Terminology [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

[I'm having some trouble with my keyboard, especially the 't' key. There may be more typos than usual in this.]

Terminology matters. As does having a clue what you're talking about. And one of the reasons terminology matters is that when you use the wrong words in a discussion where half the people know the facts and the other half don't, nobody can tell whether you were just being sloppy with your language or you don't know what you're saying. That, and you make the less-informed even more confused.

Liberals and some moderates like to mock right-wingers who argue for legislation on subjects they don't understand -- or worse, are PROUD of Not Knowing anything about! -- like biology or physics. If you're on the right, don't give us that ammunition; if you're on the left, don't be just like the people you mock. You don't have to be an expert to have a (meaningful) opinion, but you do need at least a clue.

What follows is not meant as an attack on anyone. It is meant as a reference for anybody who doesn't already know this stuff. Whatever "side" you're on. I've seen a bunch of people get these things wrong recently ...

So here's a refresher. This isn't about whether we need more gun control or less or already have about the right amount, nor is it about what kinds of gun control are appropriate, nor whether guns make us safer. Nor is it about exactly what the Second Amendment means. It's just some terminology and a few uncomplicated background facts to make sure everyone's clear on what the words mean, when you put your opinions into words or hear somebody else opining.

"Automatic weapon" basically means "machine gun": when you pull the trigger, multiple bullets come out one after the other. An "assault rifle" might only fire a short burst of a few bullets; a proper machine gun or submachine gun will keep shooting until you release the trigger or run out of ammo. In civilian hands these are rare and very, very expensive; owning one requires a Federal license, there's a $200 transfer fee on top of the high price of the gun itself, IIRC you can't buy a new one, only one manufactured before ~~1968~~ 1986 [edited to reflect information supplied by a commenter], and their use in crime is vanishingly rare. They're already heavily regulated and certain to remain so. For the purposes of current gun-control discussions, they're pretty much irrelevant. Or would be, if everyone understood how rare and heavily regulated they are, and that most of the weapons being seriously discussed don't do automatic-fire.

"SEMIautomatic weapons" fire one shot per pull of the trigger, just like a double-action revolver, and they ready the next bullet and cock themselves, just like a double-action revolver. The functional difference between a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver is that your muscles pulling the trigger advance and cock the revolver, and recoil or blowback from the previous shot feeds and cocks the semiautomatic. One shot per pull of the trigger has been normal for handguns since the 19th Century, semiautomatic weapons have been common since at least the early 20th Century, and one of the most popular designs for a semiautomatic pistol was introduced in nineteen-effing-eleven.

(Trivia: semiautomatic revolvers exist too -- that is, pistols that are, mechanically, revolvers but are cocked as a side effect of the previous shot like other semiautomatics ... but I've only ever seen photos of one model, from the early 20th Century. For the most part we can describe handguns as semiauto OR revolver, but semiauto-AND-revolver is possible.)

Again: one shot per trigger-pull, self-cocking, is normal for handguns and pretty darned common for long guns. For handguns, the not-at-all-automatic options are downright rare: single-action revolvers (you reach up and pull the hammer back by hand for each shot), single-shot or double-barrel derringers, and muzzle-loaders (which themselves may be single-shot or (single-action) revolvers).

For long guns, semiautomatic is common but various not-automatic styles are still easy to find: bolt action, lever action, and pump action (the last being more common on shotguns than rifles, AFAIK). In experienced hands, these can be fired pretty darned quickly -- I'm not sure how much more speed semiauto gives you, if any, but if you watch Olympic biathletes you'll see that they get all their shots off very quickly using their (admittedly specialized) bolt-action rifles.

There are some single-shot or double-shot (double-barrelled) shotguns around, that need to be reloaded each time they're fired (or every other time) -- my understanding is that they're still somewhat common but I'm not sure of that -- but AFAIK rifles that hold only one or two bullets are rare, limited to muzzle-loaders and, like muskets, used only by history-buffs. [Edit: not as rare in Europe; see comments]

(More trivia: at least in the US and at least as far as Federal law is concerned, if a gun is old enough then it's legally not a gun, even though it still looks gun-shaped and shoots bullets loudly. Basically (look up exceptions if this information is relevant to you), if it was made in 1898 or earlier, it's legally not-a-gun even if it's the same model as one made in 1901 that is legally a gun. And yes, many guns that old and older still work just fine.)

Finally, an "assault RIFLE" is a short military rifle (a short long-gun, if you will) that fires a smallish bullet and has single-shot and multiple-shot modes (and a few other features I can't recall off the top of my head). But an "assault WEAPON" is a military-LOOKING rifle with some combination of features (different features in different states IIUC) that make it bannable under laws that specify what "assault weapon" means in those places. If you get the two terms confused, well the folks who coined the term "assault weapon" probably intended you to. But try to keep them straight anyhow. You can take an assault weapon, put a different stock and grips on it, and wind up with a rifle that works exactly the same but is no longer an assault weapon.

