How are some people so ignorant about firearms?
Posted by jimmybabino@reddit | Firearms | View on Reddit | 72 comments
Maybe this is my youth making me naive but l've read probably a hundred stories this past week with some variation about how people who own several firearms walk into a gun store with a loaded gun and point it at the employee or employees who don't clear chambers and even one story about how a gun sold to the store made it all the way to the shelf without being cleared once. How in tarnation do these things happen? Nevermind the seemingly endless supply of folks who think they're being clever making a straw purchase with their girlfriends or wives buying the gun for them or convicted felons lying on the 4473 and acting surprised that they can't just waltz out the door with a firearm. My own father who owns 7 different guns calls magazines clips and says you cannot load a 357 with 38spl even if the manufacturer recommends it. The same man who says dry firing is bad for quality pistols.
MarcusAurelius0@reddit
I ask this question about people who know fuck all about vehicles. Makes more sense for that.
2nd most expensive thing you will own in your life and some people dont even know how to check their oil or identify issues.
KderNacht@reddit
I personally think this is why German cars have a bad rep in the US. Germans follow service recommendations and oil changes like they're Führerbefehle.
Bread_the_TrashPanda@reddit
I think we all at least know one person who is constantly having to buy another car because they don't do any maintenance on used cars and then they explode.
Then they think the cars don't last very long so they buy cheap ones with lots of issues. And then they explode again.
Or maybe I just know some really stupid people
Special_EDy@reddit
My last car i did zero maintenance on. $1000 I paid to buy it from a junkyard, then it needed a $100 catalytic converter to fix it since the old one was plugged and wouldnt let it rev over 2k rpm. I think the previous owner couldnt figure it out and sold it for scrap after replacing a bunch of stuff.
Anyways, I drove it for 2 years like 300-400 miles a week, never changed the oil or anything, a piston and rod let go after two years. Sold it back to the junkyard I bought it from for $500, they picked it up off the side of the highway where it had died.
Car basically cost me $600 for two years of use, worth it. And in the meantime I was building a supercharged alcohol V6 out of a Dodge Challenger to swap into my 90's Plymouth minivan.
CerBerUs-9@reddit
I feel I'm very much a novice with cars as I won't replace any parts under my hood except a fuse. I found out last week my mom doesn't know how to change a tire. I was so so confused.
Realistically most Americans can't live their life without a car. This leads to a lot of people who don't care at all and a lot of careless behavior when using the most/second most expensive and most dangerous (other than a gun) thing they own.
Oldgraytomahawk@reddit
I was raised in the era of gun safety courses and by a hunter of a father who drilled it into me every time I touched a firearm
BerthaBenz@reddit
I was once asked to debate a person about the 1994 AWB. I was familiar with the law and knew about all the cosmetic features it banned. I asked the person what he understood about assault weapons. He replied that they were guns that could kill as many people as quickly as possible. I said I wasn't going to debate with someone who obviously doesn't know what he's talking about and turned to leave. The woman who brought us together was nonplused.
Peacemkr45@reddit
it's pretty straight forward. People are stupid. How many drivers don't know how to turn on their hazard lights or know how to change a flat tire? How many internet users question why the internet is out when there's a power outage? Now a bit closer to current events..... How many people drive around in their cars, alone, still wearing a covid mask? How our societies have grown, it's very difficult to "cull the herd via darwinism". Because of that, stupid people reproduce and raise stupid offspring. Now add that the majority of people will never physically encounter a firearm, let alone handle one and it should be easy to understand their lack of knowledge of the mechanics/nomenclature and safety.
NoDonut6709@reddit
I will 1 up everyone. I doubt that most firearm owners know how to use their firearm.
highvelocitypeasoup@reddit
I'll defend your dad briefly. It wasn't that long ago that people were taught, especially in the military, to call magazines clips. It was a holdover from the days when us infantry rifles were clip fed. It was just easier to call every feeding device a clip, because in reality its not that big a deal. There is also at least one good reason to only shoot magnum rounds in magnum revolvers: shooting specials will put a ring of carbon buildup that can be a pain to clean and causes ejection issues. I try to cut old people some slack when they're not actively endangering people.
As for the other points, people dont get taught these things. I'm 1000% for mandatory hunter safety courses in school which I think would cut down on this stuff a lot.
ZeroPointSpecter@reddit
A lot of gun owners get complacent or were never properly trained to begin with. They parrot bad info (“clips,” “dry firing ruins guns,” “.38 won’t fit in a .357”) because that’s what they heard from someone else who didn’t know better.
