10 round clip controversy

[lklawson]

Words mean things. People use the terms that give emotional support to the ideals they support. A man doesn't fire multiple times, he 'sprays the room'. The words are important.

I correct my anti-gun friends every time they say it. I have to. If we're not going to use the correct words, we cannot have a discussion.

Words mean things, yes, but I cannot find any NLP type connection for the "clip" mistake. There just doesn't seem to be any special connotation to the term "clip," either positive or negative, that is not also symmetrically associated with the term "magazine."

My best research indicates that it is a mis-term with its origin in returning WWII vets.

If you can point me to any evidence that "clip" has a particularly negative connotation over and above what may already be associated with "magazine" then I'd be willing to reconsider my position that the whole "clip/mag" thing is simply a non-starter.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

"Need" is unfortunately a wedge-word (some call it a 'weasel word'). To even have the argument, one must accept the premise that a person's 'need' (as defined by others) is a valid reason for restriction - of anything. What a person 'needs' is not generally accepted as a valid means for restricting any legal behavior or private property. How big a house do you 'need'? How many calories do you 'need'?

The long-standing tradition in the U.S. rights arena has always been on the other side of the coin. It is not the requirement of the person to show why he "needs" something, it is the requirement of those favoring the restriction to show an overwhelming justification for the restriction. In the U.S., you are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Archangel M]

The WWII guys did use "clips" in their M1's.

I get what Cruentus is getting at. Some people with "opinions" on guns and how this works and that works and how this is unnecessary and how people "don't need those" actually know bubkis about guns and their terminology proves it.

BTW Cru: I never served at a Forward Operating Base, back in my day they just called them "Camps". I do know the difference between OPORD's and WARNO's...do they still issue FRAGO's too? I would love to get my hands on a Noveske lower one of these days and maybe a BCM or DD upper, but right now I just play with a 1:9 Bushmaster. I did recently drop a BCM bolt into it because the Bushy didnt use a MPI'ed or shot peened bolt and wasnt using a black extractor insert. That..my "new" EoTech 512 (used, but new to me ) and an H buffer should provide me with a pretty nice M4gery.

 

[Archangel M]

CLIP

MAGAZINE

Any Questions?

​

 

[crushing]

While I'm still not sure that 30 round magazines are anything we need, what changed my position on this is Grenadier's simple observation that a crazy person could simply carry two pistols.

I think we need to better regulate weapons. I still believe that gun owners should be required to carry liability insurance and that the entire thing should be reviewed and overhauled. But, much like the security theater we have going on in airports, I've been convinced that this wouldn't actually make things safer. It would only make things feel safer.

This is getting in to an area of disenfranchisement, and similar to the poll tax, would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

 

[lklawson]

Regarding insurance, I probably shouldn't have brought it up as it's a tangent. I'll try to explain a little better what I meant. Legally purchased weapons are involved in just about every accidental firearm injury or death. Hunting accidents, when a kid shoots his friend on accident showing off his dad's pistol, when a kid takes his dad's gun to school and accidentally shoots a couple people (as happened just a few days ago). These are all situations where mandatory liability insurance would be helpful to the victims' and their families.

According to the CDC, there were 18,610 non-fatal, unintentional gunshot injuries in 2009. In 2007 (the last year available for mortality statistics), there were 613 unintentional, firearm fatalities.

Though no one has exact numbers it is estimated there are somewhere around 325,000,000 privately held guns in the U.S. (not including military & LEO) and somewhere between 52,000,000 and 70,000,000 private gun owners in the U.S.

So, by those statistics, approximately 0.00000057% of guns in the U.S. were involved in non-fatal unintentional gunshot injuries by with approximately (at most) 0.00000357% of firearms owners potentially being potentially culpable.

These numbers are so far below being statistically significant that it boggles the mind. These numbers don't even rise to the level of being statistically insignificant. I'm not even going to bother running the percentages on those 613 deaths.

I can't think of anything that has been proven as "safe" from accidental death or injury. Pools kill more. Cars kill more. Heck, probably cheeseburgers kill more!

Given these numbers, quite frankly, the only thing accomplished by requiring liability insurance for firearms owners would be creating another massive bureaucracy and enshrining in law yet one more way that citizens are forced to give their money to insurance companies. Honestly, less than one one-millionth of a percent of risk is simply not justifiable of restrictions like this.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Steve]

The WWII guys did use "clips" in their M1's.

I get what Cruentus is getting at. Some people with "opinions" on guns and how this works and that works and how this is unnecessary and how people "don't need those" actually know bubkis about guns and their terminology proves it.

