If you’re going to debate someone on a particular topic, you better have the terminology right. In recent months, there has been a raging discussion on how best to curtail gun violence in America and both sides are pleading their case with passion and emotion. The problem is, most of the anti-gun supporters have their terminology wrong, and it makes them look uneducated and lack credibility. I’ll point out some of the more glaring mistakes so the people reading and listening to the progressive anti-gun agenda can be better informed.
Most of the time, they are either deliberately using the wrong terms to demonize gun advocates, or they’re simply don’t know what they are talking about. Either way, one sounds uninformed when they don’t have a basic understanding of the topic they are debating.
Let’s start with a simple one: the interchangeability of the words automatic and semi-automatic. To the progressive anti-gun advocate, they are the same when in fact they are very different. An automatic firearm is one in which pressing the trigger would continuously fire off rounds until the trigger is released. A semi-automatic firearm is one in which pressing the trigger fires off a single round no matter how long one holds the trigger. Revolvers, handguns, and 99.99% of all rifles sold in America are of the semi-automatic functionality. It’s nearly impossible to legally find and purchase an automatic weapon, and while they are legal, they are extremely expensive. It’s also very difficult to get a license to own one. Another misconception, perhaps deliberate, is the belief that most gun owners want one. That simply isn’t true. A vast majority of the gun owners do not want an automatic firearm. In fact, most don’t want anything more than a semi-automatic firearm they can carry around for self-defense.
The next most common mistake the anti-gun crowd makes is the interchangeability of the words clip and magazine. These are very different pieces of equipment that do different things. A magazine is a spring-loaded cartridge holder in which you manually load rounds into. Once loaded, you then insert the magazine into the firearm. When you press the trigger on the firearm and a round is fired, the magazine pushes the next round of ammunition upwards so that it can be chambered. As each round is fired, the spring-loaded magazine pushes the next round upwards until the magazine is empty. A clip is simply used to load rounds into a magazine quickly. You do not insert a clip into a firearm, except in rare cases (e.g.; World War II M1 Grand).
Another confused term is the bullet. The bullet is nothing more than the projectile that is shot out the barrel of the gun and makes up one of four parts of a cartridge/round, which is loaded into the magazine. A cartridge/round is composed of a shell casing, primer, powder and the bullet. When a round is fired, the hammer of the gun hits the primer which ignites the powder inside the casing. This causes a rapid expansion of gasses and launches the bullet from the tip of the casing. The bullet travels at high velocity down the barrel and the casing is ejected. The casing can be reused whereas the bullet cannot.
The next term which really annoys a lot of gun owners is the term assault rifle. Factually speaking, there is no such thing as an assault rifle. This was a term the gun control advocates drummed up to make semi-automatic rifles sound mean. One could assume they mean automatic rifles, but as previously mentioned, these types of weapons are very difficult to find and have been heavily regulated in America since 1934. Modifying a semi-automatic rifle to be capable of automatic fire is very illegal. Many law abiding citizens have an AR-15, which the liberal and progressive crowd call an assault rifle. Contrary to their belief, AR is not an acronym for Assault Rifle, but instead means ArmaLite Rifle, which was coined after the company who first manufactured it. The bigger mistake is, it’s most certainly not an assault rifle, because it’s incapable of automatic fire, once again assuming that’s what classifies a firearm as being an “assault rifle”. One press of the trigger fires off a single round. Holding the trigger does not fire multiple rounds. Furthermore, the AR-15 style rifle is no more powerful than any other hunting rifle of the same caliber, and in most cases are chambered in calibers less powerful than common big-game hunting cartridges like the 30-06 (30-aught-6) Springfield and .300 Winchester Magnum. It gets a bad name only because the liberal/progressive crowd are misinformed and have an agenda to demonize the firearm. Oh, and by the way … an AR-15 absolutely cannot shoot down an airplane. Do not believe a single thing “Reverend” Jesse Jackson says about guns.
Another mistake the progressive democrats make is really funny; Glocks are some how more dangerous than all other handguns. They are the grand-daddy of bad. This is simply not true. A Glock fires exactly the same round as any other gun with the same chambering. In other words, the same .40 caliber round can be fired from either a revolver, a Glock, or any other handgun that is also chambered to shoot a .40 caliber round. To believe a Glock somehow makes the round more powerful or deadly is absolute nonsense.
Yet another mistake the gun control crowd asserts is that guns kill people. This is no more true than knives, hammers, cars, bats, crowbars, fists, hands, axes, or any other object that can be used to kill another human. When someone decides they want to harm someone, they will use whatever object they can get their hands on. A gun sitting in a safe is arguably less dangerous than an 8″ kitchen knife on the counter or a regular old hammer on the shelf in the garage.
And so there you have it. Virtually no one owns an “assault rifle” (using the democrats made-up term) because assault rifles are automatic, not semi-automatic. Glocks are not evil. They are no different than any other semi-automatic handgun. Clips are not magazines and anyone who interchanges the terms is uneducated on the matter. Bullets represent only 1/4th of a round that is inserted into a magazine and guns don’t kill people anymore than a hammer does.
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