The Summer of Love was 1967. If you know your history, you’re well-acquainted with the details therein: Haight-Ashbury, hippies, marijuana, acid, free love, communal living, etc. It’s said that this cultural revolution inspired many things that came to fruition in the years to come. Like the demise of the Vietnam War, music, literature, Timothy Leary and a patent for a whiskey gun.

Wait, what?

You read that right. A firearm — shotgun to be precise — that fires not bullets, but singular shots of the brown liquor Americans hold so dear: whiskey.

This is the actual paperwork filed to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (you can also see the diagram of the weapon in the photograph above).

It was the brainchild of a man named Frank G. Bohn, a Wisconsin native who never got to see his dream become a national revelation or, a viable product, for that matter. But, perhaps, his dream lives on?

Here’s a snippet from the patent where it tries to explain the gist of the gun:

In a novelty toy gun, the combination of a main body member in the form of a rifle with a forward end shaped as a barrel and a rearward end shaped as a stock, said body member having a slot therethrough intermediate its ends, elongated means extending through said slot, said elongated means having a whiskey glass mounted at one end and a handle at the other end, and means pivotally mounting said elongated means within said slot whereby a downward force on said handle away from said stock will move said whiskey glass in an arcuate path upwardly and rearwardly toward said stock.

In some alternate dimension, normal guns have all been replaced by these guns, and everyone wants to get shot.

Also, think about how it could’ve altered history? Not only would JFK have lived, but he would’ve gotten a few ounces of liquid courage and tongued Jackie in the backseat for all of downtown Dallas to see. Rather than a cowardly murderer, Oswald would’ve gone down in the annals of American history as cupid.

Vox