Talk:Small arms

Positive small arms effects
It must be noted that non military small arms like pistols, revolvers, rifles and shootguns in private hands provide a deterent to radical government movements if freely available in a stable society. They reduce the risk of genocide and mass murder in such environments. They are the source of many hunting and shooting competitions."

Hi there - I took this out for the moment - can you back this up with any evidence, or opinion from someone knowledgable? I'll grant that they are essential for hunting and shooting competitions, but the other statement sounds questionable. Thanks, Mark Richards 22:49, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi there.

I don't want to get into an argument with you, but ever heard of the genocide of the Jews, Armenians, Cambodians, elimination of political dissidents in China, Soviet union, ever watch the news on Africa ? If you count the victims, more the 50 million people have been exterminated by their governments during the 20th century alone. That is equivalent to the victims of the 2nd world war. In each of these case, the genocide was preceded by gun confiscation. So yes, civilian small arms are a deterent against extreme dictatures, at least until these get confiscated.

Can you provide facts on the 500'000 victims the UN claims ? In know that you can't cause the UN itself can't. I guess the best is to try to be neutral and to list the UN figures and those by gun owners groups.

Let me guess Mr Richards... you're British ? If you don't mind, me like most Swiss have a different opinion on this subject.

Hi there - not sure who you are, so please sign your post ;) Yes, I've heard of genocide, but it's not clear to me that there is a direct causal link between low rates of gun ownership and genocide. I'm open to this if there is evidence, but it seems like speculation to me. Can you provide a reference for the 'international gun owner's group study'? In general, this page is not about gun politics in stable states - I'd really like to keep that on gun politics etc, it's about proliferation of generally illegal military grade weaponry in unstable areas. Thanks, Mark Richards 19:25, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The page small arms has to be about small arms. If you want you can either write sections about small arm proliferation or start a new article on small arms prolferation. This top level article has to describe them, their use, their availablity and legality, their history, etc. Rmhermen 19:36, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

Hi there - thanks - there are plenty of articles on that, gun, gun politics etc. The term small arms is used almost exclusively in the context of illegal weapons traded internationally, not domestic, legal gun ownership. If you like we can change the name of the article. Mark Richards 20:08, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

PS - did you really want to put back the comment on hunting and shooting competions? It doesn't seem relevant, and seems to trivialise the issue. Mark Richards 20:10, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have to agree with Rmhermen, we should only define small arms in this top layer and put all the argumentation on prolifertation like the UN study, etc. in a lower layer on proliferation and control issues. As to their legality, that would also be a political question, not one concerning their description.

The main problem here is that the UN has included sporting and hunting arms into small arms, which rather defines "military type portable weapons". So we should come up with a fair and correct description and definition, not one that the UN proposes to enforce.

The genocides I mention were all preceded by gun confiscation, the evidence is overwhelming, if the million of corpses are no hard evidece to someone, I have doubts that such a person values human life very much. I doubt that Mr. Richards holds the view that it is OK to mass murder people, I believe he has not fully thought out the question. I will add links to other studies, no worry, I wanted to complete some GLOCK pages first.

I guess the best approach here is a compromise where all views are fairly represented, this way readers can form their own opinions.

Let me appoligize for not being registered yet, I shall do that these days.

I have moved the small arms proliferation issues into an own page, removed some of my stuff, added the view of gun owners associations and some links. I believe that this form would be closer to a fair representation. Please leave the links, thx. The other links on proliferation control are also national and not internationnal. It is only fair to give links to both sides. Please stop basing your comments on the UN study, they have never substantiated a single of their numbers, which is the reason why the US Gov. has vetoed UN actions on this subject.

This is ridiculous. You have created a sub-stub in order to bring domestic gun politics debates (which are perfectly well covered elsewhere) into an issue which is unrelated. On a practical note - please reference which 'international gun owner's associations' make these claims. Your comments on genocide border of the offensive, and provide no evidence that a high availability of military grade weaponry provides safety from masacres or genocide. Mark Richards 22:21, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Richards, there is no question about the fact that even gun owner associations favor strong export controls on assault rifles and other military small arms. But the issue of small arms is now indeed related to gun onwership because of the UN agenda which wishes to put all small arms under the same regime and wants to force nations where private gun ownership is widespread to confiscate these. If the UN would not push this position, there would already be better controls for military small arms. No where did anyone say that military grade small arms reduce the risk of genocide, what gun owners associations are saying is that civilian small arms reduce such a risk. I am surprised that you are offensed by the fact that many of the worlds big genocides were preceded by gun confiscation. But it is a fact. Time shall tell how long it will take before the genocide phenomenon will take before it comes back to some western nations that have taken the first steps to make genocides possible. Regards Meswiss.

Dear Meswiss, Please reference which 'gun owner associations'. You may be right, but without any reference to studies, this is your conjecture and speculation, not suitable content for an encyclopedia. Yours, Mark Richards 08:45, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Accuracy of the article
At the moment it starts with "The term small arms describes any weapon that a person can easily transport and fire..."

Shouldn't it be singular? "The term small arm describes any weapon ...", or is it always plural like trousers? Does it really cover any weapon [that is portable] - e.g. is a knife, or a javelin, a small-arm (or should it be a small arms?)? Or is it just guns and bombs?