I'm not telling you what you should think about firearms or how you should feel about them (I'll give my own jumbled, conflicting opinions some other time). I'm just telling you what the words mean. If you say civilians don't need fully automatic weapons, everybody who knows what those actually are is going to think (a) that that's pretty much irrelevant because they're already hard to get and rarely used as it is, and (b) that you're probably confused. If you talk about semiautomatic weapons as though they're some new and/or unusual thing, folks are going to wonder whether you know they date back to 1880 and have been popular at least since 1911. If you really DO want to ban or restrict semiautomatics specifically, be prepared to explain why you're not also concerned about revolvers, lever-action rifles, etc. And if you want to restrict ALL handguns (or all guns, period), don't throw in scary-sounding words that make people wonder whether you have a clue -- just say what you really mean. Similarly, when you hear somebody else throw these words around, don't just think, "oh, scary-sounding terminology"; consider what the terms actually mean, and try to figure out whether the person speaking knows too.

Please don't be like the evolution-denier who wants to pass laws about science education or scientific funding. Understand the basics. Agree with me, disagree with me, or surprise me -- or convince me -- but know enough terminology to communicate your opinion (and your reasoning, I hope) intelligibly.

There are more aspects of the gun control debate that I haven't made up my mind about than ones I'm sure of (though yeah, there are directions I'm leaning). People who can argue in an informed way help make things clearer to me; people who argue without understanding what they're saying are just making noise.

And if I've screwed up any of what I've just explained, please correct me -- not just for my own sake, but for anybody else reading along. I do try to make sure I understand what I'm talking about, but I'm not an expert -- plenty of my friends and a few of my relatives know a lot more about guns than I do. Me, I've just got a casual background knowledge of the basics.

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Concise and helpful. Thank you.

Can you suggest any sources for when I need to go more deeply into the terminology?

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I learned a lot of it in conversations with collectors, recreational shooters, and ex-military (which makes it sound as though I talked to more people than I did ... there's a lot of overlap -- also, you already know most of the people I've talked to in person about this stuff, I think). Some of it I picked up from FAQs on shooting club web sites or 2A-absolutist discussion boards (follow a "can you believe this nut said this?" link, find a mix of sane and nutty in the discussion thread, stumble across a link to a history of the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1968 Gun Control Act, wind up learning something useful). And some I learned on Wikipedia while I was checking that my memory of something else was correct or looking up an interesting historical weapon somebody had just told me about.

I'll try to track down some useful web sites and a list of relevant Wikipedia pages later.

Things I write don't get called 'concise' very often. Cool!

And speaking of stumbled-upon info in Wikipedia, I just now found out about a rifle that held eighty rounds of ammo (talk about a large-capacity magazine!) from 1878! Apparently it never caught on.

[link] [parent] [reply]

Another shibboleth:

"clips" versus "magazines"

If someone is speaking of ammunition clips, they almost certainly don't know what they are talking about. The box full of bullets you put into the grip of the pistol or into the receiver of the rifle is a magazine.

A clip holds a number of rounds, usually to facilitate loading an internal magazine. You align the clip and slide the rounds into the magazine. A small number of guns (the M-1 Garand being notable) are loaded by inserting the whole clip into the magazine. When the last round is fired, the empty clip gets ejected as well.

Oh, and the definition of an "assault weapon" could be rewritten as "looks scary".

I couldn't decide whether to include the clip-vs-magazine distinction -- OT1H I hear folks who know the difference saying "clip" either from sloppiness or because they think that's more intelligible to their listeners; OTOH it really annoys some people and raises the "can't tell whether you're being lazy or ignorant" problem I mentioned.

I thought a clip looked awkward as hell, until my brother demonstrated loading a WWII-or-thenabout rifle with a clip. (He didn't show me on a Garand; this was one that used a stripper clip, where you pull the clip out leaving he cartridges in the magazine. An SKS maybe?)

Another distinction I left out because even though it serves as a shibboleth it didn't seem important right now, is 'cartridge' vs. 'bullet'.

(For anyone listening in who's unsure of the difference: the bullet is the projectile that comes out the end of the barrel when the gun is fired; the cartridge is the complete package with the gunpowder and bullet (or shot, for a shotgun) in it that you load into the gun. But saying "bullet" when you mean "cartridge" isn't usually confusing, because (AFAIK) the only time you'd load a gun with a bullet that isn't part of a cartridge would be with a muzzleloader or maybe naval artillery.)

