President Yoweri Museveni's legal adviser was pictured on Friday armed with an automatic pistol during a fracas over voting in the northeast of the country...The independent Monitor newspaper said its photographer John Emojong was beaten by Odoi after he took the picture, and then arrested by police officers under the lawyer's command...Elsewhere in Tororo district, the Monitor said Museveni's legal assistant "fired bullets, assaulted people and hunted down suspected Kenyans, who turned out to be Ugandans".What are we fighting to bring to the world?
Oh, yeah, democracy.
7 comments:
An automatic pistol? I didn't see the photograph, but highly unlikely. Don't reporters/writers realize how idiotic they look in their attempts to demonize guns by showering their writing with descriptive but inaccurate adjectives? Geez, why not really embellish it?
"...pictured on Friday armed with an automatic pistol, similar to the destructive automatic hand cannon use in the original Robocop movie."
Unfortunately, the gun community is responsible for this misnomer--there is even a National Automatic Pistol Association--for collectors of semi-auto pistols... the ignorant reporters are just following suit.
Do a Google search on "automatic pistol" or ".45 automatic" and you'll see what I mean.
You're right, David. All I see is "Colt .45 Automatic Pistol" when I search Google. Is that the original designation?
I believe the only time "auto" or "automatic" would be accurate without the "semi-" would be when used to describe how the weapon chambers a round (when describing a single trigger pull - single shot weapon). In which case it should be termed an "auto loader" or "automatic loading" weapon. I think the distnction was used early on when revolvers ruled the day and something was needed to describe the new technology. The term "semi-automatic" has now been purged of the prefix "semi-" by media and if it conveniently leads the cud chewers to believe that a weapon is fully automatic, so be it.
The biggest problem I see is not in the deletion of the prefix but rather in what is missing after the descriptive term ... "automatic" or "auto". "Automatic" what?? Auto loading? Auto loading and firing?
Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Follow up. This was posted here:
Our loyal readers have pointed out that this weapon is not a true "automatic", i.e., you cannot hold down the trigger and fire off the full clip. The editors of the Doughboy Center have consulted and concluded, however, that since the general usage at the time and also the terminology applied by the manufacturer was "automatic" rather than the more accurate "semi-automatic" we will not change the current terminology.
Thanks, Wild Deuce. Y0ou just resurrected the "clip" vs "magazine" debate :)
oooh ... just noticed that.
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