Jll 09:40, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Technically "small arms" are any guns below .60 caliber. 220.235.166.177 14:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * My bad, turns out it's 20mm or .78 caliber. 220.235.166.177 15:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Current picture
The current picture seems a bit out of place. The RPGs in it seem to clash with the list of commonly included small arms. I suggest either adding RPGs to the main list, or get a more selective picture. -Whursey 02:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

it's more than four years later, but i think your comment is right, and the pic still hasn't been swapped. should come up with suggestions 220.236.66.156 (talk) 10:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Small Arms (Xbox game)
Eh, that should a) be rewritten, sans typos, plus more info and a Video Game banner, and appropriate flags, and b) be removed from this page. Its a RINO (Related in name only). Aevangelica 20:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

reference
I am wondering why the reference I entered is not displayed at the bottom of the article Bokkie 08:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

the anti-small arms documentary
This is a very one-sided article. It references a film which makes the case that small arms are bad for civilians in developing countries (when seems to contradict what actually happens in these countries when their civilians are disarmed), but it does not reference any studies or scholarly works that claim the opposite (such as a history textbook). And is an encyclopedia article about small arms really the place to bang the "let's disarm (or arm, for that matter) the civilians" drum, anyway? I think this article should describe what small arms are, and leave the political agendas for political articles. -- 76.104.46.56 (talk) 05:19, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Possible merge?
Shouldn't this and 'personal arms' be combined or merged and redirected? There's already a pretty big article at 'personal weapons', when it seems the definition is simply an expanded version of the definition of small arms to include all man-portable single-crew weaponry, including archaic melee weaponry. 69.210.34.101 (talk) 05:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Dictionary definition
I have add dictdef tag because if something is "a term of art" used by a sub group (by armed forces), its dictionary definition per WP:NOTDICTIONARY. This needs referenced material to show this is encyclopedic or it needs to be redirected/merged to Firearm since its a duplicate description. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:57, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I am taking off the dictdef tag because I don't see why this article on Small arms is any worse than Side arm or Ancillary weapon, two other weapons articles. WP:NOTDICTIONARY says an article should be moved to Wiktionary if it only does what a dictionary does, which is to discuss "the actual words or idioms in their title and all the things it can denote. The entry octopus is about the word "octopus": its part of speech, its pluralizations, its usage, its etymology, its translations into other languages, and so forth." That is not what the Small arms article is like. I also can't find any discussion about "term[s] of art" used by sub-groups being dictionary definitions in the WP:NOTDICTIONARY guide. OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 01:21, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I already removed that tag . I applied a different tag, Template:Copy to Wiktionary. — Godsy (TALK CONT ) 01:27, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * "In Wikipedia, things are grouped into articles based on what they are, not what they are called by. In a dictionary, things are grouped by what they are called by, not what they are." (WP:NOTDICTIONARY). What we have here are things that are grouped by what they are called as defined in the lead sentence re: an "international arms control" grouping, that's a prime reason for deletion/move off to another project. "General and Complete Disarmament: Small Arms" ref simply shows usage of a word (not a sufficient ref), "Definitions of Small Arms and Light Weapons" is weak (anonymous article) and states thare "is no universally accepted definition", and we have an unreferenced United Nations quote. The United Nations quote and "Definitions of Small Arms and Light Weapons" both have a definition that is exactly the same as "Firearm". We do not have two articles in Wikipedia covering the same topic, one (this one) should be a redirect. Per Side arm and Ancillary weapon, WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST rationals are not good reasons to keep any particular article. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 13:46, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There is obviously encyclopedic info in this article that doesn't belong in a dictionary article. So IMHO the template should be removed.  The alternative view is that article should be deleted from the encyclopedia with relevant definitional info transferred to Wiktionary.  I don't support such deletion but the place to have such a discussion is WP:AFD.  I'm going to remove the template again: if Fountains of Bryn Mawr still thinks this is not an encyclopedic article then I ask that he or she open an AfD rather than edit warring over the template.  That's the proper place to resolve a question like this. 173.228.123.101 (talk) 18:50, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * In addition, there are dozens or hundreds of books about the topic. That means at worst that the article could use expansion, not that it should be eliminated. 173.228.123.101 (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Noting a words usage is not the same as referencing an encyclopedic topic. Added to WP:AFD. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 21:57, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's the best way to handle it. 173.228.123.101 (talk) 06:39, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Military usage
This was under the military definition/usage (lead paragraph 3). I added the "cite" book/web formats, but other than that, they're as I found them when I arrived on this page. The sources don't seem to support what's written, and I'm not sure that it's truly relevant for the article. It's a helluva lot of detail for the lead. It's old, and some of it isn't even about "small arms" (or "light weapons" for that matter).


 * ... Smith and Haslam say that small arms do not include infantry support weapons or crew-served weapons such as heavy machine gun or mortars. According to Ankony, in the U.S., any modern firearm (post-1898) that utilizes a projectile (bullet) greater than 1/2 in in diameter is legally defined as a "destructive device," while any firearm having a bore diameter of  or less is normally considered a "small arm."  The so-called "1/2 inch rule" does not apply to shotguns, sporting cartridge big-bore rifles (such as rifles chambered in .600 Nitro Express), muzzleloading black-powder weapons, whether original antiques (pre-1898), or modern replicas, many of which have bore diameters larger than .50 caliber.

Merge with Small Arms and Light Weapons
I think we should merge this page with Small Arms and Light Weapons. Both pages cover the same subject matter. However, the Small Arms and Light Weapons page has better coverage.--RAF910 (talk) 01:00, 21 March 2016 (UTC)