In this post, I will endeavor to go where… well… everyone has gone before; however, it does seem to be necessary, and it will make a nice addition to my collection.
In terms of firearms, this is a clip:
Specifically, it is a stripper clip, also known as a “charger”. Note how the majority of the individual rounds is not covered, but only the rim of the cartridge is contained. Note the lack of springs, boxes, drums, or tubes. This exact model differs from a true clip in that it is not designed to be inserted fully into a firearm, but rather it is used to fill – or charge – the internal magazine of a rifle. En bloc clips (as those true clips are sometimes known) are fully inserted into a firearm – specifically into its integral magazine – and ejected when empty, but the firearm in question cannot properly operate without the clip.
Speaking of, this is a magazine:
Note the fully-contained box design. Note that were I to disassemble it, it would have both a very strong spring and a “follower” (a metal plate designed to push the ammunition by way of the force from the spring). And note that magazines can come in both detachable and integral forms, as well as tube, box, drum, pan, rotary, and helical designs, and that some are designed to accept stripper or en bloc clips. In short, this is a container, designed to hold ammunition and feed it into a firearm.
And that is the primary difference – regardless of “stripper” or “en bloc”, or “integral” or “detachable”, clips are designed to fill magazines, while magazines are designed to feed firearms.
Generally, the overwhelmingly vast majority of semi-automatic handguns use detachable magazines (with one historically-notable exception being the Mauser C96), with most of those magazines’ normal, from-the-factory capacities ranging from 7 to 15 rounds (there are exceptions at both ends). It is important to note that many (most?) semi-automatic handguns being produced today are specifically designed to be used with magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds, which rather calls into doubt the accuracy of referring to 10+ round magazines as “high capacity”. Likewise, most modern, semi-automatic rifles employ detachable magazines of capacities from five to two hundred, while most bolt-action rifles use integral magazines of ten rounds or less, if they have one at all.
So all that said and explained, it would appear as though the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence Ownership wants to ban “assault clips” – or clips with capacities greater than ten rounds (despite their obsessive fixation on “32 rounds”, 10 seems to be the arbitrary, magic number for them). Fine. But let me ask them this: has there ever been a clip designed to hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition? Unless you count the Cammenga Easyloader as a “charger” (and there is a valid argument there), I cannot think of a single one. Something tells me that banning “assault clips” will not get the Bradyites exactly what they want…
As usual, the Brady Campaign does not have a single clue what it is talking about.
In reality, the Brady Bunch is asking its devoted league of hoplophobes to ask their congresscritters to ban all magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds (again, despite harping on 32-round magazines, their goals include anything larger than 10), despite magazine size, or even the existence of magazines at all, having effectively no bearing on the lethality of a murderer. Why are the anti-rights cultists so eagerly supporting legislation that did not “work” before and will not “work” now?
And, really, how much damage are you going to inflict assaulting someone with a clip? Even fully-loaded, a 10-round clip is not going to be that dangerous unless you can get it up to some positively absurd speeds… drive-by-clippings, I suppose? I guess the Bradyites could be talking about this kind of clip, though, in which case I fully support their cause! That damned thing never should have existed to begin with…
(This all does not even begin to touch on the flagrant Rule and safety violations exhibited by the shooter in the Brady Campaign commercial. He racked the Glock with his finger on the trigger. He pointed the firearm in an arguably unsafe direction while racking it with his finger on the trigger. There was a camera downrage while he was shooting his string (though it could have been unmanned and expendable). He placed his finger on the trigger before the firearm was on-target, and while it was pointing in another arguably unsafe direction. He placed both index fingers on the trigger to start with, and then just one. He crossed his left thumb across the backstrap of the Glock (good way to get some interesting scars, that). These halfwitted hoplophobes cannot get it right even when they are trying…)
Silly Linoge. Haven’t you ever been on a military ship and seen the ships “clip”? I mean most of them have them. You know, where they store the shells and ammunition!
@ Groundhog:
So, that’s how the “Yankee Clipper” got its name!
