I thought you were a "sonofagun" if your "pappy was a pistol". I had some trouble trying to prove anything using the Babel Fish transation site. However the box my Beretta came in calls it a "canna" or "canne". The word "cannon", in English, likely came from this origin, as well. Cannon being the augmentative(larger) form of canna or canne, which some in those countries used for barrel, as we use it.

> Jim Legg <