Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US drugs, also needle shooter) a heroin or other narcotics addict; occas. attrib.

1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. 34: needle shooter–a hypodermic addict.
1968		N. von Hoffman We are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against 65: A mean, crazy-eyed New York scag-shooter.
1971		Illinois Legislative Investigating Committee Drug Crisis in Spears (1986).
1976		R. Sabbag Snowblind (1978) 237: It was the methedrine shooters who were dying all over the Haight in San Francisco [...] in the late 1960s.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 269: Muro had been sharing a needle with a shooter on Avenue D.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 15: Temples scooped deep as shooter spoons.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 7: Rail-thin coke freaks and abscessed shooters press dirty singles and fives into waiting hands.
2002		G. Pelecanos Hell to Pay 233: His mother was welfare dependent and a shooter of heroin and cocaine.
2013		J. Stahl Happy Mutant Baby Pills 205: There were public shooters and there were privates.

2. a hypodermic syringe.

1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 230: You had to break a glass ampoule [...] suck it into the shooter, and jam it into your bunched-up tummy.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 165/2: shooter n. 1 a hypodermic syringe.

3. one injects a third party with narcotics.

2013

J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 29: He’s shooting up Penny [...] ‘It’s important,’ she said, while the shooter dabbed her off.