Meanwhile, these clips could certainly be considered “assault clips,” and I’m glad they’re not allowed.
BTW, whatever happened to “Big Bullet-Blasting Boxes” as the preferred Brady term for magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds? Did they have too many spokesbeings stumble over the alliteration? Did the focus groups tend to giggle when they heard the phrase (or, better yet, did focus group participants ask where they could get some “Big Bullet-Blasting Boxes”)?
@ Groundhog: Crap! I should get in touch with my previous ships and let them know they have those stupid boxes mislabeled!
@ AuricTech: Yeah, that is a singularly good way to give someone some impressive back injuries for the rest of their life…
And, honestly, I have a hard time believing anyone took that idiotic phrase seriously, but the Brady Bunch fielded it, so obviously someone did. Something tells me that too many people uproariously laughed them out of whatever talk they were giving where they tried to use it, though, and that was the end of that.
[...] on full houseLinoge on the failure of gun control, againLinoge on oh, the horrorLinoge on assault clips, or how to misappropriate the languagewfgodbold on oh, the horrorfreddyboomboom on full housewfgodbold on the failure of gun control, [...]
http://www.weerdworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/moz-screenshot-5.png
ASSAULT CLIP!!!111!
(OK maybe there might have been some photoshop involved thanks to Robb Allen)
This is the simplest and most correct answer to this question in my opinion, A “magazine” has a spring, a “clip” doesn’t. That’s it. A clip can be metal, plastic, a hair clip or a mechanical e-clip or what have you. They don’t have a spring. A magazine can have few or many parts but without a spring, it’s just an ammo can.
@ Weer’d Beard: Careful, there, someone might think that is real
.
@ Zeus: Well, that is technically true for firearm-related clips, but in general, I would argue that paper and aligator clips are, themselves, springs.
Bit difficult to define the distinction, I will grant, but there definitely is one, and attempting to conflate the two is just ignorant.
There is a physical limitation on the size of a clip–the longer it is the more pressure is required to load the magazine due to highter friction, and the more clumsy loading by hand gets–hence the Cammenga loading tool.
Fascinating workaround to that is the Sweedish Gustav M/45 SMG, which has a 36 round clip. Instead of a long clumsy strip, the clip is six parallel strips of six rounds. It still needs a loading tool to drive each row of 9×19 into the magazine.
Huh. Now that is a twist on the normal concept of a “clip”, but it would certainly work, and definitely for an SMG.
So there we go – one actual clip that would be banned by the anti-rights nuts. Talk about getting worked up over a lot of nothing!
Banning anything that is in common use by hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions ?) of law abiding citizens, that have not caused harm with to anyone else, but that has been used by a few criminals to cause harm, will have one and only one effect: It will manufacture new criminals where there were none before.
Anyone willing to commit a serious crime will certainly not be deterred because he would be in possession of a banned item. The ban would be totally ignored and of no consequence to any criminal; hence would do absolutely nothing to deter crime.
However, there will be many otherwise good and law-abiding citizens who will be turned into criminals because of lack of knowledge or circumstance, further clogging our courts and prisons, and in general deteriorating respect for our system of laws.
This is why we have fortunately, declined to ban such things as kitchen knives and baseball bats which are very commonly used in serious crimes. And cars which are responsible for 50,000 deaths each year (about the number killed during the entire Vietnam War); not to mention the serious permanent loss of limb and function that cars cause each year.
Not to be a downer, I dare say you hit on the entire problem with “gun control” – the legislation in place, and being proposed, will not stop someone who is already dead-set on breaking the law by violently attacking another person, invading another person’s home, etc. Fortunately or unfortunately, though, various anti-rights cultists, including Joan Peterson and Mike Bonomo, have freely admitted that they have no intentions of restricting the actions of criminals through their desired laws, but rather want to make the lives of the law-abiding miserable.
Obviously, as you say, that will create more criminals, as pepole decide that they have had enough.
Of course, Ayn Rand coincidentally had something to say about that…