Abstract: From 1911, when effective colonial rule began in Acholiland, colonial officials arrested and prosecuted Acholi who owned firearms and had resisted registering them. Some of the men who were prosecuted argued that firearms were not weapons of warfare in the decades preceding colonial rule. In fact, the writings of missionaries and colonial officials support these claims by Acholi firearms owners. Yet scholars and recent commentators on violence in Acholiland have continued to treat firearms as tools of violence since their introduction in the 1850s. Drawing on an array of previously untapped documentary sources, this article seeks to chart the acquisition, spread, and use of firearms in Acholiland; explain why firearms were not significant weapons of war before colonization; and, finally, examine British attempts to disarm the Acholi and the subsequent Acholi reaction.