Myths & Misconceptions

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    If you have questions about firearms, ammunition, or the use of firearms, you are welcome to call me or email me and if I don’t know the answer will find it for you.  See my contact page.

Firearm Nomenclature

“Bullets” - people wrongly call ammunition “ bullets.  ”Bullets are the projectile in the end of the ammunition.  The correct name for the entire assembly is a “round” of ammunition, or just a “round.”

“Clip” or “Magazine?”  Your pistol (and probably your rifle) does NOT have a clip.  It has a magazine.MANY people mistakenly call firearm magazines “clips.”  “Clips” are devices that hold a specific quantity of ammunition and are used to push the rounds into the magazine of a firearm; typically an older design military rifle.  There are generally two typed - “strip” or “stripper” clips and “en-bloc” clips.  Strip clips hold on to the base of the rounds and typically the rounds are pushed off the strip clip into the magazine then thrown away.  “En-bloc” clips hold onto a large portion the shaft of the rounds bunched up together and are inserted with the rounds into the magazine.  The US Garand rifle used in WWII and Korea used “En-bloc” clips.  But whether clip loaded or not, the rounds are all loaded into a magazine, whether the magazine is removable or not.

Automatic Firearms shoot rounds as long as you hold the trigger, right?  WRONG - The term “automatic” is interchangeable with the phrase “self-loading.”  “Automatic” and “self-loading” mean the firearm will automatically load a fresh round into the chamber after firing a round.  You still only get one round fired per trigger pull, regardless of how hard you hold that trigger!  The term “full-automatic” is synonymous with “machine-gun.”  So unless your firearm is “full-automatic,” you only get one round per trigger pull.  Unfortunately, people are sloppy with their nomenclature and use the term “automatic” when they really mean “full-automatic,” and that causes HUGE confusion ; especially with people who don’t know guns.  After every shooting there is some politician on TV saying we should ban automatic weapons - because they think perpetrators are using full-automatic firearms.

Assault Rifles: An AR-15 is an “assault rifle.”  Nope - not even close.  Assault rifles as a class of firearms were invented by the Germans near the end of WWII.  They are rifles that can be selectively made to fire one round per trigger pull or more than one round (burst-fire) including full-automatic.  The military’s M-16, M14, and other variants are assault rifles.  They meet the definition.An AR-15 is NOT an assault rifle because it can ONLY fire one round per trigger pull.There is no way to fire anything like burst fire or full-automatic.  NO military would either classify an AR-15 as an assault rifle or use it as such.

AR:  “AR” is short for “Assault Rifle,” right?  Nope - “AR” is short for “Armalite” which is the name of the company that designed AR-15s, AR-7s, and AR-10s.  Armalite sold the rights to their design for AR-15s to Colt who was the first to produce them for the military back in the ‘60s.  At best an AR-15 (or AR-10) could be called a Battle Rifle.  Battle Rifles are either bolt action or semi-automatic rifles that fire one round per trigger pull.  Assault Rifles, by definition, can be user selected to either fire semi-automatic (one round per trigger pull) or burst mode (three rounds for each trigger pull), or automatic (the rifle fires continuously until the trigger is released).

Firearm Myths

An assailant might take my gun away from me and shoot me:  “If I have a firearm in my house and someone breaks in they will take my firearm and shoot me with it.”  This comes from an absolutely baseless article that was published in the late 50s.It was instantly debunked but continues to sometimes be quoted.  There is NO evidence this happens to any extent at all.It has happened - but so seldom as to be not worth considering.

A semi-automatic pistol is not good for self-defense because if you push the firearm against the assailant the slide is pushed back, forcing the barrel out of battery, and preventing you from being able to fire it.  It IS true that if you push the firearm against someone the barrel can be forced out of battery.  However, easy fix - pull the firearm OFF the person and shoot!

“Few civilians use their firearms to stop or prevent a crime.”  Not true at all.Annual statistics that continue to be collected by the FBI demonstrate that over 50% of gun owners who have their firearm accessible stop active crimes in their vicinity or being perpetrated on them.

“Every time a firearm is used by a civilian someone is shot.” Again, not true.  Turns out by far most crimes where a civilian (not a perpetrator) pulls their gun the assailant flees.  It is expected that far more of these events happen that aren’t even reported.