I guess this begs the question, do you have to be an expert on guns to have a legitimate opinion on gun regulation? More specifically, should you have to know the difference between high yield and low yield det cord to be able to discuss gun control in an online forum? (as an aside, that one I actually do know the answer to, although it's been over 20 years since I was an ammo troop and what I've forgotten is likely obsolete).

I wonder, how many of you who have been so vocal in "obamacare" threads are experts on healthcare? How many of you are experts on Social Security? Tax law? You guys are being pretty hypocritical, particularly in the context of an online forum.

This sudden elitism that's cropped up really has me shaking my head.

 

[Flying Crane]

It's the wrong question. "Need" is beside the point.

How fast do you "need" to have your car go? The question implies that there is a limit, beyond which no one has a legitimate need, and that therefore it is reasonable to ban a car that goes faster than that, or a magazine which holds more rounds than that.

I'm seriously going against my better judgement by entering this thread, but here goes...

Firstly, I'm not an advocate of gun control. I am, however, an advocate of reasonable and responsible use and ownership, and I'm on the fence regarding the issue of limiting ammunition capacity in a clip, magazine, or whatever else you choose to call it. I agree with KLawson that I do not believe there is any negative connotation that goes with the term "clip". It may be a misuse of the term, but I do not see that as something to get hung up over in discussion. Everyone understands that we are talking about the ammunition capacity of a firearm before the need to reload.

Anyway, more to my point. Bill, your argument above is unconvincing, even for someone like myself who is not an automatic advocate of gun control. There is a simple reason for this, and this is what the gun control advocates will come to over and over, so you might want to take a second look at it.

The reason it doesn't hold water is because of the intended use of the two different items. A car isn't built with the intent of being a weapon, being used to deliberately kill someone. A car can be misused, and its misuse can be dangerous and even deadly to the user and those around him/her. No argument there. Driving too fast on the roadways is a misuse, and can be deadly. But that deadly possiblity is not what the car is designed for. It is purely a result of misuse or carelessness or accident. Furthermore, we do have laws limiting speed on our roadways. You aren't supposed to break the speedlimit, even if your car has the ability to do so. We accept those speed laws as a reasonable necessity in attempts to keep our roadways safe for all users. Even tho your car can go faster than the speed limit, you are expected to never exceed that limit. Doing so puts you at odds with the law and carries legal and potentially criminal consequences. But we accept that for the greater good and safety of the population.

A gun is a different thing altogether, because it's design and intent in use is ultimately to kill. Sure, it can be used for sporting purposes, target shooting and competitions where nobody and nothing is killed. But the ultimate reason for the gun is for killing, and that's what makes the car analogy fall apart. The question becomes, with an item that is designed and meant for killing as its primary purpose, is it reasonable to legislate limits on the killing capacity? Is a legislated limitation to clip/magazine capacity analogous to speed limit laws? We recognize the potential danger that certain items hold, and we make reasonable limits to reduce the destructive potential when things go wrong.

I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

 

[Flying Crane]

Though no one has exact numbers it is estimated there are somewhere around 325,000,000 privately held guns in the U.S. (not including military & LEO) and somewhere between 52,000,000 and 70,000,000 private gun owners in the U.S.

So, by those statistics, approximately 0.00000057% of guns in the U.S. were involved in non-fatal unintentional gunshot injuries by with approximately (at most) 0.00000357% of firearms owners potentially being potentially culpable.

These numbers are so far below being statistically significant that it boggles the mind. These numbers don't even rise to the level of being statistically insignificant. I'm not even going to bother running the percentages on those 613 deaths.

I can't think of anything that has been proven as "safe" from accidental death or injury. Pools kill more. Cars kill more. Heck, probably cheeseburgers kill more!

Given these numbers, quite frankly, the only thing accomplished by requiring liability insurance for firearms owners would be creating another massive bureaucracy and enshrining in law yet one more way that citizens are forced to give their money to insurance companies. Honestly, less than one one-millionth of a percent of risk is simply not justifiable of restrictions like this.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

I would wager that car ownership far outstrips gun ownership, and people use their cars far more often than guns. If you look at the number of times that cars are actually used in one year in the US, and tally the number of car accidents, I bet you'd also find it statistically insignficant. I don't have numbers to point to, but I'd be comfortable making the wager.

Yet we allow and accept and embrace legislated limits on how we drive our cars, including speed limits...

 

[Archangel M]

I guess this begs the question, do you have to be an expert on guns to have a legitimate opinion on gun regulation? More specifically, should you have to know the difference between high yield and low yield det cord to be able to discuss gun control in an online forum? (as an aside, that one I actually do know the answer to, although it's been over 20 years since I was an ammo troop and what I've forgotten is likely obsolete).

