Most annoying Gun Myths

[Phil DeGraves]

But it is not illegal to buy from a citizen in a private sale. Therefore no 4473, no "registration" and it's not illegal.

 

[tenbase]

Where sales from licensed dealers are concerned, this is not a myth at all

I suppose one could make that argument, but a 4473 is not proof of ownership, and a drivers license isn't really a permit.

 

[bowfin]

Playboy Penguin,

If someone else is not footing your ammunition bill for you, (i.e., Uncle Sam, the Police Department, the club, or the team) then the .22 long rifle is indeed the most logical cartridge to start your shooting career in either handgun or rifle, especially if it is a group of people. The .22 long rifle is found lacking on the trap or skeet range though...

My most annoying myth:

"You don't need a <fill in the blank> magnum cannon for deer or antelope..."

How the heck do you know what I need!? We never hunted together. You've never seen where I hunt, or how I hunt, or the land, or the weather, or the circumstances. Half of the time, I don't know which gun and cartridge I needed until the critter shows itself, and sometimes it wasn't even a rifle I found myself "needing".

One should say "I, myself, haven't needed one yet, and I can't imagine the circumstances where you or I would need one." Then we can go from there.

We have an annoying personality at the rifle club who proclaims every time I see him that "all you need is a .32-20, it's the best deer cartridge ever invented." He has never put sights on a deer in his life, doesn't know anybody who has used or is using the .32-20 for deer, but somehow he figured all this out, and preaches it with the zeal of an Old Testament prophet.

 

[Gordon Fink]

I suppose one could make that argument, but a 4473 is not proof of ownership, and a drivers license isn’t really a permit.

A 4473 isn’t proof of ownership, but it and your dealer’s bound book are a form of registration, and a NICS query is a request for permission.

~G. Fink

 

[tenbase]

Granted, but I think you know what I meant ...my original post said "all guns", which includes the six gazillion guns not in the inventories of licensed dealers...and besides, once that piece leaves the store the 4473, bound book entry, and NICS check are pretty meaningless....

 

[Lonestar]

Here's one that really bothers me:

Law abiding citizens carrying guns will result in the "wild, wild west shoot-outs" in the street, over trivial arguments.

Florida has only revoked 157 CCW permits out of 1.1 million issued, so much for that statement

Someone I work with dropped this one after finding out that a relative got a permit to carry. "The only reason someone would want to carry a gun, is because deep inside, they want to kill someone." I had to bite my lip on that one.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

""The only reason someone would want to carry a gun, is
because deep inside, they want to kill someone.""

Remember, psychological accusations reveal more about the
psychology of the accuser than about the accused.

People who believe that are the ones who should not ever
be allowed to have a gun. Antigunners are so bloody minded.
Most folks I know who carry a gun, do so to be able to protect
themselves and, deep inside, would be happy to never have to
shoot to live.

 

[Gordon Fink]

[O]nce that piece leaves the store the 4473, bound book entry, and NICS check are pretty meaningless.…

You know that, I know that, and the prohibitionists know that, and yet we go round and round and round on the registration issue. The only myth, however, is that guns are not registered in the United States, when all new sales have been registered since at least 1969.

~G. Fink

 

[PJR]

My most annoying myth:

"You don't need a <fill in the blank> magnum cannon for deer or antelope..."

This is my most annoying FACT.

 

[MatthewVanitas]

I wonder if the AK suffers from the perception of soldiers that are fighting poorly trained individuals. I hear from soldiers back from Iraq how inaccurate the AK is, when actually it's just that the majority of the people they are up against don't know how to operate the thing properly and can't shoot worth a darn.

That might be part of it. Bear in mind that AKs in Iraq vary from brand new Bulgarians to Egyptians that were literally dug out of a riverbed. Ditto for ammo.

Tons of Iraqi cops/soldiers I worked with were enormously terrible shots, particularly the ones who insisted "I know what I'm doing and no Yankee is telling _me_ how to shoot a gun". We're talking literally missing-a-coke-can-at-six-feet-with-Glock bad.

I met Americans who would shoot AKs into the sand berms for fun, and one EOD sergeant could keep 15rd bursts on a silhouette at a _measured_ 100m. I was lucky to keep a burst of three on the berm. A few guys met Bedouins that could do trick shooting (hit a water bottle from hip with burst at 100m), but I didn't personally see.

Leads me to another myth: that the entire U.S. military wants to go .45/.308, based on their collective wealth of experience.

The only Marines I knew who wanted 1911s and M14s were already THR/ARF types, so they would have said the exact same thing even if they never left CONUS. Most troops are only dimly aware that there even _are_ other cartridges or platforms. You can get them excited by asking "do you want a gun that's twice as powerful as what you have?", but that doesn't mean that they know diddly about actual ballistics.

I'm not a Snake Eater, but nor am I a pure Chairborne Ranger. My only notable ballistic personal experience: 155mm provides satisfactory stopping power with tolerable recoil, though concealment does require extra effort.

