The difference between a 'clip' and a 'magazine'
E. Thomas McClanahan
Ammunition clip (right)
Magazine (below)
The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz recently drew jeers for talking about banning “high-magazine clips,” an amusing reminder that many in the media don’t know the difference between an ammo “clip” and a “magazine” — just as many are hot to ban assault weapons without a clear idea of what it is they want to prohibit.
A clip holds ammo a bit like those black, spring-steel binders used to hold fat reports.
The only weapon I know of that’s clip-fed is the old World War II M1 Garand, although there are probably more. You open the bolt and push a clip of eight rounds down into into a cavity. Then you try to get your thumb out of the way to keep it from being smooshed by the bolt.
A magazine is a box-like container open at the top that feeds the ammo as it’s fired, thanks to an internal spring.
Banning high-capacity magazines may or may not have merit, but it’s more likely to end up as another exercise in futility, given how widely available they are.
They’re banned in Washington D.C, but David Gregory of Meet the Press got one with no trouble, and created a flap when he waved it under the nose of the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre.
The main effect of a ban would probably result in high-capacity magazines migrating into the hands of criminal elements.
As for assault weapons, the problem is definition. If you’re for it, you’ve got to say with specificity what you’re talking about. Remember, the weapon used by the Sandy Hook shooter was a semi-automatic, magazine-fed rifle that was in full compliance with Connecticut’s assault-weapons ban.
Phil Cardarella
4 months, 1 week agoI feel so much better now, knowing that I should not use the common “clip” to describe the sophisitcated “magazine”.
No doubt the parents of those 20 children will feel so much better, knowing that it was a magazine, not a clip, that fed the bullets that killed their children. I am sure you anticipate their note of gratitude.
Now, let us cut the BS. We do not need a theological discussion on how many angels you must be able to shoot off the head of a pin to call the weapon an assault weapon.
Is “assault rifle” difficult to define? Not really, if you want to. Do so broadly, not narrowly — the way we define marijuana, for example. The Aussies banned them in 1996 and have not had a mass murder since. Bet they’d let us borrow a copy of their statute.
How about this: If it can fire more than 6-9 shots without a ten second pause to reload, it is an assault weapon. And, if you need more than 9 shots to kill a deer, take up bowling instead.
As for can’t-do-anything-because-too-wide-spread? Rule of holes: Quit digging. Do a buy-back program. And, Rule of Capitalism: If there is no legitimate market, it will be harder for anyone to get guns or magazines on the black market. If they aren’t in a store, they cannot be stolen from a store — or a house!
Besides, the kids at Newtown would actually have been safer if only criminals (and cops) had guns — instead of that poor crazy kid and his mother.
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 1 week agolibs operate under the premise of “never let a lack of knowledge prevent you from speaking with authority”. Whatever the subject, they have a government solution, right phillie????
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 1 week agoyep, people having weapons to defend themselves and their family should be stopped!!!
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/09/georgia-mother-who-shot-intruder-inspires-opponents-gun-control/?intcmp=obinsite
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 1 week agodo you anti second amendment zealots support this???
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/gun-owners-home-outed-by-newspaper-is-burglarized.html
Phil Cardarella
4 months, 1 week agoBest I can tell, nothing being proposed would keep that nice lady from shooting an intruder. She did not seem to need 30-100 rounds to achieve that goal.
Wait a minute! I thought you claimed that if a person knows you have a gun in your house that would keep the burglar OUT! Did this burglar blow the gun safe? Is the burglar a regular reader who specializes in such, or does he burglarize homes without a guidebook?
FYI: It might be more credible to cite a source other than FOX “news”.
JR Beillenhouser
4 months, 1 week agoPhil -
If you are so sure that guns are not a deterrent, then I urge you to put a sign on your front yard that says you don’t believe in guns and that there are none in the house.
C’mon Phil, live that liberalism, just don’t talk it.