Gun stores aren’t immune to stupidity either. Rushed checks and lazy habits cause loaded guns to slip through. Add in the usual crowd of people lying on 4473s or trying straw buys, and you’ve got a mix of ignorance and arrogance that never goes away.
tameagang@reddit
Yep; once saw a clerk at a gun store showing some old lady a .38 snubby (of course he was) with a laser grip and was pointing the laser at another employee stocking some shelves... and laughing about it. Not only was he teaching that old lady a bad habit, but he was willfully irresponsible as well. Never went back to that store, solely because of that incident.
BladeDoc@reddit
The whole magazines/clips thing is stupid. We all know what people mean and "actually-ing" them is useless and annoying.
Half of the population is below median intelligence-- and median ain't that high.
Outrageous-Basis-106@reddit
A lot of times correcting or getting annoyed with the clip-magazine thing is stupid since it is ussually known what someone is talking about. However there are times where the designation really matters and it becomes annoying when the people who don't have a clue about such distinctions then assume the wrong thing, or someone does know the difference assumes the wrong thing because they assumed the other person was wrong. Its like "this is why we can't have nice things".
BladeDoc@reddit
Can you give me an example where calling one the other would matter? Because I honestly can't.
Outrageous-Basis-106@reddit
Its not the occasional missuse, its the frequent missuse that creates confusion and ignorance. Try to have a conversation involving clips and you may end up having to explain what you're actually talking about. Like if you talk about an using clips with an SKS, people will try and correct you that they're magazines and the aftermarket magazines are unreliable when in you're really talking about loading the fixed 10 round magazine using clips or if talking about using clips with revolvers, someone will jump in that revolvers don't take clips/"magazines" and you're talking about speedloaders.
On a somewhat similar note. Is it me or is there a growing trend of people thinking all magazines are detachable box style and that something like a fixed tubular magazine isn't a magazine?
BladeDoc@reddit
Right. Why is it more correct or useful to lump a non removable tube magazine in with a removable box magazine when they are markedly different in function but wrong to call a garand clip a magazine even though it functions much more like a magazine than a tube?
I understand the "contains the entire round" distinction but it is a distinction that does not serve anything except identifying the in group. Similar to the snark about "poisonous" vs. "venomous" in r/snakes
Outrageous-Basis-106@reddit
Its due to what a magazine is vs a clip. Magazines actively feed ammunition using springs and followers where as clips just passively hold onto ammunition to be fed into a magazine or chambers. M1 Garand being an interesting example; it has an internal magazine which is the spring assembly and follower inside the rifle itself, the en blok clip is inserted into the magazine, its interesting because the magazine doesn't function without the clip since it provides the body and feed lips.
A more cut and dry example of magazine vs clip is something like an SKS which has a complete internal magazine but a stripper clip can be inserted into the bolt face in order to load the magazine. Another example would be detachable magazines that can have a guide put on them in order to be loaded using clips. Moon clips, another story but definitely not a magazine.
Getting into detachable box mag and internal tubular magazines, both are magazines as they feed ammunition (springs, followers, etc) and not just hold it. But some people seem to think magazines are just external box style and cannot be internal such as what most pump shotguns, lever actions, M1 Garand, SKS, etc have.
Aside from telling who is in the in crowd. Its annoying having to defend or clarify what you're saying when you're using a term correctly. Like talking about clips for loading an SKS, or 5.56 clips to load an AR magazine, etc and having someone assuming you're talking about magazines or simply not know the distinction to begin with. At least for me, other people may do something like buying ammunition on clips only to get upset because they thought it meant it came with magazines (considering people buy bullets thinking they're getting cartridges and 45 Colt because they wanted 45 ACP just because they really don't know better, buying clips instead of magazines maybe possible).
Dragonawzz@reddit
It matters, it’s like a dumb anti 2nd amendment politician who wants to ban “assault” rifles calls every long gun they see a ar15….. imagine every person you meet who isn’t into firearms calls a bolt action an “assault” rifle or ar15. 🤦🏻♂️
BladeDoc@reddit
That matters. And if you were writing a law and wanted to ban "guns with clips" that would matter but when Bob says I'm going to load a clip in my 1911, who cares?
Dragonawzz@reddit
If bob is an old man, where everyone called a mag a clip, then yeah, I wouldn’t care. Lol But I’m just saying, it’s no different than politicians calling every long gun, an “assault” rifle lol. But yeah, don’t care about Bobby, it’s a clip to him.
jimmybabino@reddit (OP)
I know it’s dumb, it’s just this is a man who touts himself as knowledgable about firearms.
