What gives? Pistols vs Revolvers? A rant.

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Mike Irwin

Staff
"I was raised to believe that "words mean stuff" and all that... "

Yeah, it's pretty bad when someone uses a word like pistol to refer to a revolver. It causes a neural pathway imbalance in virtually everyone within a 50 meter radius.

Symptoms include shambling to a dead stop, drooling, vacant eyes, unresponsiveness to simple questions, and a genera inability to communicate effectively.

Oh, wait, that's most peoples' natural states...

Fortunately, the Obama administration has addressed this problem head on and established SMART units under the auspices of the United States Office of Ethnolinguistics, Grammar, and Technical Mechanics (EGTM).

The SMART units (SMART stands for Situation Management, Assessment, and Reaction Team) provide drastically needed remediation and re-education to those suffering from a word-induced natural disaster.

SMART unit members are trained to use the EGTM-approved "National Dictionary of the American English Language" to help these individuals re-adapt to being productive members of society.

Thank God we have someone as caring as Obama in the White House. That evil, despicable little man who came before? He had the audacity to tell similarly traumatized individauls that they needed to "Suck it up, Princesses!"
 
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Manu Forti

New member
Setting aside the fact that the term 'pistol' was in use before there were any semi-autos at all:

The term 'revolver' looks like it's selecting out, from a larger class, a kind with a functional difference, as do the terms 'semi-auto' and 'auto-loader'; whereas both 'pistol' and 'handgun' do not seem to select out in the same way, and in fact appear to be selecting out from a further higher class, i.e. that referred to by the term 'firearm' or 'gun'.

So the language looks like it has categories such as this:

Class: (1) Firearms or Guns
Subclasses: (1.1) Long-guns, (1.2) Handguns or Pistols
Subsubclasses: (1.1.1) Shotguns, (1.1.2) Rifles, (1.2.1) Revolvers, (1.2.2) Semi-autos.

Etc. for example: (1.2.1.1) Single action, (1.2.1.2) Double action, (1.2.2.1) SA, (1.2.2.2) DAO, (1.2.2.3) DA/SA

Manu Forti
 
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jaydubya

New member
"I was raised to believe that "words mean stuff" and all that... "

Yeah, it's pretty bad when someone uses a word like pistol to refer to a revolver. It causes a neural pathway imbalance in virtually everyone within a 50 meter radius. Symptoms include shambling to a dead stop, drooling, vacant eyes, unresponsiveness to simple questions, and a genera inability to communicate effectively. Oh, wait, that's most peoples' natural states...

Irwin, that is way off base. Have you read this file from the beginning? If someone else had written what you did, wouldn't you delete the input, maybe even lock the file?

Jaydubya
 
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Old Grump

Member in memoriam
Its like the word arsenal, to me it is a place where they make arms and ammunition. An armory was where you stored your arms and ammunition. Pick up any paper or listen to any newscaster and any gun collector with a cache of guns is accused of having an arsenal and they have absolutely no idea what the word means. Drives me up the wall.

I use gun and shotgun interchangeably, a rifle is a rifle, pistol is a handgun with a single chamber either single shot or magazine fed, not clip fed. A revolver has a cylinder with more than one chamber. It usually has only one barrel but it can also have a barrel for each chamber. I don't get all bunched up in knots but it helps to clarify the idea of what kind of weapon the shooter is talking about.

Say pistol and without further clarification I think colt 1911A1, say revolver and without further clarification I will conjure up a vision of a colt 45 revolver. Its just to keep the meaning clear that I try to choose my words carefully. I do not always succeed and my mouth is often faster than my brain but I try.
 
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Mike Irwin

Staff
It was meant as humorous sarcasm, Jdub.

It was late when I posted it and I didn't hit emoticon I should have.

Certainly not intended to be a personal attack, just a continuing commentary about how this sort of thing gets people riled up.

Oh, and as far as "words meaning stuff" and all...

Lock N' Load with Gunny Ermey, the episode about handguns...

He consistently and repeatedly uses the word pistol interchangeably with handgun when referring to either semi-automatics or revolvers.
 
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olyinaz

New member
A revolver IS a pistol

And to the OP it bugs me to have anyone try to correct me about it as well. I had a lady at Ruger get indignant with me over the phone for referring to my Old Army as a "pistol" during a service call. UFB... They called 'em PISTOLS back in the 1800s exactly as the gunslinger did when he fingered his Walkers and said to the man, "You gonna pull them pistols or just stand there and whistle Dixie?"

Note holster #25: http://inthesmokymountains.com/old_west_leather_holsters_gun_belts_and_knife_sheaths/Old_West_Leather_Holsters_Western_Frontier_Holsters.shtml


Cheers,
Pistol packin' Oly
 
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