Standard Capacity Magazine is Best

[BarryinIN]

Now there's an attention getter.

A friend of mine was a guest on a radio show yesterday. This friend is a Sheriff, the VP of the state Sheriff's Association, and Gunsite instructor. The topic was "that one", which I won't get into, at least not directly.

In the course of the show's discussion, the term "high capacity magazine" was used. The Sheriff corrected their terminology and he was not only tactful and masterful at it, but he was absolutely correct.

He said that the AR-15 was designed for 20-round or 30-round magazines, the 1911 on his side was designed for 7-rd magazines, therefore those are the standard capacities for those firearms. Calling a 30-rd AR mag "high-capacity" simply makes no sense.

He's right. Gun people didn't create the term "hi-capacity" or "hi-caps"; the hoplophobes* did.

We did pick it up because it's easier to say "Do you have any hi-caps?" than it is to say "Do you have any 30 round magazines, or 20, or 15, or 17 or whatever it should hold?" I don't like calling magazines "clips" or an AR-15 an "assault rifle", but that is no more incorrect that saying "high capacity magazine".

I've been screwing up. It would serve us better to say "standard capacity" than "hi-cap". I've done it a lot. I knew better, and had heard the same thing from him before, but still did it out of laziness.

"Standard capacity magazine" for me from now on.

*Hoplophobia

An irrational aversion to weapons, as opposed to justified apprehension about those who may wield them. Morbid fear of guns and firearms.

If interested, here is the radio show with the Sheriff:

http://indianapublicmedia.org/noonedition/guns-regulated/

Click on "Listen In Popup" or "Download MP3".

[Pablo]

Well written. I actually don't use either term. I just tend to say AR mag or PMag or Glock 20 mag, 1911 mag, 5906 mag, 1006 mag, etc. The amount of rounds the magazine holds can be next (or first) in the sentence/discussion structure.

Do you have any PMags? (pretty much no doubt 30 rounders)

I put a new eight round mag in my 1911.

I bought a 33 round Glock 17 mag.

The mag fell out of my Glock 20. It was about half full with seven rounds.

Etc. See the point? Maybe some assumptions up front, but no arbitrary adjectives needed.