What does smoking gun symbolize?

Answer 1

The term is sometimes used to mean proof or very strong evidence in a comparative sense. Example: if you heard a gunshot from another room and you walked into that room and to see man holding a smoking gun, standing over a dead, bleeding body, that would be pretty strong evidence that the man standing shot and killed the other person. In a comparative sense, if you have very strong evidence of something, that evidence is something metaphorically called "the smoking gun." If you know that just moments ago there were ten cookies in the cookie jar, but now there are only eight, and when you go into the other room and ask your four year old if he just ate two cookies and he says no, but he has cookie crumbs all over his mouth, the cookie crumbs might be called "the smoking gun." It's proof or pretty strong evidence that your four year old just ate the two cookies even though he denied it.