Pereoutai@reddit
He learned the misinformation when it was popular. People are often unwilling to relearn what they "already know".
HollowPandemic@reddit
I see it like with construction with a green hand and an experienced hand, most times I'd rather have a green guy on my crew because they're actually willing to learn and or change their thinking opposed to the guy that's been doing it wrong for 30 years and doesn't wanna change.
9bikes@reddit
> He learned the misinformation when it was popular.
I bet he still "rolls down" car windows and "dials" numbers on his telephone! "Clips" is just outdated term from when en bloc clips were more commonly used.
War-Damn-America@reddit
Wait, do you not say "roll down your window" in your car, or "dial" a number on the phone?
9bikes@reddit
LOL! Yes, I do! And I might even call a magazine a clip!
Now that I think of it, I'm going to intentionally call 'em clips just to aggravate the pedantic.
War-Damn-America@reddit
Hahaha that is fair. And yeah, it has really only been in the last 20-25 odd years that you really saw the nomenclature change from the colloquial clip to proper mag.
Hot-Win2571@reddit
Median ain't that high. Yup, it's right next to the gutter, and many people have their mind in the gutter.
superbigscratch@reddit
A magazine has a feeder mechanism, the spring in a 1911 mag, where a clip does not have any feeder mechanism. A magazine is not strictly for hand guns or rifles as battle ships also have magazines for their guns. It’s like calling lizard a snake with legs.
Just wanted to stir it up a bit more.
godfatherowl@reddit
Because they are stupid. Sorry. Yes, it is actually that stupid. Because in all of the cases you described, the root cause is willful ignorance.
jimmybabino@reddit (OP)
You would think that having to pass a federal background check would be enough for some people that this is serious business. I read an article that stated out of the 12 thousand people that were denied for lying on the 4473 only 12 were actually convicted. We gotta bump those fucking numbers up
NET42@reddit
I'm not trying to dismiss your point, but I think there's a population out there that don't understand what the 4473 is. To them, it's just "filling out a form". They don't view it as serious business, and as long as they're able to go home with the firearm, that's all they care about.
CerBerUs-9@reddit
When I picked up my first gun, the dealer handed the 4473 to me and just said "sign here and here" expecting fully that I wouldn't read it. He seemed annoyed I took the time to actually inspect the document. It's not just purchasers.
purplesmoke1215@reddit
For most people walking into a gunstore, it is just a other form. A form with serious consequences for lying, but just another form for any regular person.
But because its just another form for regular people, its nowhere near strict enough (read: doesnt stop enough law abiding citizens) for those who don't understand what it is.
steppedinhairball@reddit
Oh fuck no! All that means is they haven't committed a crime which prevents them from purchasing a gun. To stupid people, it's just meaningless paperwork they need to buy a gun. There is no qualification beyond being able to fill out the paperwork.
It's a rough learning lesson, but for every person you know of above average intelligence, there is an equally equivalent person of below average intelligence. Meaning, there are a LOT of stupid people out there. Some are very good people with actual common sense and are very productive members of society. On the other spectrum, there are above average intelligence people who couldn't tell their ass from a hole in the ground. They can pass university tests and exams very well, but often fail at the most basic of living tasks because they lack any common sense.
I was checking out a Glock 20 yesterday at the gun counter. Even though the sales person handed it to me with the slide locked open, I still removed the magazine and confirmed the chamber was empty. But a lot of people won't. They get lazy or just don't think beyond 'I want'.
patty_OFurniture306@reddit
While I understand your point and the distro should approach a bell curve...it sure don't feel that way
steppedinhairball@reddit
I agree. But in the far more distant past, if you were stupid, you tended to die at an early age. Agriculture in 1900 is a great example. If you were stupid, you would tend to die from getting caught in the early age equipment or killed by a bull or die from basically doing something stupid. Modern ag equipment has a ton of safe guards, regulations, etc. so much easier to survive if you are stupid. The entire modern society is that way.
Look at people and just feeding themselves. There is a significant portion of the population that cannot cook food. They simply do not know how. There are households in the US that eat take out every single day. They use paper plates so they don't have to wash dishes.
And it also comes down to people just not thinking about the consequences. I was just consulting the past few weeks with a company. They were wanting to machine a certain product that they had bought equipment with the intent to machine that product instead of bringing it in from China. But they put zero, and I mean zero, thought into where the equipment would be located in their facility. So the one big wig is actually started understanding how bad their setup was. He actually said "This is horrible. These machines were bought to do this work but getting the material there and back is really really bad." Mentally, I'm thinking 'No shit! My high school kid would have thought this through better.' People just do not think 2 or three steps ahead. An amazing amount of people do not think two or three steps ahead.