Once you do that, then come back on this forum and join the debate. Until that time, you are just a phoney.
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 1 week agoas expected, phillie, did not answere the question…..
Mark Hastert
4 months, 1 week ago“yep, people having weapons to defend themselves”
Yesterday right here in Kansas City two more children ages 2&7 were shot with a gun that was in the home to “defend” the family. Add to that the four year old from a week or so ago, the moron who accidentally shot his own wife, the twelve year old in Caldwell county last week, and three year old in Independence last Summer. Sure, there are incidences where a gun actually does thwart a attacker in the home but they are few in comparison to these tragedies. More harm than good. So let me ask, what is an acceptable ratio of accidental shootings to successful self defenses? Would you be willing to accept 6 accidental shootings for one self defense? I’m not saying that we should ban guns. I’m saying that the laws should mandate responsible gun ownership and that the clip, magazine, or whatever name you want to give it be limited to reduce the body count.
Matt Henry
4 months, 1 week agoShot with a gun that was in the home to defend the family? What I saw was was that two people were chasing a dude down the street and shooting at him when the bullets entered a house. Are you lying to us to make an ideological point, Mark? Is your position that tenuous?
And in what way would have a ban on assault weapons or high-capacity magazines have kept those two children from being shot? How would a handgun ban have kept the guns out of the hands of the thugs that were involved in their shootout that led to the event? Do guns magically evaporate when a ban goes into place?
“More harm than good”? An easy rhetorical trick; how is the beneficial impact on crime due to the very existence of the right to self-defense with a weapon to be proven to your satisfaction? I know someone personally who upended a threat to his person at a highway rest stop when he showed his holster; can’t find that in the statistics. It’s not a real statement designed to get to the heart of the matter, only to score debate points. Whoopdeedoo.
Perhaps our biggest societal ill right now is that we think gov’t’s roll is to solve all our social problems. Joe Biden said that acting unilaterally would be worth it if only one life were saved. Slaves are made over such ideologies. Tyrannies have been built on less. Too many of us have no sense of what it means to be a free people anymore.
Mark Hastert
4 months, 1 week agoSo I’ll ask again. What’s an acceptable ratio of accidental deaths to thwarted crimes? These “defensive” weapons are killing as many or more innocents. How about a law requiring trigger locks? Gun safes? Liability insurance? Penalties for irresponsible gun owners whose guns harm others or fall into the hands of criminals? Any or all of those might have kept these accidental shootings from happening. But back to the authors original snarky commentary the ban on high capacity magazines is all about minimizing the body count. Few bullets over a longer time frame = fewer bodies.
Phil Cardarella
4 months, 1 week agoActually, I do not own a gun.
Given my personality— and my lack of training — a wise choice not to have one about.
I have never maintianed that a homeowner should be barred from having a weapon with which to defend his/her home against an (unlikely) intruder — although I do believe that there should be some serious thought given to the advisability of that decision, the type of firearm kept and the steps needed to secure a firearm safely. The same is true of hunting guns.
I have maintained that far fewer should choose to keep a firearm handy because of the inherent dangers of keeping a deadly weapon in the home. Our local linebacker did not make a wise decision by his purchase of the guns he used to kill his girlfriend and himself in a fit of drunken anger.
I have yet to hear a rational justification for not requiring background checks on all weapon sales (although I frankly think that most felons are no greater a risk than the public in general). I have yet to hear an argument for allowing mega-magazines and military assault weaponry that does not involve the joy of multiple explosions (Buy a string of firecrackers!) or UN Black Helicopters (Go see a shrink!), so I cannot see a justification for allowing weaponry that can kill 20 children without reloading. If you need that kind of firepower to kill a deer, take up bowling instead.
By the way: After 40 years of representing burglars, I can assure you that NO BURGLAR wants to come into your home while you are there — to steal your gun or your TV. Burglars are not seeking social interaction, just loot to sell. So, whether or not you have a sign pro- or anti-gun is irrelevant.