What is a Gunner?

One of the first things I heard at law school was the term "gunner." No one explained what it meant; I gathered that it had to do with ambition, and that it was a negative thing. Since then I've thought about it a bit, and often wondered if people see me as a gunner. I don't know the answer to that question, but I have detected two different uses of the term.

Sometimes it merely means someone who makes good grades, which usually implies a certain level of ambition. Other times it means someone who raises his hand a lot in class (this is the definition that would apply to me). This, I think, is the essence of being a gunner: thinking that your opinion is so valuable that you have to share it at every opportunity. A gunner sees every hypothetical as a chance to impress everyone with his razor-sharp mind.

The funny thing is that being a gunner in this sense is probably not much correlated with intelligence or good grades. The unfortunate part, perhaps, is that mere confidence is enough to go a long way in a world like ours. My hatred of over-confident people is extreme, though in fact I am among them.

So I guess it's clear which definition of gunner I find more apt. It is a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to work hard and make good grades. Being a gunner, on the other hand...