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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2809 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 29, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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My Californian cousins came to visit a few years ago and expressed nervousness about driving down a gravel road with ammunition. My first thought was "These fucking people think they're qualified to have an opinion about who should own guns?"

Please believe me when I say I'm not trying to be rude, but even without understanding the mechanisms deeply of how guns or cartridges work, start with "Common Sense". If cartridges fired when dropped on a table (or transported in a truck), could war be possible in any meaningful sense?

You can set a round off with a nail and a hammer, but cartridges are designed to require significant, focused force. In fact, the most common failure I see in firearms (by like an order of magnitude or two) is what's called a light primer strike, when the firing pin does not hit the primer with enough force to trigger an ignition.

If you'll forgive one more point of pedantic education: The bullet is the projectile itself. The Cartridge is a combination of the (generally brass) case, primer, propellant, and bullet together, which is what you load into a weapon. So slamming a bullet into a table would also do nothing, since it's just a lump of lead/copper/whatever.

In any case I mean this seriously: Thank you for learning about guns. I think they're fascinating. Are you doing so just for the heck of it, or as required for something else?

If you'll forgive one more point of pedantic education: The bullet is the projectile itself. The Cartridge is a combination of the (generally brass) case, primer, propellant, and bullet together, which is what you load into a weapon. So slamming a bullet into a table would also do nothing, since it's just a lump of lead/copper/whatever.

Yeah I was just being sloppy there, I know bullet is the projectile but I should have said "A bullet fires by the cartridge being struck by ...."

start with "Common Sense". If cartridges fired when dropped on a table (or transported in a truck), could war be possible in any meaningful sense?

I figured it would be like a freak accident thing where everything would have to line up correctly, not that it would be reliable at all. I could easily see say a Truck dropping the cargo causing a few misfires on the road and then cleaning up afterward.

So no common sense did not stop me from concluding that such a thing might be possible in a freak accident.

In any case I mean this seriously: Thank you for learning about guns. I think they're fascinating. Are you doing so just for the heck of it, or as required for something else?

I was writing Fanfiction and wanted to make sure my knowledge of guns wasn't so bad that people would laugh at me.

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