I think a big mistake in designing gun-themed magic cards is making everything ping. Guns are like archers: sometimes they're ping, but sometimes they're first strike, and sometimes they're reach, and sometimes they're just a high power or an evasion ability.

However, they have to be SOME guns, including science-fictiony ones. This was originally going to be +X/+0, and possibly first strike but I decided making it ping blockers fit the flavour better and toned it down a bit, while still making it really good. It also means it can't be used to pour mana into player damage, which seems fair enough.