Which is what I said in my original comment on this idea:
For some firearms, 8 rounds may be standard so larger than that could be fairly considered large for that firearm. The original claim was that categorically, anything over 10 is large. That’s false. Because large is a relative term, it needs to reference what it is comparing to. The Glock 17 has a standard magazine capacity of 17 rounds. If I use a 25 round mag, that’s fair to say that’s large for the Glock 17. It would not be large for an AR-15 pattern rifle.
Remember, defining magazines as large by some arbitrarily small number compared to their standard size is a strategy to ban them. It’s already been done in certain places. Don’t buy it.
Then what about my Super Ultravires SXS with its standard 1000 round magazine? Is it an insult to the English language to call that magazine “large capacity” since every single Super Ultravires SXS is equipped with that magazine?
If you are comparing it only to other magazines of the same exact size and capacity, it would be wrong to describe it as large. Large is a relative term and only works as compared to something else. If you say that since the vast majority of magazines are smaller and have less capacity, your SXS is large, then that would be accurate.
Correct. But when the anti-gunners are saying that a 30 round AR-15 magazine is “large capacity” it is implicit that they are not comparing this magazine with other 30 round AR-15 magazines. That would be absurd. Nobody uses as a point of comparison the very thing they are describing. Nothing would ever be large or small.
If I say that Shaq is a very tall man, and you replied that as compared with other 7’1" people he is actually standard size, and compared with Robert Wadlow (tallest man in history 8’11") he is actually very small, you would get an award for missing the point.
By saying that Shaq is a very tall man, it is implicit that I am comparing him to the average height of a man, and I think that everyone understands that.
When the left says that 30 rounds is large, they are comparing 30 with what they consider “normal” guns like a revolver, a lever action rifle, or a pump shotgun. It that context, 30 is large capacity. I’m sure that if we take the average capacity of all of the firearms legally owned in the United States, the average standard magazine capacity is less than 30, probably less than 10. In that sense, 30 rounds is indeed “large.”
I’m not sure why we have to die on this particular hill in order to still say that 30 rounds should not be illegal.
Trust me when I say that no amount of wrangling over this will make 30 rounds seem smaller. If someone said “No large magazines. Anything over 10 rounds is large” and the reply was “But almost all are over 10 rounds, so that can’t be large” the reaction would be “My god, the problem is worse than I thought!”
Not that this is a big deal either, but I strongly suspect that if you could perform a magically-perfect “gun census” of all the magazines in the country and found the median capacity, it’d probably be between 15 and 20. There are a shit-load of 30-round mags in this country. My personal collection includes a few 7-round magazines, a bunch of 15-round magazines, and a number of 30-round magazines that would make your average gun-grabbing liberal very sad.
For another reference point, Brownells offers the option to order individual magazines, 10-paks, 25-paks, or 100-paks with some price discount for volume.
Of course we don’t have perfect counts of magazines in the US, so we can’t really know. I guess I’m just pointing out that, you think the median mag capacity is probably less than 10 and I think it’s probably in the teens.
Because, my pedantic friend, “hasn’t really” isn’t as assertively conclusive as “never”. If I had meant “never” I would have said “never”. You’re presumably not a space alien and have heard actual humans talk, right? They say things like “hasn’t really” or “not much” or “not enough to matter” or “most of the time”. Each one of these is a qualified statement meant to point to the rate of occurrence as not 0% or 100%, but something slightly more/less than that.
Presumably, again, you’re aware that I’m aware of such humans using language like that, and have followed suit. Also at the same time knowing that one mighty tactic of gun advocates is to parse and poke at these statements and derail the topic. I’ve no interest in that. You can claim victory for all I care, it doesn’t matter. I’m much more interested in talking about the 4 instances where you, as a staunch opposer of such vague language, proceeded to respond to my “hasn’t really happened” with 5 iron-clad examples where a random citizen armed a firearm stopped a mass shooting.
Given that only 1 of 5 examples actually fit that criteria, I have to wonder: do you consider 20% the same as 100%? Or is that language too vague for you?
