Does getting your cartilage pierced hurt more with a needle or a gun?

You should never pierce your cartilage with guns. It will damage your body tissue and you will find a lump growing outside the piercing after a while. Guns are only safe for piercing the soft fleshy parts of your earlobes. Nowhere else. Safest is to go to a pro-piercing artist, he/she should use proper hollowed and sterilised or brand new needles to pierce. It doesn't hurt at all if the piercing is done professionally.