I wonder, how many of you who have been so vocal in "obamacare" threads are experts on healthcare? How many of you are experts on Social Security? Tax law? You guys are being pretty hypocritical, particularly in the context of an online forum.

This sudden elitism that's cropped up really has me shaking my head.

Because this is a piece of equipment...a device..an object. Having some knowledge of what they do and how they work is kind of necessary if you are going to outlaw a feature of it. Our "firearms expert" politicians put together an "Assault Weapons" ban a few years ago and what did they declare "evil/illegal"?? A bayonet lug!!?? Really? and a pistol grip and an "EEEEEEVVVVILLLL" flash hider?

Really?

The Health Care debate is about if the gvt has the right to force me to buy it, and if our nations founding document allows the gvt to take control of a large sector of our economy. It's not about "medicine". Nobody is arguing what medical proceedure is necessary or not.

You are confusing issues here.

 

[lklawson]

I'm seriously going against my better judgement by entering this thread, but here goes...

You will thus flogged with 1,000 wet noodles!

A gun is a different thing altogether, because it's design and intent in use is ultimately to kill. Sure, it can be used for sporting purposes, target shooting and competitions where nobody and nothing is killed. But the ultimate reason for the gun is for killing, and that's what makes the car analogy fall apart. The question becomes, with an item that is designed and meant for killing as its primary purpose, is it reasonable to legislate limits on the killing capacity? Is a legislated limitation to clip/magazine capacity analogous to speed limit laws? We recognize the potential danger that certain items hold, and we make reasonable limits to reduce the destructive potential when things go wrong.

I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

Based on the aforementioned statistics concerning the actual percentage of time "things go wrong," I'd have to say that there doesn't seem to be much of a need for any additional regulation. We could probably even "afford" to remove significant amounts of regulation before the percentage of time "things go wrong" even begins to approach statistical significance.

Naturally, lots of other folks hold different opinions.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Flying Crane]

You will thus flogged with 1,000 wet noodles!

aye, hence my trepidation

Based on the aforementioned statistics concerning the actual percentage of time "things go wrong," I'd have to say that there doesn't seem to be much of a need for any additional regulation. We could probably even "afford" to remove significant amounts of regulation before the percentage of time "things go wrong" even begins to approach statistical significance.

Naturally, lots of other folks hold different opinions.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

You may be right about this, tho I'm in no position to know for sure.

But this doesn't change the fact that there is this fundamental difference between a car and a gun. The gun is specifically meant to kill, the car is not. We do regulate how we drive, because we recognize the potential dangers in driving. Is it so unreasonable to regulate how we shoot, and likewise recognize the potential dangers?

 

[Steve]

Though no one has exact numbers it is estimated there are somewhere around 325,000,000 privately held guns in the U.S. (not including military & LEO) and somewhere between 52,000,000 and 70,000,000 private gun owners in the U.S.

So, by those statistics, approximately 0.00000057% of guns in the U.S. were involved in non-fatal unintentional gunshot injuries by with approximately (at most) 0.00000357% of firearms owners potentially being potentially culpable.

These numbers are so far below being statistically significant that it boggles the mind. These numbers don't even rise to the level of being statistically insignificant. I'm not even going to bother running the percentages on those 613 deaths.

I can't think of anything that has been proven as "safe" from accidental death or injury. Pools kill more. Cars kill more. Heck, probably cheeseburgers kill more!

Given these numbers, quite frankly, the only thing accomplished by requiring liability insurance for firearms owners would be creating another massive bureaucracy and enshrining in law yet one more way that citizens are forced to give their money to insurance companies. Honestly, less than one one-millionth of a percent of risk is simply not justifiable of restrictions like this.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Kirk, I appreciate the post.

The percentage you come up with is interesting, but I'd be more interested in the number of gun owners vs the number of guns. How many households own guns? Am I wrong to presume that most gun owners own more than one gun? My brother has around 15. Google seems to put the percent of household with firearms at about 34%. Is that about right or are these figures off?

For what it's worth, while not specific to pools, there were 3443 drownings in 2007 and 6206 "near drowning" injuries reported in 2009. Considering the number of people who swim in rivers, lakes, pools and at beaches, that the number of incidents totals under 10,000 while gun related incidents is close to double that is pretty interesting to me. Motor vehicle related injury is obviously much higher, considering the amount of time we spend in or around them every day.

No way to really know about cheeseburgers.

Just to be clear, I also limited the numbers to unintentional fatalities and injuries to try and get a real sense of the number of accidents. If you bump it up to "all cases" the number of injuries quadruples to ~67k and the number of fatalities goes up to just over 31k.