For me, the connotation of “hasn’t really” is that “it doesn’t happen, though it may look like it does.” I think you are wrong to defend this assertion. What you’re doing now just makes you look like you can’t admit when you’re wrong.
That is different than what I proposed. I suggested taking a perfect census of all guns owned in the country and get an average of the standard magazine capacity of the particular gun. So, if I own an AR-15 and have 500 30-rd mags, 100 AWB-era 10-rnd mags, 5 100-rnd banana mags, and 40 20-rnd mags, it counts as one single 30 in my census because that is “standard” in an AR-15. Likewise my Glock 19 counts as a “15” no matter how many mags I own, my Winchester Model 1897 12 gauge counts as a “5”, and my .38 snubby also counts as a “5.” The NA 20 gauge I used as a kid and still own counts as a “1”.
If you did that, then I think you would find that the “standard” capacity of an average gun is less than 10. By comparing an AR-15 with some of my other guns, 30 rounds is a “large” capacity of ammunition. Again, I don’t think we lose by admitting the obvious.
Not sure why you discount this example. Assam had not been a police officer for 10 years prior to that incident. Here are a few more examples, though I think 3 of the 9 listed examples overlap with Hurricane’s list.
I had the same understanding of your “it hasn’t really happened” from post #235 as jsgoddess, and my point in post #237 was to show that it had happened. I succeeded.
If you can’t see the clear difference between “it hasn’t really happened” and “not much” or “most of the time”, maybe you aren’t as aware of how humans use language as you think.
I never claimed that all five of my examples were “iron-clad”, in fact I acknowledged the imperfections in some of them in my original post (i.e. “There is some dispute …” and “… he came out on the losing end of the gunfight.”). As far as I’m concerned, any single incident of a CCW holder stopping an active shooter proves that it HAS really happened. That’s all I was going for. It’s fairly obvious that CCW shooters don’t ALWAYS stop active shooters, so I don’t know why even mention 100%. I gave five examples for two reasons:
I figured you would probably “parse and poke at these statements” (which I was right about too)
I thought some of the actual incidents of CCW holders confronting or engaging active shooters might generate some interesting discussion.
The first cite also includes: Finally, always keep in mind that mass shootings in public places should not be the main focus in the gun debate, whether for gun control or gun decontrol: They on average account for much less than 1 percent of the U.S. homicide rate and are unusually hard to stop through gun control laws (since the killer is bent on committing a publicly visible murder and is thus unlikely to be much deterred by gun control law, or by the prospect of encountering an armed bystander). .
It depends. I don’t know anyone with more than half a dozen AR-15s but, I know plenty of people with tens of thousands of rounds. Note that most of these rounds are .22 lr from back when you could get a bucket of a ten thousand rounds for like $300-$400. Now they cost like triple that.
A machine gun does not really provide a significant advantage in committing the crimes they commit.
For me I think you would have to show why the police need a particular weapon that is forbidden to regular citizens. If the police need it, then the reason they need it can usually be applied to common citizens (albeit much less frequently).
Why?
Why would the police need a 45 round magazine and why wouldn’t that same rationale be applicable to the common citizen (even if the circumstances would arise less frequently)?
OK. I disagree but you are entitled to your deeply held unshakable beliefs.
That is not the implication when we say “large capacity magazines” The implication is that the magazines are unnecessarily, abnormally or overly large. Some people just say they want to impose a cap on magazines and I can’t quibble with that but when people say large capacity magazines , they use those words for much the same reason we now refer to modern semiautomatic rifles as assault weapons, to create an impression in people’s minds that is favorable to my agenda.
I’m fairly certain some law enforcement personnel use explosives to breach doors. Should common citizens be able to use explosives to breach doors, say, if you forgot your key to your home or lost it?
Because they are the police, they fight crime as part of their job. Common citizens don’t.
Fair enough, I’m not looking for agreement anyway.
For every reason you can give for why a civilian doesn’t need explosives, I can probably make the same argument for guns. Give it a try, might be kind of fun.
Police also have flashing lights on their cars, and sirens. Should civilians be allowed to have that on vehicles to?
If you need, I can probably find lots of things that police do/have/can have/can do that regular civilians can’t do/not allowed to do.