As an aside, every time I read "shibboleth", I can't help but wonder if the conversation has jumped to Lovecraft. :)

Thank you for this.

This is bikergeek from LJ; minoanmiss pointed me here. DW apparently is refusing OpenID from LJ, for some reason.

Couple of minor nits:

Importation of new full-auto weapons for civilian ownership was banned with the Gun Control Act of 1968, but domestic manufacture of new full-auto weapons for civilian ownership continued to be legal until 1986, when it was banned as part of the Firearm Owners' Protection Act.

Rifles that hold only one or two shots are rare in the U.S., as you note. Such rifles aren't limited to primitive designs like muskets; there are modern, single- or double-shot break-action rifles that fire modern, centerfire, smokeless-powder rifle cartridges. A lot of them are high-end guns manufactured by the likes of Purdey or Holland & Holland, and chambered in calibers suitable for large, dangerous game, anything from boars to rhinos. They are much more typical in Europe, where, according to strict firearms laws, such rifles are often the only sort of rifle allowed for civilian ownership. Hunting is, of course, nowhere near as prevalent in Europe as it is in the U.S., and rifle ownership is thus correspondingly uncommon.

There *was* one part of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 that attacked a functional part of the weapon rather than a cosmetic part: the limitation on magazine capacity. AWB94 limited magazine capacity to ten rounds. To understand why this is irrelevant, watch this guy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLYNBF9FajU) changing mags on an AR-15 pattern rifle, of a type similar to that used in the Sandy Hook shooting. Blink, and you missed it. A magazine limit doesn't make a mass-shooter less deadly, it just means he has to bring more magazines. The Virginia Tech shooter had a whole backpack full for his two handguns.

"but domestic manufacture of new full-auto weapons for civilian ownership continued to be legal until 1986"

Uh, yeah, that's probably not a "minor nit". The point about full-auto being rare in civilian hands still stands, but I was a couple decades off in a different direction than I thought I might be.

"Rifles that hold only one or two shots [...] chambered in calibers suitable for large, dangerous game [...]"

Doh! Such rifles were described in a science fiction story I recently read about using a time machine to hunt dinosaurs for sport, so I really should have thought of those. (A digression: my understanding is that the seal that could be achieved with a repeating design wouldn't be strong enough for the amount of pressure those rounds generate. Have I go that right, or close? If so, why won't a falling-block action work?)

"To understand why this is irrelevant, watch this guy"

*nod* And I think I saw a similar YouTube video with a revolver and a speed-loader of some sort. So far I'm unconvinced either that limits on magazine size make any sense or that they're completely irrelevant -- I want to know/understand more. How common is that level of speed+reliability, and how likely is it that somebody who can do that in a demo will screw it up in a people-are-actually-getting-killed situation? I'm not saying you're wrong; I saying that I lack (a) the personal expertise or (b) as much detailed examination of this from people who do have the expertise, to evaluate your point. (Feel free to dig deeper into this here; I want to have either (a) or (b).)

Thank you for the corrections.

(bikergeek again)

Since the National Firearms Act regulating full-auto weapons was passed in 1934, the number of lawfully-owned civilian full-auto weapons that have been used in crimes is exactly two. One of them was committed by an off duty police officer with a personally-owned weapon; he killed a police informant.

There are repeating rifles manufactured in very large calibers. Here's a video of a man firing a bolt action rifle chambered in .700 Nitro Express (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D41NYBHkb9M).

I would suspect that the reason break-action single- or double-shot rifles are a Thing in Europe and not in the U.S. is that weapons laws there greatly limit what civilians can own in many countries. In fact the wikipedia page for "break-action" claims that break actions aren't as capable of withstanding high pressures as many types of repeating firearm actions.

As far as swapping magazines...well, the guy in that video has obviously practiced it to the point of it being a party trick. Swapping magazines under combat conditions, when you're stressed and when there are people firing back at you, is very very different to doing it in front of a video camera in your living room. However, unless you're absolutely so nervous and stressed that you're dropping the things and can't find the magazine well on the third, fourth, or fifth try, it's still pretty quick. But I'm by no means an expert there, either.

(Cripes, I know an awful lot about this stuff for someone who doesn't actually OWN ANY GUNS.)

I don't own any guns either. I've got a borrowed one, but I've only ever been to shooting ranges twice, so I'm a complete beginner.

It turns out a fair number of my friends own guns, but it just never came up in conversation until I mentioned wanting to learn to shoot. Until recently, I had no idea how many gun owners (and former gun owners, and occasional target shooters with or without their own guns) were around me. When it comes up, they speak, so it's not like they were trying to keep it secret or anything; it just never came up.

The least I could do, really.

