[Crash_00]

The only modern clips I really see are moon clips for revolvers.

That said, clips and magazines serve the same function when you're trying to fire you gun (get the bullets in the gun to fire). There are mechanical differences, but if I yell for someone to toss me a "clip" for my Colt M-23 I'm pretty damn sure they'll know what I mean.

When the zombies come and I yell for a clip, you best toss me whatever I need for the gun I'm using. Otherwise, when you yell for a mag I'll toss you the tube I've ripped off the shotgun.

Its really only important to know the difference when designing the firearms (there has to be some way to feed the rounds). I know people that are top marksmen that don't difference (yay for growing up in arkansas) and it didn't keep them from being top marksmen.

I never will understand people's zeal for this subject. I don't feel the need to correct people every time the use brute force or exponential wrong, I just figure what they mean using the context and run with it.

[CanRay]

It's the Gun Control Crowd.  The blaring ignorance they have, and use, is a weapon to criminalize legitimate and legal firearms.

That's how things like Airsoft Import Licenses in Canada are the same permits required to store Weapons-Grade Nuclear Material, as they "Look like real Firearms, and are thus dangerous.".  Yes, that includes even the clear plastic ones.

[JoeNapalm]

"I don't know what it's called...I just know the sound it makes when it takes a man's life." 

-- John "Four Leaf" Tayback

You can be a great shot, and still be an amateur.  I am not saying "amateur" in a derogatory sense, but simply as in "not a professional."  Being a good shot doesn't imply that you know jack-all about weapons or the nomenclature associated with them. I'm a pretty good driver, even a trained one, but I'm not going to tell a mechanic what the doohickey linking the thingamabob to the whatsis should be called.

It's easy enough to ignore it the first few hundred times, but after awhile, it's like fingernails on a chalkboard. Eventually, someone says "actually, it's a magazine, not a clip." Zeal ensues at this point for the reasons that Mystic states...invariably, someone who heard the word "clip" watching A-Team reruns starts arguing with trained professionals (military/LEOs/etc) about whether or not it's the right term.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[CanRay]

"Fully-automatic bolt-action sniper rifle." = SMLE in the Media, apparently.

[EmperorPenguin]

I realize I wasn't being constructive earlier.  We all have our passions and wish everyone shared our depth of appreciation.

As a designer, I need to indicate what loading system the weapons in my game have to players know what reload action to use.  When you read the list, most of them are distinct - cylinder (cy), muzzle-load (ml), etc.

I would see having magazine (m) and internal magazine (im) as an issue - these are quite similar and I would like them more distinct.  I eventually choose to go with clip - a generally accepted (if not entirely accurate) term.

Those with a passion - what would alternative solutions be?  How can we keep external magazines clearly separate from internal ones?

[CanRay]

Box Magazines (bm), Drum Magzines (dm), Pan Magazines if there are any left in the world (pm).  Quite distinctive.

[Critias]

It's the Gun Control Crowd...

Easy, Can.  I'm right there with ya, but we don't want to get too political and wind up getting something locked down, y'know?

[CanRay]

*Deep Breath*  OK.  I'll be good.

Then I'll say it in another way that's also accurate:  Firearms are a tool.  You grow up in a rural community, you know that, you see them used as tools.  They put meat on the table!  (Good meat too.).

Urbanites, however, don't know much about them and are scared.  After all, only criminals and police have firearms, right?  Thus, gun nuts (like myself) and legitimate owners try our best to educate to get rid of those fears.  Sometimes, it's so much of an uphill battle it turns into a knee-jerk reaction.

The "Clips"/"Magazine" thing is a prime example of that.  The same way a computer tech gets upset whenever someone calls the computer case "The CPU", "The Hard Drive", or "The Thingie".  Only people aren't trying to ban comput...

Stopped myself.

[Cass100199]

This urbanite has fired machine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, pistols, shotguns and grenade launchers. Expert qualification also. I've used them some of them in combat. I don't hunt.

