An ear piercing instrument is a device designed to pierce earlobes by driving a pointed starter earring through the lobe. Piercing guns may be reusable or disposable. Piercing guns are typically used inmall jewelry shops. Piercing guns have been widely criticized as dangerous among professional body piercers. The use of older designs of piercing gun can possibly carry an increased risk of disease transmission, as compared to methods used by professional piercers. However, more modern designs of reusable piercing gun have addressed this problem by the use of self-contained disposable cartridges. Pre-sterilised during manufacture, these are used once and then discarded, eliminating the risk of disease transmission. As a result of these changes, piercing guns now carry a lower risk of disease transmission as compared to the methods used by body piercers, who typically use much of the same equipment on multiple persons, with autoclave sterilisation between uses. Professional body piercers also claim that the use of piercing guns, as opposed to the needles they favour, can lead to increased risk of local infection and rejection of the piercing.