Thanks for the summary. I forget everyone isn't a roleplayer and hence exposed to this studf. ;)

A note: It's possible to convert an AR-15 to full auto. Of course this makes it rather more illegal, i would imagine--but it means automatic weapons are still relevant in the conversation, and yes, my AR-15-owning friend considered this a selling point in case Things Got Crazy.

You're not converting a bolt-action to full auto (unless there's some sort of motorized bolt mechanism out there...and somehow that makes them less scary.

There is that, yes. From what I've heard it's also reasonably basic to make a fully automatic weapon from scratch if you're reasonably competent with a milling machine (I don't have the skills there to say whether what I've heard is correct or not), though converting an AR15 is a whole lot easier.

I still say that talking about the availability and legality of machine guns is a red herring. Using the possibility of conversion as a reason to distinguish between semiautomatics and revolvers or between semiautomatics and bolt/lever/pump action makes more sense. Is it true of semiautos in general, or just certain models? If it's only some, can the distinction be spelled out clearly in terms that'll work for writing a law?

Also: how often is that conversion actually done? Are criminals using full-auto home-modified weapons?

(bikergeek)

The AK-47 in particular was designed to be manufactured in third-world facilities using sloppy tooling and unskilled labor. There are people we both know who have access to a Bridgeport. If you have access to a Bridgeport and know how to use it, as many American hobbyists do, you have access to better facilities than what Mikhail Kalashnikov intended the AK-47 to be manufactured in, and you have more skill than the workers who were intended to make one. The AK design subsequently even changed from a milled receiver to a stamped-steel one, making it even easier and cheaper to manufacture.

Anyway, as far as converting semi- to full-auto and subsequently using the weapon in a crime, here's a video from the first time the AWB was debated, 20+ years ago (http://youtu.be/LB8gNCnLDZI). A police officer who specializes in firearms training elaborates some of the technical distinctions you did in the original post. Anyway, what I want to pull out is about 9:35 in and consists of the explanatory lead-in to, and the testimony of, Det. Trahin of the LAPD before the California State Assembly. Money quotes: "...not readily and easily convertible...." "Our unit has never, ever, had one AK-47 converted, one Ruger Mini-14 converted, an H&K 91/93 never converted, an AR-180, never converted."

There *are* full-auto weapons that are used in crimes. Perhaps the classic example is the North Hollywood shootout (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout); these enterprising criminals even actually used weapons that they had home-converted to full-auto. But the vast majority of bank robberies don't go down like this; these guys were once-in-a-hundred-years outliers. (FWIW, police still point at the North Hollywood shootout as a justification for the need for patrol rifles in their cruisers, as backup for their sidearms.)

One of the easiest guns for the amateur gunmaker to make is a sub-machine gun. The problem in making such a gun is to get it to stop firing once the trigger is pulled. During WWII, some people in some of the occupied countries made STEN guns, a sub-machine gun, in bicycle shops.

It may be possible to convert an AR to full auto, but it isn't easy, as it required milling out the receiver, if I understand correctly. I believe that one of the modifications to the AR from its original configuration was to make it more difficult to convert. Of course, if a person did convert, he would be liable for prosecution under Federal law for the unlawful manufacture of a full auto weapon without the appropriate license.

There are historic turn -bolt action conversions to fully automatic (EWnfields for instance in both World Wars) and more common there have been some straight pull bolt action rifle conversions before WWI and it is very possible and IMO would be rather easy to turn other straight pull bolt actions into full auto. There has even been a full auto muzzloader in the past. But yes any semi auto can be converted to full auto, but it is not always so easy and for the AR15 yes it can easily be converted to full auto (not all models though) with a "drop in sear", but those sears have been illegal to make for civillian ownership since 1986 and they are serial numbered, registered and taxed at $200 each. You can buy a good one for about $3,000 to $5,000. There is a type of cheaply made way to convert most ARs to full auto but they are stil a few thousand dollars a piece and need a lot of fine tuning and are not reliable. But back to the point, ANY gun can be made full auto including muzzloaders, but it is much easier to make a full auto from scratch cheaply and it is much easier to make than a semi auto actually. You can make it from scarap metal or from hardware store parts so the purpose of banning any semi-auto is moot since it is so easy for criminals or nutjobs to make one of these... http://thehomegunsmith.com/ And that is not the only design out there. There are plenty of videos of people making full auto guns from hardware store parts out there.

You do touch on an interesting point in bringing up the history of the semi-automatic. However, it's also important to note the scale of history that is relevant to the debate.

Yes the semi-automatic is 127 years old. But the second amendment to the US constitution is 221 years old. This makes the semi-automatic a *relatively recent development* in terms of discussing the second amendment, and it's certainly not 'dumb' to say so.

