This comment, found here: http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=363817 and all the other comments about the use of the word arsenal in that thread made me scratch my head in wonder. I was pretty surprised that a comment like this one was not the first one after the initial post, but as I was reading the thread starter, I knew for sure that one or more like it were surely coming. It always seems to come up whenever anyone calls a cache or collection of weapons and arsenal. Nothing personal in my using that one, it was the firs tone in the thread, and the thought struck me to write a thread on the subject so I quoted it here.
The fact of the matter is that use of the word arsenal, in the case of 28 firearms could be quite accurate. For example, if small military unit consisting of 14 people, had a storage room in which they stored 28 firearms (all long guns) would that not be an arsenal? Throughout history such a collection of firearms for a small military outpost has often been referred to as an arsenal - were the people who called that an arsenal wrong? Similarly, if a group of survivalists had a room in which they stored 28 firearms, half of them long guns, and half handguns, would that not properly be called an arsenal? I think it would be correct to use that term to describe that room. Add to the mix ammunition, firearms cleaning supplies, tools for repairing firearms, knives, and so forth and it seems even more clear such would be a correct use of the word. If guns were also manufactured there it would be a cinch. Still though, an arsenal can simply mean a collection of weapons.
So I wonder, when an individual is arrested, by police albeit it in a restrictive state like NJ, and the media uses the term arsenal to describe the same thing - except that it was in possession of an individual - why is it that the term suddenly becomes incorrect? I believe it becomes incorrect only in as much as gun owners, and gun right advocates see this word as a negative term and believe it is being used against us and our RKBA by the anti-gun lobby. Even if that is the case, that those who advocate for gun control are trying to make it sound like some evil collection of weapons, the fact of the matter is that the definition of the word arsenal, and its historical use, both support the fact that 28 firearms, even fewer, can indeed be an arsenal of weapons. Although it can be one, an arsenal does not have to be a manufacturing plant for weapons, it can be a mere storage building or room in which a number of firearms are stored, or can be a mere collection of firearms. If a collection it can be large, medium sized or relatively small - two weapons, though a stretch, could possibly qualify as an arsenal, though a small one indeed.
Here is one definition of the word, this from Meriam-Webster:
Here is another definition from Encarta:
I think that when we become so defensive at the use of a term like the word arsenal, we are missing the forest for the trees. Why not just agree and say, wow that indeed was a small arsenal of weapons. So what - there is nothing wrong with owning an arsenal. In fact an arsenal of firearms whether a collection, a storage room of firearms with repair shop, or an out an out manufacturing plants, with repair shop and storage facilities for firearms all seem perfectly legitimate to me - so why get defensive about the word that describes those things. Many of us, quite defensively, deny time after time that an arsenal is just what it is when it comes to a collection of weapons. Instead of becoming defensive, and playing into the hands of the anti-gunners, start using the word regularly to describe your firearms collection. Make people, who are gun owners, and non-gun owners alike, aware of the fact that there is nothing bad about legally owned arsenal, and that the word itself is properly used to describe a legitimate collection of firearms as well as a manufacturing plant for firearms; therefore the public should not misuse construe the word as something negative. If however, we as firearms enthusiasts continue to misconstrue that same word, then we basically agree with the anti's incorrect portrayal of an arsenal as indeed a bad thing; and in that way we help the antis win their battle against because we too are giving indication that it must be something bad. That is pretty self defeating, so why give the antis any ammunition with which to shoot down our rights, why not educate folks instead that an arsenal is something of which to be proud in your role as a free citizen who exercises his/her rights in both keeping and bearing firearms, and maybe even storing them in an arsenal?
All the best,
Glenn B