B4ND4GN@reddit
chess should be a required sport for children under 10 years old. it would make them have to think beyond one decision.
patty_OFurniture306@reddit
Yeah let's not ask the experts just make decisions based on cost per item and roi figures.
InsertClichehereok@reddit
Spoilers: it’s not enough. That’s the problem.
Penguin_Life_Now@reddit
You have to be careful how you define lying, is it accidentally checking the wrong box, which has been very easy to do on some versions of the form over the years, or misspell the street on their address
caterham09@reddit
One of the first things I (and everyone else I know) was taught is that you check the chamber everytime you pick a gun up. Regardless of if it was cleared before or not.
That rule and muzzle control will almost certainly get you through life without having an accident with a gun. It's that simple.
603rdMtnDivision@reddit
Stupid. Complacent. Lazy.
Take your pick OP they're all accurate!
Crohn85@reddit
I was at a local gun store. Ended up looking at three different pistols. Employee took the first pistol out of the display case and didn’t check to make sure it was safe before letting me pick it up. Same thing with the second pistol. Another employee took over because a customer came in asking for the first employee. Yep you guessed it. Second employee failed to check the third pistol when he took it out. This was a gun store that has been around for decades. First thing I did with all three was to check they were safe. The kicker is I was new to firearms and shopping for my first one and I knew safety better than these gun store employees.
Intelligent-Age-3989@reddit
Heard it all but it never ceases to amaze me either. Stupid is as stupid does. +1
DannyMeatlegs@reddit
We all know a 22lr will explode your lungs.
Dragonawzz@reddit
According to some, you can’t hunt with an ar15, cause it’d blow a giant hole through the deer and destroy all the meat!!!
Underwater_Karma@reddit
After Biden said that, i tried explaining to at at least a half dozen people that AR-15s weren't legal to hunt with in many states because it was too LOW powered the humanely kill the animal. I eventually gave up.
Dragonawzz@reddit
Crazy thing is that the ar15 is so modular that it can be chambered in multiple calibers…… lol 556/223 can take down a deer with shot placement….. but at ar15 chambered in 300blk out or some new cartridge designed for big game would be better, I’d also add that some states don’t allow 556 ar15 platforms but don’t allow ar15 that are chambered in 350legend or 450 bushmaster “straight wall” cartridges.
906Dude@reddit
I would give grace on this one. The WWII generation called them clips. I grew up in the 1960s and early 1970s, and "clip" is all that I ever heard. I still routinely run into people my age and older who say "clip" because their parents said it.
I believe back in the day that the above was true. Someone who grew up around guns decades ago may have been taught an almost religious reverence toward them, and dry firing would have been a sacrilege, so I would give some grace here too. I will dry fire my modern pistols, but I won't dry fire anything vintage without at least a snap cap in place.
bstrobel64@reddit
That's because the primary battle rifle of that generation was fed via clips aka enblocs.
I apologize for that sounding so "acktually."
906Dude@reddit
I know that now but didn't know it then. I do recall being confused by the term "clip" as a child. To me a clip was like a binder clip or a hair clip, and pistol clips weren't either of those.
The term "magazine" used to confuse me also, back when I first encountered it. I'm pretty sure I encountered "mag" first, and it took a while to realize that "mag" was short for "magazine". Then for me when I was young, a magazine was something on the shelves at the grocery store, and it took a while before came to understand the other meaning of the word.
Eventually as I got older, I read more and began to understand about the Garand and about the term magazine.
Daarcuske@reddit
Well as far as dry firing… if it’s a 1911 and you’re dropping the slide dry you are not being nice to your gun…. Maybe not the same thing as a dry fire but maybe where he got it from?
DickNose-TurdWaffle@reddit
Preaching to the choir again here.
AngriestManinWestTX@reddit
Calling magazines 'clips' is so minor, I don't even notice or give a shit any more. When I was behind the counter, there were much more important things for me to worry about than whether or not a prospective customer was asking for a Glock 17 clip or Glock 17 magazine. I'm not going to patronize someone and lose a potential sale (which would be to the chagrin of my manager) when I know exactly what the customer is asking for. The only time I did that is if the customer was using sufficiently incorrect nomenclature that I had to clarify or correct it before I could help them.