I wanted to make it clear that semiautomatic weapons are not new, not extraodinary, and not even uncommon -- the word "semiautomatic" should not be used to make a category of guns sound ExtraSpecialScary, and if people know what's what then it can't be.

Whether the Founders were thinking of them is another thing. Yes, yes, they knew single-shot muskets and rifles (I just looked it up -- rifles were used then but were considered specialized weapons in the military (apparently more popular for hunting)), and didn't have repeating weapons. For that matter, smokeless powder wasn't around yet, so they only knew about black powder. But is that really where you want to go? In terms of "what the Founders knew about," yes, it's worth noting. In terms of "how what they were thinking and what they wrote applies in the 21st Century," ... rather less interesting. The Founders did not imagine photocopiers and laser printers, desktop publishing, radio, television, or blogs, but we do not limit freedom of the press to the kinds of printing presses they had at the end of the 18th Century, do we? The Founders did not foresee the military use of aircraft, at least not to the extent that a separate Air Force was needed, but we still split off the Air Corps from the Army, renamed it the Air Force, and made it its own branch of the military alongside the Army and Navy.

Our legislative and judicial history does seem to recognize that extraordinary weapons can be banned from civilian ownership and use -- look at the "destructive device" category in the National Firearms Act of 1934 ... grenades, poison gas, etc. -- but our approach to ordinary and commonplace weapons has, as far as I know, always considered those part of the second amendment even after repeating rifles became common/ordinary for hunting and muskets stopped being used by infantry.

So far, I'm not saying what I think we should do about gun violence (because I don't know yet!), and I'm not entirely clear on what we can and can't do within the constraints of the Constitution, political feasibility, and implementation practicality. It's clear that some regulation is constitutional, because we already have some, so just sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "Shall not be infringed!" or trying to look scary and growling "Μολων λαβε" every time somebody suggests that anything other than the status quo might be possible is unhelpfully simpleminded, but trying to entirely ignore the practical ramifications of the second amendment by pointing out that the Founders didn't have revolvers or semiautomatic weapons is every bit as silly; a stupid distraction from the meaningful discussion we need to be having about this stuff.

Shorter version: Okay, the Founders didn't know about semiautomatic weapons -- so what? They're today's normal firearms, and intoning "semiautomatic" ominously as a scare-word is f%$^ing silly.

Had the First Amendment solely stated "the freedom of the press" your argument about differential application might have merit. But it does not, it says "the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." making it entirely clear that the technology used for distribution of speech was not in any way to be considered. In that regard the drafters of the amendment were deliberately forward thinking to protect what they wanted protected, not merely the current means of doing so.

However, they entirely failed to do this in the Second amendment. Instead they talked of bearing arms. They did not say weapons, they did not say guns, they did not even talk of self defence, they said "bear arms". And there's the rub. What exactly is "baring arms"? Even just 'arms' is a pretty vague definition. It can mean hand held weapons, it can mean 'implements of violence commonly used in warfare'.

So what does that term mean, what are arms in regard to the second amendment? Are we to take anything from the first half of the clause "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" or is it just a preamble to be dismissed?

Could it be, perhaps, that the Second Amendment was stated as an Archaic Phrase, that was pretty confused even at the time it was written, and is now beyond reasonable interpretation in modern legal terms.

If either side were entirely serious about this, they wouldn't be arguing with each other about what the Second Amendment "means". They'd be demanding the nation made a fresh amendment to specify commonly accepted language for the Second Amendment, instead of trying to re-interpret something clearly not drafted for modern use.

"But it does not, [...] making it entirely clear that the technology used for distribution of speech was not in any way to be considered."

Uh huh. Exactly. And the second does not say "muskets", or even "arms known to us in 1789", similarly making it clear that the specific technology was not ... being specified.

"Instead they talked of bearing arms. They did not say weapons, they did not say guns, they did not even talk of self defence, they said 'bear arms'."

Funny thing -- all this time I thought "arms" was a perfectly clear synonym for "weapons", with a vague implication that it meant current-for-the-time-period-of-the-speaker weapons. Swords, lances, muskets, rifles, ... Do you have sources that indicate my understanding is incorrect, or are you reaching for any excuse to cast doubt? I'll cheerfully accept correction, if you can show that the word really did mean something different at the time, but I'm not going to accept a mere, "Well, language changes and it might have meant something different."

Note that (a) the Supreme Court has, on at least one occasion, interpreted it to mean "the same kinds of arms as the military / a militia uses" (which would implicitly mean that the list of covered weapons changes along with technological progress and military doctrine), and (b) if the second amendment had said exactly that, then a bunch of weapons currently banned would be considered un-bannable because the military uses them.