-MV

 

[tenbase]

In an effort to clarify, allow me to reword my original post:

The assumption amongst many of the non-shooters I've encountered over the years that all guns are registered in ones name with the local PD or some other 'authority', and/or you have to have some sort of gun-owning license/permit approved and issued by said authority (not counting the two forms of ID required to complete a sale at a licensed dealer, assuming the gun was not purchased from an intrastate private party) in order to buy/have/carry/look at/think about them. I realize this is true to varying degree in some of the more enlightened, nuanced urban enclaves within the US, but thankfully Virginia is not one of them for the most part, although we cannot carry concealed firearms without a permit issued by Our Most Benevolent Overlords, and some jurisdictions use every means at their disposal to make getting a CHL a pain in the rear. Oh, and there's that silly restaurant ban, which makes it illegal to carry concealed in any restaurant that serves alcohol (one has to open carry in those establishments). But I digress.

Better?

 

[Gordon Fink]

Never mind. :banghead:

~G. Fink

 

[Anna's Dad]

Not so much a myth as an annoyance...

...but I just saw a TV show last week where the slide was racked on an auto-loader with one hand. Now that's some impressive wrist action.

 

[CypherNinja]

How did they portray that?

 

[Starter52]

Here's another myth:

If you saw back the barrel of a 12 ga, a birdshot load will spread out "wide enough to cover a wall" at 25 feet.

I heard a "firearms instructor" say this to a class back in the 1970's.

 

[swacje41]

I was never trained on a .22 handgun in neither the army nor the police academy.

Limited personal experience is a poor thing to use when discussing broad topics. Whether you were trained in that manner or not is somewhat irrelevant. Many recruits began their training in that manner. It is an old technique, pretty much done away with after WWII, but prior to that quite common. In fact, .22 military trainer rifles are a very interesting segment of the gun collecting world. FWIW (as mentioned above, individual experiences are of limited value in a discussion such as this) a close friend of mine had his initial marksmanship training for the military in the early 1970's with a .22 at a National Guard unit, and until the move to autoladers the local PD kept a number of .22 K-frames at the range for remedial training purposes.

 

[swacje41]

Not so much a myth with most of us, but an earlier post reminded me of an experience training native militia troops in Africa. When we took them to the range, the first thing they did when they went to the line was fix bayonets. When I asked why the local militia head seemed astonished thta an experienced troop such as myself did no know that puttting the bayonet on made the rifle longer, thus it would shoot with more accuracy!

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

swacje41,

We are not saying that it is not done, nor that it is not benefical for some people. We were arguing against it being a necessary step. The point being, not everyone needs to start out on a .22 if they can handle bigger arms. We are also saying that people that learn with something else first (like myself) can become just as good as those that started with a .22 caliber firearm. But there are always a few people that go ballistic if you start someone out on anything else.

PS: I would argue that topics of which you have personal experience are the ones you really have the most right arguing anyway. I can read a million times that a certain weapon never jams, but if I hear people that own one relaying how it jams on them I will be inclined to believe the ones who have actually experienced it.

 

[guninhand]

gun myths

For me the most annoying, and common, are in movies and TV where the good guy picks up a gun to chase after or engage the bad guy....and never even checks to see if it's loaded, on safe or whatever, never looks for exta mags (or clips, if you will) or ammo. Getting hold of the gun is the big turning point, and not a sliver of thought given to ammo.

Secondary to that are guns that never run out of ammo.

Third, the guns that are racked, shucked, or cocked to as tesnion builds, then are racked, shucked, or cocked again as tension reaches the breaking point. Never mind that the chambers should have been loaded at the start.

Makes me wonder if the directors are that stupid or they think the viewers are that stupid.

 

[Phil DeGraves]

Some of both, I'm afraid.

 

[DRMMR02]

The slide-racking really does get on my nerves. Especially when you have already seen the weapon fired and no round is ejected.

 

[Steven1281]

...that anyone who wears (or even owns) a shoulder holster is an FBI Secret Agent/John Dilinger/Gangster wannabe. God forbid someone wear one because that mode of carry fits their individual clothing style, build, and level of activity in life.

 

[progunner1957]

I love the "2nd Amendment is for the National Guard" lie

that the 2nd amendment is for the national guard and not for the rights of the individual.

Ah yes, one of the favorite lies of the antigun bigots.

Here are the facts:
The Constitution and Bill of Rights were ratified in 1787.
The National Guard did not exsist until 1917 - 130 years later.

So when The Founders wrote the Second Amendment, they were referring to an institution that did not exsist and of which they had no knowledge, right?

Well of course...

NEWSFLASH: Sylvia Brown was not one of The Founders...

 

[progunner1957]

Another load of antigun bigot crap

Another favorite of mine: "Handguns are too inaccurate to use safely for self defense" (parotted to me by one of my wife's Democrat/liberal/socialist girlfriends from college).

My reply: "Then why do they let the police carry handguns if they are so inaccurate and dangerous to innocent bystanders?"

I also offered to take her to the range so she could watch me shoot a one hole group at 50 feet with my 1911 (of course she didn't go)...

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

I think the antis argue that the 2A was for a well organized militia and that the National guard replaced that need therefore the need for the 2A was negated.

I try not to base my arguments on the 2A..too many different interpretations and no way to really prove one or the other so it just goes in a circle and becomes frustrating.