Les Jones

No, Les, this tells us that the criminals have access to some heavy artillery and are probably a little different than your average grocery-store punks. Please don't always jump on every mention of "assault weapons" as a negative attack on gun lovers - it's just passing on information to the public about some dangerous men.

You say that it's heavy artillery. How do you know that?

The story says that it's an assault weapon, but that term doesn't have any specific meaning. Could the gun have been an AR-15, SKS, or some other semi-automatic rifle? In other words, is it a fully automatic weapon or is it just a scary-looking, military-derived weapon? The article wasn't clear enough to even answer that question.

It doesn't matter - to me, anything bigger than a handgun is heavy artillery, and anything more potentially dangerous than a handgun is something the public needs to be aware of.

to me, anything bigger than a handgun is heavy artillery

Oh my! So, the fact that handguns and rifles can have the same mag capacity is of no consequence? Or that the 45acp round (common in handguns) has more stopping power than the 5.56MM (common in rifles)?

C'mon, Barry. The public needs to know about a .30-30 deer rifle - that's news?

You and I need to go shooting some time. Ammo's on me.

Not a freakin chance. No offense.

That radiation might seep out at the range and we're all in trouble.

No offense taken. But really, it could be an eye-opener for you. Lots of people - my wife included - didn't like guns until they went shooting the first time. C'mon, I've got free passes to the indoor range at Guncraft.

SU, I'm going to personally get my hands on a pound of that Nigerian yellowcake and irradiate your rosebushes, just for spite ;)

Les, I really appreciate the offer. Maybe someday I'll take you up on it - we'll see.

All kidding aside barry, you really should go. If nothing else, you will learn how to make a gun safe (i.e., unload it, and clear it) in the event that you stumble upon one where children can get to it.

Wait, Les. The report said "assault rifle," not "assault weapon." An "assault weapon" could be anything, even a 9mm pistol.

But an assault rifle is more specific. That means, by definition, it has selective-fire capability, so they could be firing 3-round bursts or even full-auto.

However, Barry, since it's an assault rifle, that means, by definition, that it fires an intermediate cartridge, which is less powerful than a regular rifle. So there's no way it could be "heavy artillery."

Thib: assault rifle vs. assault weapon is a pretty thin difference in terminology to hang a distinction on, and guarantees confusion. And I'm not convinced that the TV station would be aware of or recognize the distinction any more than they would correctly use the terms hacker vs. cracker.

Maybe so, BUT...I am stickler for terminology. This really isn't that hard to get right: assault rifle is a real military firearm. Assault weapon is a made-up word, used to create FUD in the public arena. WE MUST NOT LET THESE PEOPLE GET A PASS ON THIS. We must hammer the truth as hard as, if not harder than, the VPC hammers their lies.

Otherwise, the lies have it.

Hey! I wrote that headline. And that's what the cops told me it was. It was their terminology.

And yes, the fact that that type of gun was used is noteworthy.

-- Katie (if you want to accuse me of being anti-gu, I strongly suggest you first read my blog)

anti-gun, that is ;-)

My apologies. I didn't mean to imply that EVERYBODY who mis-uses phrase like "assault weapon" or "assault rifle" is anti-gun. As Les pointed out, a lot of people don't get the difference.

But I'm the kind of anal-retentive guy who cringes whenever people use "clip" instead of "magazine." Also, I think a big reason the anti-gun folks get their way so often is they DELIBERATELY try to confuse people by doing things like the verbal sleight-of-hand of "assault weapon = assault rifle = machine gun."

The only cure is education, so I'd like to see people who do know better protest this kind of stuff at every turn. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some windmills to go joust with. :)

But I should say I realize you have to go with what the police give you, so I definitely wasn't criticizing you. Just venting my exasperation with the world as it is.

Back to the windmills!

Hi, Katie. When I got your email about working for WBIR I went back and checked the byline, and I was kind of relieved it wasn't you. Now I find out you wrote the headline. D'oh! Can't blame you if the police used the same terminology.

I really hate the terms assualt weapon and assault rifle because they've become political terms, like Saturday night special or sniper rifle, that have no real meaning.

The SUV terminology is the same way. If a person driving a Ford Expedition hits a pedestrian, the headline is "SUV Hits Knoxville Man," as if the Expedition was posessed. If a person driving a Toyota Prius hits a pedestrian, you can bet that the headline won't be "Energy-efficient Hybrid Vehicle Hits Knoxville Man." Why not? Well, because the SUV has bad PR and putting "SUV" in a headline sells papers. But that doesn't change the facts.

Thib: the assault rifle/assault weapon distinction is too subtle.

Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who invented the WWW, wanted to differentiate between outward-facing Web sites and internal Web sites. Someone suggested calling the first Internets and the second internets (lowercase).

Berners-Lee knew that would be too confusing. After all, if someone wrote "internet" you couldn't tell if they were aware of the distinction, or had just committed a typo. He invented the term intranet to make the distinction clear.

I think gun owners would be better off teaching people the difference between fully automatic and semi-automatic guns. That has a much longer pedigree, and is based on a hard and fast distinction. It also gets rid of the perjorative "assault" language.

Sounds good to me.