Note also that we're clearly already imposing a later reinterpretation on "bear arms", since that phrase indicates going about armed, not just keeping arms in one's home, or "only carrying them to or from a gun shop, gunsmith's shop, or shooting range", but those very restrictions are common today. I'm pretty sure going back to an exact literal interpretation is not what you really want!

I continue to maintain that your style of counter-epistemology is a distraction at best, and a dishonest/insincere debating tactic at worst. Is it not more useful to look at what the Supreme Court has said it means over the past hundred years or so, than to play "what if" and "could it be" with one awkwardly constructed sentence?

Frankly, you appear to be using a derailing tactic. And I don't appreciate that.

"If either side were entirely serious about this, they wouldn't be arguing with each other about what the Second Amendment 'means'. They'd be demanding the nation made a fresh amendment to specify commonly accepted language for the Second Amendment, instead of trying to re-interpret something clearly not drafted for modern use."

Uh huh. Thank you for admitting right there that you're not being serious.

I've seen calls for exactly that -- a new, clearer amendment -- from folks on both sides. A little more often from anti-gun people than pro-gun people, I think, but seldom enough that I'm not sure my sample is large enough to say for sure whether one side says it more. The suggestion never goes very far. Serious or not serious, some folks on each side are too scared that a new version would wind up favouring their opponents' view instead of their own, and others are just afraid that the process would result in an even worse amendment with weasel words and ambiguities that would make the situation even muddier. (And still others regard it as ... another distraction, since the getting the process underway would take so long, not to mention how long the process itself of hammering out new wording enough people could agree on and trying to get it passed, would take too long for so uncertain a result when we could be trying to accomplish something now, in our current framework.

Personally, I think that (in theory at least), a new, more clearly worded amendment regarding the right to possess and carry weapons, would be a good thing. I don't see it as being likely enough to spend a whole lot of effort on right now, and share the concerns of those who fear that we'd just screw it up. If I see calls for such a thing more often, I'll join the chorus and do what I can to encourage a useful phrasing. Until then, it's just a background idea that doesn't affect the current debates on what we should be doing now.

I direct you to the historical study on the legal and government use of the phrase "To Bear Arms" during the 18th century. http://www.potowmack.org/emerappa.html#conclu The ammicus brief from a Ohio State University historical linguist. His conclusion is that from legal and government texts, the phrase "To Bear Arms" was used relatively distinctly from "To Carry Arms"; and to mean use of arms in a military, a militia, defence of the realm or in rebellion.

I also note this. The 1689 Bill of Rights from which this phrase was poached is still part of British Law. It's "Right to bare arms" was always, and from the start, meant to overturn the ban on Protestants from serving in armed forces or forming militia. Absolutely no one ever took this phrase to be an individual right to what ever hand portable weapons they could carry.

If the drafters of the second amendment wanted an individual mandate for ownership and carry of weapons, exactly why did they take the language from a law that was intended and applied only to taking membership of armed forces, guards and forming citizen militias? If you can't answer that, then you're using the same fuzzy definition of the term to mean what ever you want it to mean as you accuse others of over "assault weapons".

I'm rather annoyed by your accusations of "derailing" (After *you* brought up the original phrasing issue) and "thank you for admitting you are not serious". Do you want to discuss this, or do you want to score points?

Edited Date: 2013-03-07 12:56 pm (UTC)

See, if you'd led with that, I'd be a lot less suspicious of your tactics. But earlier you wrote, "They did not say weapons, they did not say guns, they did not even talk of self defence, they said 'bear arms'. And there's the rub. What exactly is 'baring arms'?" and "Could it be, perhaps, that the Second Amendment was stated as an Archaic Phrase, [...]".

You didn't say, "Hey, there's good evidence that the phrase meant something else; here's a URL or enough detail to start a Google search." Instead you went with a nebulous "do we even know what words mean?" way of saying things, which is more often used as a derailing tactic. So from here I see four possibilities (out of however many there actually are): (1) you were derailing and got lucky with Google after you were called on it, (2) you were baiting me into a trap to score points, (3) you really suck at this, (4) there's a serious mismatch of communication styles confusing us.

At this point I'm not sure how much I care which of those four it is, and here's why:

As you yourself first said, "If either side were entirely serious about this, they wouldn't be arguing with each other about what the Second Amendment 'means'," and here we are arguing about just that under an entry that did not address that in the first place -- you shifted my "these are not new, not unusual" to "these are not what 'gun' meant to the Framers"; you are the one who steered this thread to "what does the second amendment mean?"

