smoking gun

plural smoking guns

1. idiomaticEvidence, particularly of a crime, that is difficult or impossible to dispute.

   We have a theory, but we haven't found a smoking gun yet.

   5 more examples

   When Prophet's place in Decatur, Georgia was raided in July 1989, there was the E911 Document, a smoking gun. And there was Prophet in the hands of the Secret Service, doing his best to "explain."

   1992, Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown […] , Bantam Books, →ISBN

   I now turn to the role and results of our current inspections. Evidently if we had found any ‘smoking gun’ we would have reported it to the Council.

   2003 January 9, Hans Blix, “Notes for Briefing the Security Council”, in UNMOVIC

   It's all over the blogosphere and Air America, the left-wing talk radio network: This is the smoking gun of the Iraq war. It is proof positive that President Bush was determined to invade Iraq the year before he did so

   2005 June 12, Michael Kinsley, “No Smoking Gun”, in Washington Post

   A Nobel prize-winning US biologist, who has been widely quoted describing a “smoking gun” to support the thesis that Covid-19 was genetically modified and escaped from a Wuhan lab, has said he overstated the case.

   2021 June 9, Peter Beaumont, “Leading biologist dampens his ‘smoking gun’ Covid lab leak theory”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   "He can weasel out if^([sic]) it." Ibanez massaged her knuckles. "He can say Couch welshed on a deal, and didn't show, and that's why Karen got got. It isn't conclusive. I have another thing I can lay on him, but even the two combined won't do. We need a third smoking gun if we're really gonna smoke this son of a bitch."

   2023 September 28, HarryBlank, “Hooking Up”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 25 May 2024