6 ms·
This issue is easy to blow off as "you know what I mean" but it's an important signal that someone has formed an opinion without being fully educated on the top
by olympus 11y ago
This issue is easy to blow off as "you know what I mean" but it's an important signal that someone has formed an opinion without being fully educated on the topic.
Climate scientists would prefer to debate global warming with people who have actually read a few papers and know the actual implications of global warming (as opposed to uneducated people on either side of the argument that say that it either doesn't matter or that it will be the end of humanity).
Doctors would prefer to debate vaccinations with people who have read up and learned that the chance of a negative reaction to a vaccine is very tiny compared to the chance of people dying from a disease in an unvaccinated society (see polio) as opposed to listening to people who swear that their child got paralyzed because of a flu shot (maybe they did, but they don't make a convincing argument).
And gun owners would prefer to debate gun control with people who actually understand guns as opposed to people who have only seen their children firing 900 rounds/min death machines in video games.
Using the proper terminology is an easy way to say, "I've done enough homework to understand how guns work in a general sense and have at least considered that I should know about something before I make a decision on it."
- jellicle 11y agoWay to illustrate the comment you are responding to.
- mturmon 11y agoShorter version of GP comment: use all proper terminology or I will consider that you don't know enough to comment on the matter.
- fnordfnordfnord 11y agoNo, people often use less-formal language when addressing an audience containing subject matter lay-persons and non-experts. Other people also just prefer informal prose; it's less intimidating. Everyone's favorite faux pas, clip vs magazine, is a mostly useless distinction. Both items offer a similar functionality to decrease the reloading time of their respective guns^W firearms; and there is rarely a case where both a magazine and a clip exist for a particular gun^W firearm so it shouldn't be a cause for much confusion. It doesn't help the gun-nomenclature pedant's case that magazines are commonly marketed by gun/shooting retailers as "clips". Another one is bullet vs cartridge vs round but depending upon context bullet is the only one that is unambiguously connected to guns^W firearms. I'm a gun^W firearm owner, and TBH I don't see a lot of diversity of opinion among firearm-rights activists; so while it might be easy in some cases to debate only those who share my interests, it isn't particularly productive. It's up to firearm-rights activists to accommodate debate from laypersons (and politely educate them if needed), just as doctors, scientists, and other experts must do so for respective laypersons they encounter in each of their fields.
- lmm 11y agoDo you really need to know anything about guns to be able to figure out good policy? It's a device that you can point at things and make them die; if the internals were magic pixie dust would that make any difference to how we would want to regulate them?
- DanBC 11y agoKnowing that an "assault rifle" is just a gun would probably help. Banning assault rifles would ban guns that look scary, while leaving many actually scary guns (just as, if not more, capable of killing) in hnds of gun owners.
- lmm 11y agoPeople who want a gun for defense or hunting probably don't care what it looks like, whereas people who want a gun to commit crimes with want it to be as intimidating/scary as possible. So maybe a ban on scary-looking guns makes sense?
- hga 11y agoAll of the "scary" features are more than cosmetic. Straight line recoil pretty much requires a vertical pistol grip for ergonomics, that tends to go along with vertical forgrips, detachable magazines are anything but purely cosmetic and must be outside pistol grips for serious rifle cartridges, and flash hiders help preserve your night vision. Heck, even bayonet lugs are functional, not that that a fixed bayonet has been used in more than one US "gun crime" to my memory. So now you're reduced to being an ignorant foot soldier in a culture war following people who complain about "that shoulder thing that goes up" instead doing anything to actually help with what are some real problems.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- logfromblammo 11y agoThe not-really-licensed-by-Sanrio [0] pink "Hello Kitty" rifles make more sense to me now. But then you encounter the problem of distinguishing real weapons from toy weapons. [0] http://www.sanrio.com/pressrelease130306/ http://www.sanrio.com/pressrelease130306/