Do I want to discuss this or score points? Well, I wasn't planning to discuss this in an entry that starts out with, "This isn't about whether we need more gun control or less or already have about the right amount, nor is it about what kinds of gun control are appropriate, nor whether guns make us safer. Nor is it about exactly what the Second Amendment means. It's just some terminology and a few uncomplicated background facts to make sure everyone's clear on what the words mean, when you put your opinions into words or hear somebody else opining." So congratulations, you have derailed this from what I was trying to accomplish, into ... what you said was a mark of people not being serious.

When I get around to an "ideas about what I thing we should / can do about guns" entry, I'll be taking into account this new-to-me linguistic information you've linked to (though I expect it to be less important in practical political terms than whatever the Supreme Court currently says it means). So thank you for teaching me something I didn't know. At the same time, fuck you for the derailing. As contradictory as that sounds, both the thank-you and the fuck-you are sincere.

Edited Date: 2013-03-07 09:45 pm (UTC)

I said what I said because I thought that the Second Amendment being archaically phrased should be patently obvious.

You wanted to say that people calling semi-automatics a recent invention were stupid, I pointed out that they are recent when taken on a historical time scale including the second amendment. I mean, my original comment was solely that, a two paragraph reminder about historical time frames, you were the one who departed off into "what the founding fathers meant". If there was any derailing here, you were the one who jumped the tracks. Don't bring up "what the founding fathers meant" if you don't want to discuss it.

And to be frank, you do not get to make an argument, then claim any rebuttal to that argument is "derailment" of what you wanted to say. At least not, and retain my respect. Which you have lost.

"my original comment was solely that, a two paragraph reminder about historical time frames"

Uh huh. Which you thought was important to point out in case anybody reading forgot that 1880 and 1789 aren't right next to each other, not because you wanted to recast "new/modern" in terms of originalism?

"my respect. Which you have lost"

I am completely unsurprised that the loss of respect is mutual. That was expected. For the record, I consider the derailment to have begun with your first comment, not with your response to my saying why your first comment wasn't relevant.

Well, if you wanted to say my point was irrelevant, and you considered it "derailment", why did you post a five paragraph ramble on original intent? I mean, if you really thought that I was trying to derail the debate, why accelerate off the tracks with all your might? Did you really think I would not think you actually wanted to discuss the things you had brought up in your reply?

Bringing up "Derailment" the way you have is one of the truly petulant "internet argument techniques". Want to wind back from taking an awkward position on something, cry "Derailment" and insist that all that part of the discussion be ignored.

My guess is that you destroyed the benefit of the doubt he was giving you before with your subsequent replies.

Just to note Glenn, they had repeating rifles in use when the Bill of Rights was written and one of them even had a magazine holding 21 rounds. And just to note, they had hand grenades in the Revolutionary War too. And as far as the judicial recognizing bans on other war devices, well the Supreme Court in 1936 (or 1938?) recognized the 2A right to own such weapons in common military use at the time which is a major part of that decision a lot of gun control advocates who want to ban so called assault rifles want to overlook. And this is your brother by the way.

The only quibble I would have with your explanation is over the use of the term "assault weapon". As you point out, there are some localities that have actual legal definitions of such; but there is no one, overarching standard definition, and the several differing actual legal definitions often overlap AND/OR conflict. Wrap your brain around that, if you can.

Thus, whenever I find the use of the term "assault weapon" in conversation, I find that I must stop the person int he middle and actually ask, "What do YOU mean by that term?"

Basically, I find the use of the term so vague as to to be utterly useless in any gun ownership/gun banning argument.

I agree, ZL

Weeks ago I was contemplating starting an entry with, "Glenn's idea for an Assault Weapons Ban: everyone is banned from using the phrase 'assault weapon' unless they can define what it means and explain why their definition is meaningful." Maybe I should still try to write that entry, but I doubt I can do anywhere near as good a job as the post I pulled oday's quote-of-the-day from.

Good to see that I got the automatic/semiautomatic/other distinction correct this morning (over at FB). Is there a specific designation in this style for weapons that can do bursts, but don't empty the magazine if you hold the trigger down such as you describe: An "assault rifle" might only fire a short burst of a few bullets; a proper machine gun or submachine gun will keep shooting until you release the trigger or run out of ammo. It would be very useful NOT to have to use the designation "assault rifle", and to say something like "burst-fire weapon" when discussing gun control and safety.

In military tactical terms, the purpose of the full auto feature of the M16 was to keep the other sides heads down while other soldiers advance. However, with the full auto, there was a very large expenditure of ammunition, as soldiers simply sprayed the area. A short burst of full auto fire has much the same effect on the enemy, and therefore M16s were modified to have a burst setting, which allowed the soldiers to keep the other sides heads down and to not fire so many rounds at once, thus saving ammunition. I don't know of any special designation other than to describe such a weapon as full auto with burst selection. Since I left the military before this was done, I don't know if the current M16's have both burst and unlimited full auto fire.

