewelry shops, beauty salons, pharmacies, and doctors' offices.

Piercing guns have been widely criticized as dangerous among professional body piercers. The use of older designs of piercing gun can possibly carry an increased risk of disease transmission, as compared to methods used by professional piercers.^[1] Piercing guns have been criticised for causing damage (sometimes mischaracterised as blunt-force trauma) to the skin and underlying tissue. Diminished air and blood circulation in tissue compressed by a piercing gun can lead to prolonged healing, minor complications and scarring.^[1]

More modern designs of reusable ear-piercing instruments, such as Inverness and Studex System 75, use self-contained, single-use, sealed, and sterilised disposable cartridges or cassettes. The studs used with such systems often have thinner posts (normally 20 gauge) with sharper tips, as opposed to the thicker (16 gauge), blunter posts of the "standard" ear-piercing guns. This makes the piercing somewhat less painful, and lessens trauma to the skin and tissue, but may still cause more trauma compared to hollow needles used by professional body piercers. Modern ear-piercing studs are also more likely to be made from materials certified as safe for long-term implant in the human body, such as titanium.^[2]