 

[lklawson]

I would wager that car ownership far outstrips gun ownership, and people use their cars far more often than guns. If you look at the number of times that cars are actually used in one year in the US, and tally the number of car accidents, I bet you'd also find it statistically insignficant. I don't have numbers to point to, but I'd be comfortable making the wager.

Yet we allow and accept and embrace legislated limits on how we drive our cars, including speed limits...

Sure. I'd like to see those stat though. I'm willing to bet there there are two or more orders of magnitude difference.

But again, others have differing opinions. <shrug>

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Flying Crane]

Sure. I'd like to see those stat though. I'm willing to bet there there are two or more orders of magnitude difference.

But again, others have differing opinions. <shrug>

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

could be, tho in which direction those orders of magnitude go I would hesitate to guess.

either way, we still embrace the regulation and restrictions on driving. Is it reasonable to expect no regulation of gun capacity?

 

[Steve]

Because this is a piece of equipment...a device..an object. Having some knowledge of what they do and how they work is kind of necessary if you are going to outlaw a feature of it. Our "firearms expert" politicians put together an "Assault Weapons" ban a few years ago and what did they declare "evil/illegal"?? A bayonet lug!!?? Really? and a pistol grip and an "EEEEEEVVVVILLLL" flash hider?

Really?

The Health Care debate is about if the gvt has the right to force me to buy it, and if our nations founding document allows the gvt to take control of a large sector of our economy. It's not about "medicine". Nobody is arguing what medical proceedure is necessary or not.

You are confusing issues here.

Am I? The constitutionality of that part of the health care reform act is just one small facet of the healthcare reform debate. Are you an expert on constitutional law? While there are a few people on these boards who I'd wager could make a strong case for it, I don't think that the rest of us (according to the emerging high standards of this thread) are competent to have an opinion on the subject.

Add the other complexities of the topic and we might as well close down shop.

What's even more funny about this is that I agree with you guys on most of the issues regarding gun control. But whatever. It's all good. It's an exclusive club. I get that now.

Edit: Just want to clarify that there is a big difference between "having some knowledge" of something and being an expert on it.

 

[lklawson]

Kirk, I appreciate the post.

The percentage you come up with is interesting, but I'd be more interested in the number of gun owners vs the number of guns. How many households own guns? Am I wrong to presume that most gun owners own more than one gun? My brother has around 15. Google seems to put the percent of household with firearms at about 34%. Is that about right or are these figures off?

Somewhere over 52,000,000 "households" have one or more firearms based on the last figures I could find.

Of those "households" a rough guess is between 1/3 and 1/5 contain more than one owner (for instance, my "household" has two occupants who own).

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Grenadier]

either way, we still embrace the regulation and restrictions on driving. Is it reasonable to expect no regulation of gun capacity?

Suppose that there are a few drunken drivers who drive with 0.20+ BAC levels, and cause major accidents on a highway whose speed limit is 70 MPH. Let's say that the drunken drivers were driving about 70 MPH at the time. The knee-jerk reaction crowd is going to assert that the 70 MPH speed limit caused this trouble, and that the speed limit should be lowered to make everyone safe.

Should we automatically lower the speed limit to 45 MPH in order to prevent the above individuals from committing such actions?

The result would be awfully disappointing to the people who would want such limits in place, since it does absolutely nothing to address the real problem (namely the drunken driver), and only interferes with law-abiding people who were safely driving 70 MPH on the highway.

The natural response from the knee-jerk reaction crowd would be "so, let me get this straight, you want all speed limits repealed? You want there to be unlimited speeding everywhere in this country?"

My answer to them would be this: such a tangent is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I merely pointed out the failures of such proposed reduction in speed laws. It's up to you to tell me how you are going to get the reckless drunken drivers to obey the posted speed limits. For that matter, it's up to you to tell me how such speed limits are going to prevent drunken drivers from driving in their intoxicated state in the first place...

Instead of doing that, why not go after the drunken drivers, put them in jail, take away their driver's licenses, etc? Wouldn't that be more productive than punishing the law-abiding? I can guarantee you that my method of dealing with drunken drivers is going to be far more effective at curbing drunken-driving accidents on the highway, than any number of speed limit implementations.



The same holds true for weaponry. Law abiding people aren't going to use their weapons, or whatever accessories are used with such weapons (such as flash suppressors that prevent the marksman from being blinded by muzzle flash, an adjustable shoulder stock that allows people to adjust their rifle position in an optimal manner for their bodies, etc., or any of the other "evil" features that were part of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban).

