Lasgun
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The humble Lasgun is the standard-issue armament of the average Imperial Guardsman in the Warhammer 40,000 setting. Given the incalculable number of Guardsmen under arms and the sheer scale of the Imperium itself, it is safe to say that lasgun is probably the most common weapon in the entire galaxy that isn't some underhive piece of junk like stub guns, knives or other miscellaneous weapon.
The name is rather obviously a portmanteau of "laser" and "gun", but argument rages over how the word is meant to be pronounced. Many claim that the "las" should be pronounced "layz" or in other words say that it's pronounced with a long "a", as the first part of "laser", but others contend that this sounds retarded, and "lazz-gun" or a short "a" sound is a better pronunciation. Srs Bzns. According to Games Workshop, its name is pronounced "Laze-gun". According to English class (don't be ashamed if you can't remember because you were sleeping; I certainly was), this would support the "it's pronounced like 'laser'" theory, though /tg/ continues to argue that its spelling means it should be pronounced with a short "a" and a soft "s" sound. Mostly because it sounds less stupid. Such is the mystery of the english language.
It is universally described in the fluff as discharging with a sharp crack (caused by the beam ionizing the air it travels through), but some authors describe the lasround as either a "bolt" as in Star Wars or as a "beam" as in Dawn of War. Although other features of the weapon vary - some Black Library works and items such as the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer describe the weapon as possessing a fully automatic firing setting, but this feature is not represented on the tabletop or in Dark Heresy - this can be explained away by virtue of the fact that there are many different patterns of Lasgun produced throughout the Imperium.
There is some dispute as to the color of the "beam". Some fluff claims it to be blue, while games like Dawn of War portray it as red or something of a reddish-yellow. The popular Gaunt's Ghosts series of novels by Dan Abnett say that the Imperial weapons fire blue "beams", while the Chaos weapons fire red ones. Which is kind of bullshit because all Chaos weapons are just old Imperial weapons that they stole still posses because they're fucktards they were Imperials... meh, that's right, lasguns are shitty, so they're probably fucktards anyway.
Okay....let's look at this scientifically, light comes off as different colours depending on it's frequency, which is related to how much power it has, so it stands to reason that Lasguns would fire different coloured beams depending on how much energy they have left in their power cell, or, conversely, what state of disrepair they're in. So no colour is 'right'. Some wavelengths contain more energy than others, and assuming that the shot is relatively high energy, it would likely be at a wavelength above the visible spectrum, meaning the actual damaging shot would be invisible. On the other hand, it is possible that they might fire a tight, lower-energy beam nearly concurrently with the actual damaging beam as a sort of "tracer round". This could be adjusted to certain wavelengths to produce specific colors, which might serve friend-or-foe identification purposes to tell from which side the shots are coming from.
Why the Lasgun sucks
The lasgun is rather pathetic compared to the arms and armour of the other armies of the setting (except the Tyranids, Lasguns can do some pretty hefty damage against Gaunts who tend to be about as fragile as a Guardsman and have shorter range with their shooty weapons), useful only by virtue of the fact that Guardsmen come in ridiculous numbers (except against Tyranids or Ork mobs) and the application of statistical probability. The weapons are often derisively referred to as "flashlights", based on their individual usefulness, although this is more of an example of how ridiculously tough everything else in the setting, a Lasgun at full power can pierce 2-3 meters of concrete with ease, which means that all the weapons and armor in the setting are stupidly, stupidly powerful.---Not neccesarily, the 7.62x39mm, even without a hardened steel core, can chew through feet of concrete with minimal problems,the WWII loading of the .303 British reportedly can go through feet of solid oak boards, and I have personally seen .454 Casulls cut 3/4" thick pieces of steel rebar in half and another occasion tested a load that pierced five and half feet of simulated tissue. All three of those cartridges would be stopped cold by body armor of Type III or IV type.
Being hit by a Lasgun has similar effects on a person as a high velocity 30mm armor piercing shell does, which is to say, it will blow off limbs on glancing hits and cause torsos to disintegrate. People survive lasgun wounds all the time in Ciaphas Cain novels, and in Dark Heresy. Damage is described more like a cauterized crater the size of a fist. UPDATE #2: The 6th Edition rulebook describes a happy medium, saying the lasgun CAN sever limbs at close range but further away it'll only go about as deep as your liver (it'll roast that liver good before it's done, though). If a lasgun were to be manufactured in our time it would be about equivalent in power to an anti-materiel rifle. A modern anti-materiel rifle WILL cause the aforementioned ripping of limbs and explosions of torsos.
Why the Lasgun is still being used
Although better known as a "flashlight", some players also call it "The AK-47 of the 41st Millennium", albeit ironically. Instead of being reliable, tough, relatively inaccurate and having a tendency to show up in the hands of just about everyone. It's reliable, common as fuck (like 100 for every human in the galaxy common), pretty damned tough, and accurate but that is only by 40k standards. ...So, yeah, I guess it is the AK of the 41st Millennium.
It is unknown if a Lasgun would have ANY recoil or stopping power due to the fact that the weapon fires a non-physical projectile You will find that light does indeed carry momentum and that the lasgun most likely has a rate of fire of about 1 shot per 30 nanoseconds culminating in a recoil force of exactly 15 newtons, which is precisely equivalent to that of the .22 calibre bullet LIGHT HAS NO MASS FUCKTARD Light has no rest mass, but while moving it has "mass" Relativistic mass is an idiotic concept that has been obsolete for decades, light has momentum, which can cause recoil
In any case, the lasgun has very low recoil, especially in comparison to a bolter or even an autogun. The powerpack that the weapon uses can fire about a hundred shots before running empty and can be easily recharged through any standard Imperial power supply, direct sunlight, and even heat - a relatively common practice of Imperial Guard units cut off from supplies is to place their Lasgun power packs in open fires, although this does cause them damage, and is frowned upon.
The weapons are rather more useful in Dark Heresy than they are in the wargame, as their reliability, availability and plentiful ammunition become real considerations, and they are rather more useful against the human foes that an agent of the Inquisition is likely to face.
One thing about Lasguns is that they can be used as last-ditch grenades by basically making the entire power pack empty into the gun without ever actually firing it. It turns the Lasgun from a low-mediocre rifle crappy flashlight into an explosive comparable in power to, say, a melta charge. It can really fuck up the shit of even a Chaos Dreadnought, who thought they were going to make some Guardsmen go squish, and instead find their face gets blown off.
Other laser weapons
The Lasgun also comes in carbine, pistol, and sniper (referred to as a "long-las") varieties, and the Imperium fields many other weapons based on the same technology, such as the Hellgun (basically a more powerful Lasgun powered by a backpack power pack), and the mighty Lascannon, and the even bigger Volcano Cannon, and then the even bigger Defense Laser, and the bigger still Las weapons mounted on starships.
Sniper Rifle
The term "sniper rifle" is fairly loosely used in the Imperium; many sniper rifles are simply over-powered lasguns called long-las rifles, while many others (such as those used by Space Marine Scouts) are high-velocity slug throwers which have more in common with autoguns than they do with energy weapons. Then there are other more exotic variants firing poisoned darts or even stranger payloads. All of these variants have pretty much the same effect on the target, unless you play older editions or use special characters who have rules that say otherwise. Or play Dark Heresy.