Definition of an "arsenal:"

Gotta love it when all the news stations start talking about how someone has an "arsenal" in their house.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/breaking/bal-crofton-suspect-planned-mass-shooting-akin-to-aurora-police-say-20120727,0,3719190.story

Now, I'm not saying this guy wasn't going to go through with it, but simply arguing the hyperbole that the news media loves to pile on top of stories like these. Look at the picture in the link. Looks like a lot of weapons yeah?

Now, 400 rounds of ammo is 8 boxes of 50rounds, seeing as how he has multiple calibers up there, including a .22lr or two, I'm guessing he didn't have 400 rounds around that he was going to go shoot a place up with. probably a box per caliber he owned, or just a bit more.

Next, if you look at the photo below, you'll notice that the PG County PD (who are notoriously corrupt themselves) conveniently cropped the photo so you couldn't tell at first glance that all the "assault rifles" on the right hand side of the table are actually upper receivers with no lower, meaning no trigger group, meaning they aren't guns. They're just tops to guns. The BATFE doesn't even consider them guns and doesn't require them to have a serial number.



Finally, if you add up all the guns he actually DOES have, it comes out to 17. 10 of which are pistols of varying caliber and style, 1 dedicated .22lr AR, 1 .223 AR, 1 AK platform, 2 shotguns, and 2 Mosins. Hardly an "arsenal" by any standards.

I really wish that journalism and communications classes were required to shoot firearms and learn about them as part of their curriculum.


Seems like someone who collected and target shot who wound up being stupid and making threats,

So then, at what point is a gun collection an arsenal? The dictionary definition is merely a collection of weapons and/or military equipment.

Agent hits it on the head. Most of those firearms perform differently, and could be used for different things.

IMHO an arsenal becomes an arsenal when you have multiple instances of the same weapon, and I'm talking more than 2. 2 is one is a backup.

The AP Stylebook has a subsection for weapons, as well. "Arsenal" isn't included, most likely because it simply isn't needed. 

agentwhale007 wrote: tallen702 wrote: Also, Whale, what's your take on the "cropping to make it look like more" move. What about it?

You're looking at a photo which looks intentionally cropped (no camera I've ever seen takes photos in that aspect ratio) to make it look like more guns than there really are. Bad journalism or good journalism. What's your call?

tallen702 wrote: Next, if you look at the photo below, you'll notice that the PG County PD (who are notoriously corrupt themselves)

/sheepishly hides application packet.

Its just that the pic is framed to look full of evil when most of the ARs are just parts. Lazy reporting springs to mind. Get own pics.