1. By traumatic, I’m assuming they meant damaging the skin. As someone who currently has nine piercings (ears, nose, nips) that have been done with a mixture of gun and needle I can assure you that it definitely makes a difference. Two sets of my ear piercings were done with a gun and both have been problematic as hell, even though the first set is 16 years old.

2. A gun forces a fairly blunt object through the skin, effectively forcing the skin that was there aside. A hollow needle actually removes part of the skin so the jewellery slides through and the skin heals around it. Gun piercings are more like to reject, migrate, have irritation bumps or become infected. They are traumatic to the skin tissue, which doesn’t ever fully recover, not traumatic to the person themselves (for the most part anyway), although I’m sure it is a bit scary for babies.

oh, i didn’t know that :o damn, thanks!