Anybody know about antique firearms?

I recently resurrected "Whiskey in the Jar", as I'm playing in places where people request that sort of thing (and a good banjo tune it is as well). The version I learned many years ago, before it was popularized, has the lines:

I flew for my pistols, but alas, I was mistaken,
For Jenny'd drawn my charges, and a prisoner I was taken.

The version that seems most popular nowadays has:

But Jenny'd drawn my charges, and she filled them up with water...

And, later,

But I couldn't shoot the water, so a prisoner I was taken.

What's with the water? Surely drawing the charges would be enough to render the pistols useless. Why would Jenny go to the unneccessary, likely finicky action of adding the water, possibly risking waking up the guy? It adds an unnecessary verse to the song, and doesn't make any sense. Or can someone who knows about old weaponry set me straight?

While we're on the subject of "Whiskey in the Jar", I was told that someone who sang the song in Kentucky got an unexpected reaction from the line "Some takes delight in the hurling and the bowling". It seems that "hurling" has a sexual connotation in that area. Can anyone confirm this?