Limiting magazine capacity for law-abiding people does absolutely nothing to stop criminals from committing crimes, since you're attacking the wrong crowd.

Even if you did ban law-abiding people from owning 11+ round magazines, there are millions of 11+ round magazines still out there. How are you going to get the criminals to stop using them and turn them in? How are you going to prevent them from buying more from illegal arms dealers?

Even if you were able to magically make criminals turn in their 11+ round magazines, what about the ability to carry multiple weapons, like Robert Deniro's character in Taxi Cab Driver?


Again, if the anti-gun crowd can show me a way how such legislation would make criminals obey the laws, then I'd give their assertions much more weight. Until then, maybe they should start turning their attention to criminals, instead of the law-abiding?

The arguments of such individuals sometimes reminds me of a former Ohio Senator, Howard Metzenbaum:

No, we’re not looking at how to control criminals… we’re talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns.

Dave Kopel also wrote a very in-depth article, pointing out the fallacies of the above arguments:

http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Mags/Banning-Assault-Rifles-Won't-Work.htm

 

[Steve]

Somewhere over 52,000,000 "households" have one or more firearms based on the last figures I could find.

Of those "households" a rough guess is between 1/3 and 1/5 contain more than one owner (for instance, my "household" has two occupants who own).

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Would you agree then that this makes the percentages a bit more realistic? I don't know. It seems pretty in line to me. While automobiles are responsible for many more injuries, our exposure to them is also pervasive. Stats for autos include pedestrians, pedal cyclists and anything else related to being a motor vehicle, which I'm not sure are relevant.

 

[Flying Crane]

Suppose that there are a few drunken drivers who drive with 0.20+ BAC levels, and cause major accidents on a highway whose speed limit is 70 MPH. Let's say that the drunken drivers were driving about 70 MPH at the time. The knee-jerk reaction crowd is going to assert that the 70 MPH speed limit caused this trouble, and that the speed limit should be lowered to make everyone safe.

no, this is not the knee-jerk reaction, because it happens all the time and I certainly don't hear anyone clamoring to lower the speed limits, at least not based on that.

My answer to them would be this: such a tangent is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I merely pointed out the failures of such proposed reduction in speed laws. It's up to you to tell me how you are going to get the reckless drunken drivers to obey the posted speed limits. For that matter, it's up to you to tell me how such speed limits are going to prevent drunken drivers from driving in their intoxicated state in the first place...

Instead of doing that, why not go after the drunken drivers, put them in jail, take away their driver's licenses, etc? Wouldn't that be more productive than punishing the law-abiding? I can guarantee you that my method of dealing with drunken drivers is going to be far more effective at curbing drunken-driving accidents on the highway, than any number of speed limit implementations.



The same holds true for weaponry. Law abiding people aren't going to use their weapons, or whatever accessories are used with such weapons (such as flash suppressors that prevent the marksman from being blinded by muzzle flash, an adjustable shoulder stock that allows people to adjust their rifle position in an optimal manner for their bodies, etc., or any of the other "evil" features that were part of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban).

Limiting magazine capacity for law-abiding people does absolutely nothing to stop criminals from committing crimes, since you're attacking the wrong crowd.

Even if you did ban law-abiding people from owning 11+ round magazines, there are millions of 11+ round magazines still out there. How are you going to get the criminals to stop using them and turn them in? How are you going to prevent them from buying more from illegal arms dealers?

Even if you were able to magically make criminals turn in their 11+ round magazines, what about the ability to carry multiple weapons, like Robert Deniro's character in Taxi Cab Driver?


Again, if the anti-gun crowd can show me a way how such legislation would make criminals obey the laws, then I'd give their assertions much more weight. Until then, maybe they should start turning their attention to criminals, instead of the law-abiding?

The arguments of such individuals sometimes reminds me of a former Ohio Senator, Howard Metzenbaum:



Dave Kopel also wrote a very in-depth article, pointing out the fallacies of the above arguments:

http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Mags/Banning-Assault-Rifles-Won't-Work.htm

as to the rest of this, my response and inclusion of the driving issue is purely in response to the fact that Bill brought up the driving issue in the first place, back in Post #4 in this thread. If you feel it's an irrelevant tangent and not a relevant argument for me to use, then neither is it a relevant argument for him to use as an advocate for no regulation on magazine capacity.

I actually understand the arguments on both sides of this. As I've said, I'm not an automatic advocate of gun control, tho I favor reasonable and responsible ownership, which MAY include some regulations. I'm on the fence on this issue because I do understand both sides of the argument, and I feel both sides have merit, and both sides put forth some nonsense as well.