As soon as Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic tweeted about it before the Phoenix Suns' season opener last week, I wanted to know more about the new "Gorilla Gatling Gun" that the team unveiled to, apparently, give the team's famed mascot the upper hand in any wars he might wage with the fans who attend games at the U.S. Airways Center this season. So I asked. Because journalism.

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After running it past the military intelligence community to determine that nothing in the communique would prove deleterious to our national security, the fine folks in the Suns' media relations department provided some specs about the massive new T-shirt launcher and in-game entertainment attraction. Without further ado:

1. It can shoot 60 T-shirts or 120 mini-basketballs in less than 10 seconds.

Carry the one ... um, that means it shoots in excess of 360 T-shirts or 720 mini-balls in a minute. That is a punishing amount of team spirit, delivered at a high rate of speed. "Hell yeah, I love the Suns. I have the welts on my chest to prove it. Eff your Thunder Dan shirsey."

2. It is powered by 80 pounds of carbon dioxide.

That's 0.46 Ish Smiths worth of pure compressed gas, devoted specifically at rocketing swag toward your skull at a rate of speed and force that will have you thinking twice about paying attention to anything besides what's happening on the court during a timeout. Does your buddy want to get up and grab a beer while there's a break in the action? Let him run that risk. You keep your eyes on the Gorilla Gun and stay safe. (And ask him to grab you one while he's up.)

3. It weighs 650 pounds.

"Two full Oliver Millers of rafter-reaching, stands-exploding excitement." You can have that promotional slogan for free, Suns.

4. It stands over 9 feet tall.

That is a very tall gun. That is roughly 1 1/2 Eric Bledsoes tall, which, frankly, seems excessive. (Then again, I am not a merchandise general.)

Suns centers Alex Len, Slava Kravtsov and Channing Frye all have a long enough standing reach to comfortably put their hands in the very top of barrel of the Gorilla Gun. They should 100 percent not do this, because the rotation of the Gatling gun's barrels could result in some nasty cranking on their wrist and elbow joints, and also because all that compressed CO2 behind the T-shirts and mini-basketballs would blow their hands clean off, which would make it difficult for them to provide capable play behind Miles Plumlee (whose standing reach was measured at 8 feet, 9 1/2 inches, which is lucky for him).

5. It is the "biggest capacity T-shirt gun in the world … as far as we know."

Those facts and figures put the Gorilla Gun in the ballpark of "Big Bella," the similarly styled T-shirt launcher debuted last season by the Philadelphia 76ers. That advanced poly-cotton-blend blaster "fires 100 tees in just 60 seconds" and "weighs 600 pounds," which is quite impressive — no word on how many mini-basketballs it can fire, though, which could give the Gorilla an edge over the ... um ... wait, did the Sixers ever get around to choosing a new mascot? Anyway: Two very big automated weapons intended to deliver maximum crowd-pleasing in a minimal amount of times. On an unrelated note, I miss "Breaking Bad."

First Big Bella, now the Gorilla Gun ... I fear that we may now be on the brink of an in-arena entertainment arms race that will lead somewhere dark, like the BrooklyKnight and Pierre the Pelican taking inflatable mascot dances and turning them into something sinister more akin to a "Pacific Rim"-style battle that reduces an NBA stadium to rubble. If (when, really) this dystopian future comes to pass, we're going to need a calm, soothing, peace-promoting voice to help convince us to beat our T-shirt-launching monstrosities into plowshares ... and I think I know just the guy:

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you are all enjoying this fun holiday. Be safe my friends! — Pau Gasol (@paugasol) November 1, 2013

Let's lay down our gatling guns and embrace Pausitivity, friends ... before it's too late.

Many thanks to the Suns' media relations team for being kind enough to help out and play along.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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