Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
bill nelson writes:
"Saturday Night Special" was a term dreamed up by the anti-gunners. Such weapons have not existed for many years.
Scot Thorstad writes:
You should be ashamed Bill, You usually do excellent research. The 1984 (latest edition) of the Random House dictionary defines Saturday Night Special as "a cheap, small caliber handgun that is easily obtainable" of which there are many around.
Andy Freeman said:
The Random House Dictionary is wrong on this one. They often lack the technical knowledge to "define" terms and go with something that sounds good, but is wrong or basically meaningless.
Now here's an interesting argument. If Andy had claimed that the Earth was flat and standard references on the subject and most other people were wrong, it is conceivable, if unlikely, that he could be correct. However, when he tells us that the dictionary and everyone else is wrong about the meaning of the term "Saturday Night Special" he cannot possibly be correct. Usage defines meaning.
[Claims that last century "Saturday Night Special" referred to weapons owned by "niggers" to defend against racists]
Even if this is true, it only tells us something about what the term meant 100 years ago. Can you provide a current citation using the former meaning?
The usage and meaning of the term "saturday night special" hasn't changed.
Can you provide a current citation using the former meaning?
After all, it's still true that there's nothing that scares white amerika more than a nigger with a gun.
Can you provide a current citation using the former meaning?
Random House's definition doesn't make any sense anyway.
Now Andy makes a new claim -- not only is Random House wrong, but their definition is nonsense, something like a "square circle". I can't wait to see how he backs this up...
Why would a rational control policy encourage crooks to substitute high quality guns for low-quality ones?
Oh, I see, he doesn't. Andy, this is irrelevant. Tell us what it is about the Random House definition that "doesn't make sense". Is it that small calibre handguns cannot be cheap? Or that they are not readily available anywhere? Or what?