As for other stuff, it's a mixture of simple ignorance, arrogance, carelessness, stupidity, and combinations thereof. I ran into all them when I worked at a gun store.
Hot-Win2571@reddit
Did your store have an "empty gun" jar, for the rounds which were discovered in empty guns?
AngriestManinWestTX@reddit
We did not. In hindsight, we should have.
I did have a guy come in and flag with me an "I swear it's unloaded" S&W SD40 that he yanked out of his waistband only to pull out a full magazine of .40 FMJ. The chamber being empty didn't make me feel that much better.
Hot-Win2571@reddit
Yeah... I am aware of the gun store etiquette that although concealed carry in a gun store may be acceptable, drawing any gun will get a reaction suitable for a robbery situation. So if you want the store to look at your carry gun, you put it in a case before you enter the store, and put the case on the counter.
WindstormMD@reddit
The gunsmith who taught me much about the daily realities of doing it as a business has one of the giant Costco jars that’s about half full, after 20 years of customer idiocy. He’s said he’ll go and shoot it all in guns he doesn’t care about as his retirement party
DannyMeatlegs@reddit
Like a lot of things, some folks learn all they know from the media.
SplashingChicken@reddit
Can't fix stupid, that simple.
MikeyG916@reddit
We have people that do stupid challenges they see online by the millions.
We have people that tried eating TidePods.
We have people that routinely approach WILD animals weighing up to a ton to take a picture.
What makes you think some of these people arent also gun owners?
patty_OFurniture306@reddit
How come some people are so ignorant? Ftfy.
jimmybabino@reddit (OP)
While I agree, I’m making the point about firearms because it baffles me that people fail to recognize that they’re deadly weapons that deserve to be respected as such
patty_OFurniture306@reddit
I know, but seriously the two have to be related. Honestly people are so polarized now I'd imagine they were never taught because the parent was totally against learning about things they didn't like or was incapable of teaching them because they didn't know. This is why I always argued for training for CCW and stuff like that.
I also think ppl in the community have a massive amount of dunning Kruger going on, they know or think they know one thing and it makes them an expert so since they think they know what they're doing then what they're doing is right. Vs actually followed by through and thinking through the rules and what is right and safe etc..
Dragonnuttz@reddit
The common denominator for the Human Race is Stupidity. All problems of mankind can be broken down to stupidity.
doober21@reddit
There are certain modern firearms where dry firing can cause damage like rimfires for example, or some hammer fired CZs. Older revolvers that have the firing pin on the hammer can be damaged by dry firing as well.
dae_giovanni@reddit
the world is a big place, and it is filled with all types of... uhh, people of lesser intelligence.
just think of the dumbest thing you've heard about in this regard, and know there are probably so many much-stupider things you haven't heard about...
Da1UHideFrom@reddit
I've heard stories of gun store employees getting new guns in from the factory and finding a live round in the chamber. I don't know how people get so comfortable being careless around firearms.
bikumz@reddit
You can see people do this young and old. Plenty of videos of very bad gun handling at the gun counter.
Dirty_Blue_Shirt@reddit
A combination of things go into this and some of them are the fault of the gun community.
1) some people just have no experience in the subject and never grew up around firearms. So their knowledge comes only from media. We ALL have gaps like this, you don’t know what you don’t know. So you aren’t even aware there is a gap there.
2) gate keeping; some people that want to know more are pushed away by people just being assholes to new guys. You know the kind that aggressively correct things like magazines/clips, suppressor/silencer, bullet/round, etc. there are ways to help people without making them just want out of the condescending conversation. Not to mention I have never met someone that goes out of their way to make a big deal about that kind of stuff that actually knows what they are talking about.
3) Just stupid. Think about how smart the average person is, then remember that half the people out there are dumber. Also remember that the majority of the people in that group don’t think they are in the bottom half.
4) Firearm safety just isn’t taught. If it was even a brief topic to young children a lot of this goes away. But you can’t be competent on a subject you don’t learn. I can talk at length about nuclear power, but if the topic is taxes an accountant will think I am an idiot. It’s easy to seem smart in your wheelhouse.
5) Unwillingness to accept information that counters things they have “known” for a long time. This isn’t uncommon and we all fall victim to this. The fact that people invest money in it makes it worse. The caliber debate is a good example; You can’t lay out medical journals and autopsy studies all day and most people will agree that there is little to no performance difference between 9 and 45 for defensive use (against people). But introduce 10mm into the conversation and the guys mocking 45AARP will suddenly take on the same arguments.