2A 2nd Amendment
ACE Alert, Cover, Evacuate [exec protection]
ACOG Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight
ACP Automatic Colt Pistol
AE Action Express
AF Alternative Force
AFAIK As Far As I Know
AIC Agent in Charge
AOP Assault on Principal [exec protection]
AOW Any Other Weapon (zip guns, other non-standard small-bore firearms)
AWB Assault Weapons Ban (part of the 1994 Crime Bill) [legislation]
BAR Browning Automatic Rifle
BC Ballistic Coeffecient
BF BoyFriend
BFF Best Friends Forever
BFO Blinding Flash of the Obvious
BG Bad Guy, or Big Grin
BHP Browning Hi-Power
BMG Browning Machine Gun
BOB Bug-Out Bag (or "Go Bag")
BOHICA Bend Over, Here It Comes Again
BP Black Powder
BPCR Black Powder Cartridge Rifle
BTT Back To Top
BTW By The Way
BUG Back-Up Gun (second or third gun carried in case the primary malfunctions)
CCW Concealed Carry Weapon (may refer to the license, or to the activity itself)
CHL Concealed Handgun License
CIAO This is not an acronym. It's Italian for "bye."
COD Cash On Delivery
COM Center Of Mass
CONUS CONtinental United States
CQB Close-Quarters Battle
CQC Close-Quarters Combat
CRISAT Cooperative Research Into Small Arms Technology
CRPA Certified Royal Pain in the A--
CUP Copper Units of Pressure; a method of measuring chamber pressure, most common with shotguns
DA Double Action
DAO Double Action Only
DARFC Duck And Run For Cover
DD Destructive Device (generally bombs and large-bore weapons)
DFTT Don't Feed The Troll
DOA Dead On Arrival [police]
DPS Department of Public Safety (most states have them)
DVC Diligentia Vis Celeritas (latin for Accuracy, Power, Speed)
EDC Every Day Carry
EDP Emotionally Disturbed Person [NYPD]
EIN Employer Identification Number
EO Executive Order
FFL Federal Firearms License or Licensee
FPS Feet Per Second
FTE Failure to Extract
FTF Face To Face (referring to non-FFL-mediated gun transfers)
FTF Failure to Feed
FTLOG For The Love Of God
FUBAR F---ed Up Beyond All Recognition
FWIW For What It's Worth
FYI For Your Information
GC gas check; a copper-zinc alloy cup used as gilding to protect the base of lead bullets from hot gas obduration during internal ballistics.
GD&R Grin, Duck, & Run
GF GirlFriend
GG Good Guy
GI Government Issue
GMT Greenwich Mean Time (timezone, equivalent to Zulu/UTC)
HAND Have A Nice Day
HD Home Defense
HDC Home Defense Carbine
HMG Heavy Machine Gun
HSP Highly Sensitive Person
HTH Hope That Helps
IANAL I Am Not A Lawyer
IDLE International Date Line East
IDLW International Date Line West
IINM If I'm Not Mistaken
IIRC If I Remember Correctly
IMHO In My Humble Opinion
IMNSHO In My Not So Humble Opinion
IMO In My Opinion
IRL In Real Life
IWB Inside WaistBand
JBT Jack Booted Thug
JMB John Moses Browning
JMO Just My Opinion
KISS Keep It Simple, Stupid
KYPD Keep Your Powder Dry
LDA Light Double Action
LE Law Enforcement
LEA Law Enforcement Agency
LEO Law Enforcement Officer/Official
LLEA Local Law Enforcement Agency
LMAO Laughing My A-- Off
LMG Light Machine Gun
LNIB Like New In Box, usually means the item looks new but has been lightly used (see also NIB)
LOL Laughing Out Loud
LOS Line Of Sight
MG Machine Gun
MIM Metal Injection Molding
MOA Minutes Of Angle (angular measurement, 1/60 of a °, 360° in a circle)
MOB Middle Of Back
MOS Military Occupational Specialty
MV Muzzle Velocity
NAP Non-Aggression Principle (and criticism)
NIB New In Box, usually means the item has not been used since bought, but can also mean LNIB.
NOYB None Of Your Business
OAL OverAll Length
OMG Oh My God
OODA (loop) Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (coined by USAF Col John Boyd)
OOTB Out Of The Box
ORM-D Other Regulated Materials - Domestic (seen on boxes of shipped ammo)
OT Off-Topic
OTOH On The Other Hand
OWB Outside the WaistBand
PASGT Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops
PBR Point Blank Range
PDW Personal Defense Weapon
PHB Pointy-Haired Boss (Dilbert reference, a boss without a clue)
PITA Pain In The A--
POA Point Of Aim
POI Point Of Impact
POI Person Of Interest
POS Piece Of S---
PSI Pounds per Square Inch
PT Physical Training
PTL&PTA Praise The Lord & Pass The Ammunition
REMF Rear Eschelon Mother F---er (derogatory name for a non-combatant in a combat zone or a military occupational specialty that would keep one from seeing combat)
RINO Republican In Name Only (a liberal in conservative clothing)
RKBA Right to Keep and Bear Arms
ROTFL Rolling On The Floor Laughing
ROTFLMAO Rolling On The Floor Laughing My A-- Off
SA Single Action
SAA Single Action Army (famous Colt revolver design that shows up in Westerns)
SAK Swiss Army Knife
SD Self Defense; Sectional Density (weight [lbs] to cross-section area [in^2])
SHTF S--- Hits The Fan
SKS Samozaryadnaya Karabina Simonova, or Self-loading carbine Simonov. Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov was one of the old Soviet Union's foremost arms designers. The rifle was adopted by the USSR in 1945, and was made both there and in China.
SLR Self-Loading Rifle
SMG Sub-Machine Gun
SNAFU Situation Normal: All F---ed Up
SO Significant Other (boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife)
SOB Small Of Back (6 o'clock carry)
SOP Standard Operating Procedure
SOT Special Occupational Tax license (administered by the BATFE)
SWAT Special Weapons And Tactics
SxS Side by Side (i.e. a shotgun)
TEOTWAWKI The End Of The World As We Know It
TIA Thanks In Advance
TID Tax ID number
TLA Three Letter Acronym
TPTB The Powers That Be
TTW Taunting The Wookie (someone known to rip arms out of sockets when inflamed)
TU Tits Up (military origin, meaning f---ed; often spelled phonetically as "Tango Uniform")
URL Uniform Resource Locator
UTC Universal Time Coordinate (timezone, equivalent to Zulu/GMT)
VCA Violent Criminal Assailant
*** What The F---?
WTSHTF When The S--- Hits The Fan
WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get
YMMV Your Mileage May Vary
Bullet Design
AP Armor Piercing
API Armor Piercing, Incendiary
APT Armor Piercing, Tracer
BBWC Bevel Base WadCutter
BT BoatTail
FMJ Full Metal Jacket
FP Flat Point
HP Hollow Point
J Jacketed
JFP Jacketed Flat Point
JHC Jacketed Hollow Cavity
JHP Jacketed Hollow Point
L Lead
LRN Lead Round Nose
LSWC Lead Semi-WadCutter
LWC Lead WadCutter
RN Round Nose
SJ Semi-Jacketed
SJHP Semi-Jacketed Hollow Point
SP Soft Point
SWC Semi-WadCutter
TC Truncated Cone
TMJ Total Metal Jacket
WC WadCutter