I think the term of art is "select fire" or "selective fire". That is, aside from "safe" and "shoot", there are options for "rock and roll" and sometimes "three round burst". The burst fire is much more sensible in most circumstances.

Heck, as I understand it, best general practice for things like a .50 caliber machine gun is 5-7 round bursts. Not rock and roll. 5 rounds of .50 caliber will ruin your day just fine. Or your engine block.

A couple of comments on reload times:
1. Yes, if you practice, practice, practice, you can switch magazines in a semi-automatic quickly. But it does take a couple of seconds - and as most cops will tell you, those couple of seconds can be crucial in taking out someone who is shooting at you. Also, if you're simply going for speed, it's VERY possible that the magazine will not seat properly which makes jams / misfeeds much more likely.

And I'd like to reiterate - as a combat vet - that there is a huge difference between doing tricks in front of a camera and changing out magazines in the middle of a firefight. This is (IMHO) one of the reasons why "rampage shooters" tend to choose gun-free zones as their targets: when your enemy isn't shooting back at you, it's a lot easier to reload.

2. Revolver speedloaders do exist. They require even more practice to use effectively. When you reload a revolver, you have to eject the brass from the cylinder before you can put new rounds in place.

...and in the end, magazine capacity *does* matter. Three ten round magazines versus one thirty round magazine means lower rate of fire with pauses and opportunities to screw it up.

Is that a limitation worth imposing? Perhaps, but to dismiss it as of no effect is to blithely disregard facts on the ground. There's a whole lot of that going on in the shitstorm that passes for public debate. On both sides.

I'm not inclined to dismiss magazine size out of hand (maybe after more research and debate, maybe not then either, depending on what I learn), but there is this:

Remember, the only sensible reason for a capacity ban of any kind is the specific class of crime whose degree of success depends on the 5-10 second difference between having to reload and not having to reload. Mass shootings, it turns out, are the only time this is the case, and only to an incredibly slight degree, as demonstrated by Cho. I have already discussed why I do not believe that mass shootings should guide our policy to begin with.

On the other hand, for the exact same reasons people say it won't help, magazine size limits seems like one of the least onerous restrictions we could apply (the biggest problem with it is setting size smaller than the standard size magazine for many guns, which means either grandfathering enough magazines to make the restriction pointless or forcing a whole lot of legal owners to get the magazines they already have modified to meet the restriction).

And I can see one possible significant benefit! In police shootings, it seems like officers tend to empty their whole magazine (and I've head that patterns of testimony and cross examination have the effect of encouraging exactly that). Thus, it seems we'd all be safer if the police had smaller magazines (and if they ever actually need more bullets than that, well, changing magazines is pretty quick, as we've determined above, right?). Note that this only works if the police are subject to the same restrictions on magazine size as everybody else, which I would support.

About speedloaders requiring practice ... If I recall correctly, the one time I handled a speedloader, I took more time figuring out how to use it than it would've taken me to load the revolver by hand. I think I wound up handing the gun to its owner and letting her load it for me.

To confuse matters, several common self-loading pistol designs use cartridges labelled "Automatic Colt Pistol", including the venerated Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911A1.

Which brings up another point: for a long time, self-loading pistols were called "automatic pistols", even though they were (under the terminology you describe here) only semi-automatic. There have been a few fully automatic pistols made, but when someone speaks of "an automatic" in the context of handguns, they are almost always referring to a semi-automatic. They may not know that, however.

Oh, even more confusing: I have a borrowed Iver Johnson's Arms & Bicycle Works Safety Automatic top-break .32 revolver. The "safety" is because of the transfer bar, a brand-new technology at the time. The "automatic" was because it helpfully ejects the shells from the cylinder when you open it, instead of having to push a push-rod or something. So it's not even a semiautomatic weapon, but it has "automatic" right there in the model name!

(Note that this is one of those "might legally be a gun, might legally be not-a-gun" items, depending on which side of the dividing line this particular serial-number was made. The exact same weapon -- same model -- exists on both sides of that legal divide. Ammunition for it is a little hard to find, but is still being manufactured.)

So yeah, between at least four models of I-J Safety Automatics from 100-120 years ago, and the Colt ACP cartridges, and the casual shorthand of "automatic pistol" for semi-auto that you've described (I haven't heard that usage from people who know what they're talking about, but it's quite likely that you've been in far more conversations where it could occur than I have -- I have heard it from people who are unclear about the difference), there's room to get a little confused, but I think that it's still important to speak carefully in gun-control debates/blogging/political-ads/etc. so that we're speaking the same language.

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