I have a disdain for the terms “assault weapon” and “high-capacity magazine” as there are no such terminology in the firearms vernacular. These terms were invented by the gun grabbers to demonize our culture. Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center went so far as to put his devious intent into writing: “The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.” – Josh Sugarmann, 1988 Assault Weapons and Accessories in America. In other words . . .
Sugarmann stated that since the public doesn’t understand these firearms and is scared by their looks, it will be easy to fool them into supporting a ban against them. He was correct. They are and it did. Helped, in no small part by renaming them “assault weapons” which on its own easily scare the sheepdom.
Unfortunately, these terms have now become standard fare within conversations of gun owners. It can only hurt our cause to continue to accept and use these terms. Much better would be the use of sporting rifle, personal defense rifle or homeland defense rifle. When discussing the ban I most often refer to them as “so-called assault weapons.”
Our magazines should be called what they are; magazines. More descriptive would be standard magazine, full-capacity magazines or standard capacity magazines. Restricted-capacity magazines can be also be called neutered magazines or reduced-capacity magazines. The term high-capacity should be left to magazines that are higher capacity than what the firearm was designed for such as 30-round pistol magazines or 100-round magazines/drums for rifles.
Period.