A "smoking gun" is a piece of evidence that strongly suggests someone is guilty of a crime or wrongdoing. It's often used as a metaphor for any clear and conclusive piece of evidence that proves a point.
The term comes from the idea that finding a gun still smoking after a shooting indicates the person holding it is the one who fired it.
In a broader context, a smoking gun is any piece of evidence that strongly supports a particular conclusion or accusation. In legal settings, a smoking gun can be a piece of circumstantial evidence that is so compelling it leads to a conviction. In addition to this, its meaning has evolved in uses completely unrelated to criminal activity: for example, scientific evidence that is highly suggestive in favor of a particular hypothesis is sometimes called "smoking gun evidence". The term is widely used in everyday language to describe any kind of undeniable proof or evidence that supports a claim.
Desperate Trump Lashes Out at His Enemies With Epstein ‘Smoking Gun’ Post.
President Donald Trump says that if he were implicated in the Epstein files, his foes would have nuked him with a “smoking gun.