9mm is best: The military, the FBI, and the police use 9mm, so it is the best round for personal defense.  Not true - in any way.  This will take some time, so here we go:

    The military yielded to NATO countries long-standing pressure to convert to 9mm because 9mm has been the primary military handgun round for, like, ever.A contributing factor in the 1980’s when the change occurred was also the time when women were finally allowed to serve in combat roles and 9mm does have less recoil than the .45ACP the military had used since 1911 or so.  Not only are these truths, but special forces, who get to individually select the weapons of their preference, frequently chose a 1911 in .45ACP versus a 9mm.

    Defensive rounds are produced to meet FBI needs which specify the round must be able to pass through a car’s windshield and still have enough energy to injure an assailant.  Auto glass is EXTREMELY hard for pretty much any handgun round to penetrate, so to meet the specification, 9mm rounds typically travel at over 1200 feet/second.  That’s fast - very fast.And the result is that if you are NOT shooting through a windshield, a 9mm round will pass right through the assailant.  That means most of the energy of the round does NOT get passed to the assailant.  AND the round has more than enough energy to kill someone else on the other side of the assailant you shot - your wife, your girlfriend, your child, etc..  The police use 9mm because the FBI uses them.

It is illegal to own full-automatic weapons, right?  WRONG.  You CAN own a full-automatic weapon.  You have to fill out a special form for the ATF and pay for a “tax stamp” that goes with the full-automatic you are purchasing.  Once approved you can receive your full-automatic firearm.  Simple, right?  Not so quick - since a law passed in 1986, you can ONLY purchase a full-automatic that was produced before 1986.  That means you can’t purchase a “new” full automatic, and it means the pool of full-automatics you can purchase is relatively small.  And that means the price of a full-automatic generally starts in the $20,000 range and go up - way up from there.  Don’t expect to run out and purchase a full-automatic anytime soon.  Oh, and yes, you COULD purchase a full-automatic when the Constitution was written - cannons too, uncle Joe (and you’d have been able to buy F-15s if they existed at the time). Oh, and it IS illegal to modify a firearm or create any firearm that is full-automatic.

.40 cal handguns:Is 40.cal a great intermediate between 9mm and 10mm?NOT.After the Miami shootout between the FBI and two guys fully decked out in body armor in the 80’s, the FBI asked industry for a man-stopping round that could deal with body armor.The answer was (and is) 10mm.At the same time the FBI was actively recruiting female agents and many females and some males couldn’t handle the recoil of a 10mm - and the recoil is stout.After initially accepting 10mm the FBI went back to industry and told them they needed something with less recoil..40cal is the result.Guess what size the bullet is?It’s a 10mm round.Yep, to save money after investing in equipment to produce 10mm industry cut the 10mm case length, changed the primer from a large pistol to a small pistol primer, and reduced the power charge.The result is a 10mm round that doesn’t have any stopping power but does have reduced recoil - less than many 9mm rounds.It is, in my opinion, probably the single worse “defensive” round one can chose - as bad a choice as 240 rifles for hunting.You have none of the stopping power of the 10mm or .45ACP, and none of the velocity of 9mm.It’s an anemic round and I don’t even carry .40 cal firearms and have never recommended them to anyone.They are nice to shoot - soft recoil.But all they are good for is target shooting.If you have one (and I own several myself), don’t be offended - how would you know differently unless told, right? Oh, and if you have a 10mm firearm unless the manufacturer of your firearm says otherwise, it will happily fire .40cal ammo.

Anyone can manufacture their own firearm.  Well, yes, sort of.As of 14 August 2022, the ATF has made it illegal to sell 80% kits, so that isn’t an option.  But you can still manufacture your own firearm if you have the machinery to do so.

Lasers:  If I have a laser on my firearm I can’t miss - not true.  Lasers are light and that beam of light travels in an absolutely straight path from the source to whatever it is shined on.  Bullets, on the other hand, are impacted by gravity as soon as they leave the barrel.  In fact, your firearm is sighted in at a fixed distance and actually is set to aim up to account for the arc your bullet travels to its target.