Throwing out random, unsourced generalizations is the height of ignorance. I've found, in my anecdotal experience, that the "country boys" are a real pain in the ass to teach to shoot. They're used to hunting. So they may be accurate when you can sit in one spot with a stake and take your sweet ass time to aim, but that isn't how combat works. Shooting when you've been moving fast and flooded with adrenaline and your sphincter is so tight your pushing out diamonds...yeah. That's not an acquired skill out on the farm.

[CanRay]

Maybe it's a Canadian thing.  With our military so small, there are a large number of families that don't have anyone in the military at all.  Hell, the last person that served in my family was my Grandfather, who drove a lorry in WWII.

And I never said anything about military experience being required.  Just an understanding that they're tools and can be abused just as much as any other tool can be.  People don't villanize meat slicers, because they see them all the time being used properly, but used improperly those things are dangerous, if not deadly.  I'd include cars in that, but Winnipeg has a very vocal bicycle community that does villanize all forms of automobiles (Save mass transit, and even then they don't say nice things.).

It's also how the drektastic firearms regist...  Damnit, there I go again.  Stopping now.

[Cass100199]

All I'm saying is you can't make generalizations and denounce ignorance in the same breath. Fact is, most people are not trained in firearms. And by trained, I mean actually using the damn thing. I have found that even the most passionate gun owners aren't passionate enough to work up a sweat and do a stress shoot now and then. I tend to tell people they own a metal teddy bear.

[CanRay]

I've already been told how close I've gotten to the ToC, I'm shutting up now.  As for making "Gerneralizations"...  Well, I'll just correct myself and say "The majority of" to both of those groups rather than paint them all with the same brush.  How's that?

[Critias]

All I'm saying is you can't make generalizations and denounce ignorance in the same breath. Fact is, most people are not trained in firearms. And by trained, I mean actually using the damn thing. I have found that even the most passionate gun owners aren't passionate enough to work up a sweat and do a stress shoot now and then. I tend to tell people they own a metal teddy bear.

Some of us do.  But, damn, does it suck doin' it here in the Texas heat.   

[Cass100199]

He'll that should make it easy. You walk to your car and work up a sweat.

[CanRay]

OK, I see the issue that people are getting hung up on:  Cultural Difference Hang-up  (Took awhile, but I'm not having a very good day today.).

Civilian firearms ownership, to me (And a lot of Canadian firearms owners) involves the family hunting rifle and maybe a few other items.  For hunting.

I'm not talking about The Wild West where every man needed to prove his virility and right to walk down the street by having a hogleg strapped to his hip (I'll leave that to the folks in Alberta.  ).  Nor even CCW or automatic weapons or any type (Well, maybe Semi-Auto.  Some moose can get really aggressive!).

I'm talking about rifles that have been in a family for a century or longer, or younger ones that serve the same purpose but are purpose-built for the job rather than being old military rifles brought home.  Families that have owned and used firearms reliably and honestly for generations.

"Fully-automatic bolt-action sniper rifle." = SMLE

To quote myself.  (SMLE for those that don't know is a Bolt-Action Rifle that's over a century old, and is one of the most common hunting rifles in Canada.  It stopped being a "Military Rifle" during the Korean War, when it was already hopelessly obsolete.).  This is honestly how a lot of people see any type of firearm, even muzzle-loaded black powder flintlocks.  Murder Machines only.

I may have generalized a bit too much, but I've seen too much of it by too large a group of the same type of people, a lot of whom should even have known better, so put that down to knee-jerk reaction and a cynical world view.  I should have typed better, but, as I said, I'm not having the best of days in a lot of ways.

I should point out that I'm not a firearms owner, and that my family firearms (Two rifles, one a single-shot Cap & Ball Conversion, and a double-barreled shotgun) were deactivated, and later destroyed.  It's unlikely I'll ever own a firearm, for any reason at all.  I'm not about to start hunting, and if I'm in any kind of situation that requires me to have a militant enough stance to get a firearm, "Ownership" has gone out the window anyhow, and it's become mere possession.  I do, however, have family that does hunt, that does own firearms and use them responsibly.  I also know people who have dog-wolf crossbreeds with no fear of mankind literally at their back fences, as well as bears, and other wildlife that don't have much use for things like personal property as well as the possibility of other wildlife issues (Rabies outbreaks anyone?).

...

Man have we gone off topic!