4 ms·

Serious question about the accuracy of that term of art: Really? All I see are people proposing regulations for the manufacture and sale of particular kinds of

Serious question about the accuracy of that term of art: Really? All I see are people proposing regulations for the manufacture and sale of particular kinds of dangerous weapons. Nobody that I know of is trying to "grab" guns from people who obtained them legally. As far as I know, that has never happened in US history.

hga 14y ago
Errr ... you haven't heard about how California said the SKS was OK, then the AG changed his mind and banned them all? Several hundred thousand of them? (Cheap (a very simple old design, except for power akin to the Garand, perhaps) and, well, they did escape the California AW ban. Initially.) What do you think happened when Tammany Hall gangster (in this case I'm not repeating myself) Timothy Sullivan got New York's first gun control law passed in 1911, requiring a permit to even own a handgun? What do you think happened to the newer immigrants against who this was enforced? I mean, it takes some serious effort to, per Gawker's list of from a couple of years ago, issue only 21,100 handgun possession permits for 8 million people. And what about Heller and MacDonald? Both D.C. and Chicago froze handgun possession after registering them, and the latter also required periodic re-registration (well, expect for that one time an Alderman forgot to do it). Complete or nearly so bans on possession may not fit the precise meaning of "grabbing", but I think they're close enough.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  So the word "grabbing" is accurate only if you use a different understanding of the word than every other English language speaker uses? :)
  - hga 14y ago
    While it's not exactly to the point, this quote about English suggests that you're asking for too much rigor in its use, especially when arguing politics: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." And were those NYC non-Irish owned than therefore banned handguns "grabbed" or not? The SKS situation: well, you could sell your's or move it out of state, but if you didn't they were subject to being "grabbed" along with you for a nice prison term.
    - MartinCron 14y ago
      Note how people in the pro-gun community almost always prefix the phrase "assault weapon" with the disclaimer "so-called". Why? Because precision in language is important. Seems a little hypocritical to demand precision from one side and embrace fluidity of the language on the other.
      - hga 14y ago
        Your statement is nearly self-refuting, since I myself go no further than using scare quotes, as do many others. We do this because it's 100% a political and legal term, and of course propaganda. One good definition coming from a politician's mouth would be "any scary looking gun I think I can get banned". If you expect the gun owning community to embrace it, well, you're already disappointed. And by definition it can't be a precise term, unless we're talking about "an assault weapon as defined by [this specific law]." We talk about "assault rifles", but even then there's a lack of precision. The original Nazi StG 44 is one, but the Swiss StG 57 is a battle rifle, in fact, it's so heavy at 12.5 pounds that with its standard 24 round magazine it's just about a machine rifle. StG is for Sturmgewehr, literally storm rifle in German. There's also a lack of precision in that many, including myself, call semi-auto versions of them assault rifles, even though by the strict definition they can't be since one of the points of using an intermediate power round is to allow (more) controllable full auto firing, military ones are "selective fire" (although there's a common trend to max that out at 3 round bursts for greater control and conserving ammo). The extremes in the gun community for naming them run from the NSSF's "modern sporting rifle" (they're the lobbying etc. group for manufacturers, distributors, retailers and range operators) to just recently, when Obama's threatened executive actions were unspecified, "Regime Change Rifles" from about the most rabid without being bat-shit crazy* of the "3 percenters". * I.e. about as rabid as RMS but less "crazy".
        MartinCron 14y ago
        I just wanted to thank you for engaging me in a polite and civil way. That is a precious rare thing in political discussions, especially gun discussions. I feel like I've learned a lot from your contributions here.

hga 14y ago

Errr ... you haven't heard about how California said the SKS was OK, then the AG changed his mind and banned them all? Several hundred thousand of them? (Cheap (a very simple old design, except for power akin to the Garand, perhaps) and, well, they did escape the California AW ban. Initially.) What do you think happened when Tammany Hall gangster (in this case I'm not repeating myself) Timothy Sullivan got New York's first gun control law passed in 1911, requiring a permit to even own a handgun? What do you think happened to the newer immigrants against who this was enforced? I mean, it takes some serious effort to, per Gawker's list of from a couple of years ago, issue only 21,100 handgun possession permits for 8 million people. And what about Heller and MacDonald? Both D.C. and Chicago froze handgun possession after registering them, and the latter also required periodic re-registration (well, expect for that one time an Alderman forgot to do it). Complete or nearly so bans on possession may not fit the precise meaning of "grabbing", but I think they're close enough.

MartinCron 14y ago
So the word "grabbing" is accurate only if you use a different understanding of the word than every other English language speaker uses? :)
- hga 14y ago
  While it's not exactly to the point, this quote about English suggests that you're asking for too much rigor in its use, especially when arguing politics: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." And were those NYC non-Irish owned than therefore banned handguns "grabbed" or not? The SKS situation: well, you could sell your's or move it out of state, but if you didn't they were subject to being "grabbed" along with you for a nice prison term.
  - MartinCron 14y ago
    Note how people in the pro-gun community almost always prefix the phrase "assault weapon" with the disclaimer "so-called". Why? Because precision in language is important. Seems a little hypocritical to demand precision from one side and embrace fluidity of the language on the other.
    - hga 14y ago
      Your statement is nearly self-refuting, since I myself go no further than using scare quotes, as do many others. We do this because it's 100% a political and legal term, and of course propaganda. One good definition coming from a politician's mouth would be "any scary looking gun I think I can get banned". If you expect the gun owning community to embrace it, well, you're already disappointed. And by definition it can't be a precise term, unless we're talking about "an assault weapon as defined by [this specific law]." We talk about "assault rifles", but even then there's a lack of precision. The original Nazi StG 44 is one, but the Swiss StG 57 is a battle rifle, in fact, it's so heavy at 12.5 pounds that with its standard 24 round magazine it's just about a machine rifle. StG is for Sturmgewehr, literally storm rifle in German. There's also a lack of precision in that many, including myself, call semi-auto versions of them assault rifles, even though by the strict definition they can't be since one of the points of using an intermediate power round is to allow (more) controllable full auto firing, military ones are "selective fire" (although there's a common trend to max that out at 3 round bursts for greater control and conserving ammo). The extremes in the gun community for naming them run from the NSSF's "modern sporting rifle" (they're the lobbying etc. group for manufacturers, distributors, retailers and range operators) to just recently, when Obama's threatened executive actions were unspecified, "Regime Change Rifles" from about the most rabid without being bat-shit crazy* of the "3 percenters". * I.e. about as rabid as RMS but less "crazy".
      - MartinCron 14y ago
        I just wanted to thank you for engaging me in a polite and civil way. That is a precious rare thing in political discussions, especially gun discussions. I feel like I've learned a lot from your contributions here.