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The dictionary definition of arsenal is a place where weapons are stored, or the collection of weapons itself.

It's a bit of a stretch to call the arms owned by one person an arsenal, but English is like that.

This usage is a media cliché. Reporters use it without even thinking about it.

It's like the misuse of the word tragedy for anything bad that happens. I could list dozens of these clichés, but I'll spare you.

- Jim

Tough question. Webster says:

ar-se-nal  [ahr-suh-nl, ahrs-nuhl] –noun

1. a place of storage or a magazine containing arms and military equipment for land or naval service.

2. a government establishment where military equipment or munitions are manufactured.

3. a collection or supply of weapons or munitions.

4. a collection or supply of anything; store: He came to the meeting with an impressive arsenal of new research data.

So, to the (almost always) liberal media, definition number three pretty much covers all their bases and lets them sleep at night with the assurance that they have reported the truth. Notice "weapons" and "munitions" are plural, and that the conjunction is "or." Technically, in that thinking, a few .22 LR are an "arsenal."

I'm with you, Shoot_First, in that an arsenal, to me, is a mixture of definitions 1, 2, and 3. I don't know anyone who owns what I'd consider to be an "arsenal."

Other than the Army, Air Force, Navy, or Marines.

If you look at the origin of the word, it comes from an Italian word meaning "workshop" and was synonymous with armory, which is a place, not a collection of weapons.

In military usage it still means a place.

I think Webster's dictionary is reflecting current usage, rather than strict, original definition.

Here's the American Heritage definition:

1. A governmental establishment for the storing, development, manufacturing, testing, or repairing of arms, ammunition, and other war materiel.
2. A stock of weapons.
3. A store or supply: an arsenal of retorts.

There was one guy who owned an arsenal. He was a multi-millionaire and owned hundreds of weapons, including machine and anti-aircraft guns.

But certainly a rifle and a pistol do not constitute an arsenal.

- Jim

I aspire for the day that my collection is considered an arsenal by anyone's definition.

Every time I buy another gun I think "One more than this is an arsenal" 17 guns and I'm still one away from an arsenal.
In my mind it's not the guns, it's if you have 1000 rounds for each one!!!!

I am convinced that the press intentionally uses the words "arsenal" and "stockpile" etc. to be as sensational as possible--because they suggest large quantities and a militaristic or offensive use to most people. I don't believe they choose them as neutral dictionary definitions, but as pejoratives which promote the idea that guns are bad enough to begin with, but having more than one is something the public should find especially threatening. "Why would anyone need more than one gun?" is a question I've seen more times than I can recall.

Spend an hour Googling phrases like "arsenal in home," "ammunition stockpile in home," "cache of deadly weapons in home," and so on. I did, and in only one case did I find the hyperbole (huge, massive, vast, etc.) justified. In the others, the so-called "arsenals" were comprised of fewer firearms than those owned by many forum members.

I also found reports of weapons arrests made when a fireman, police officer or just a repairman saw evidence of an "arsenal" in a home in a municipality that does not forbid private ownership of guns. "Dangerousness," or "community hazard," are some names for the charges filed, but they were really just situations where someone arbitrarily decided that someone else owns more guns than they think they should.

I've drifted from the OP's question, but I have to deal regularly with anti-gun hysterics. I know how they think and how determined they are to stigmatize gun ownership and even the concept of self defense. I would not use the word "arsenal" to describe my or any other lawful gun owner's firearms. If it's more than a couple of guns, I'd describe it as a "collection" to keep it in the same category as any other legal item someone might want to own in quantity or variation. For myself, I won't have enough guns until I own at least one of each.

It's kind of like the overused and under defined "assault weapon" and when they call anything that will go full auto "machine gun"

I also love it when the police display said "arsenal" for the public, and there are eight or nine guns, which on closer look reveal themselves to be: 1 .22 single shot rifle; 1 Iver Johnson .22 revolver; 1 .410 shotgun; and several pellet guns.

To me, it wouldnt seem proper to call a collection of arms an arsenal unless they were intended to be used by a group of people, like a militia. One person owning as many arms as he or she can afford does not an arsenal make.

In other words there could be several thousand arms stored somewhere, but if only one person knew about them, it would just be a bunch of guns, not an arsenal.

Kind of like the way we get labled as 'gun nuts' if we dare to excersize our 2A rights. By that way of thinking, we could call people who voted for al gore or more recently, barry, 'ballot nuts'

I think its all media scare tactics. Plain and simple. Label something evil enough times and the sheeple will buy into it eventually.

Ding, ding ding!

Revet wins the thread.

In another thread, I joked about what the media would have said the day my friend and I hit a series of Walmarts as he bought 46 bulk packs of .22LR, totaling almost 26,000 rds.

I only wish I had done the same back when it was $9.87/pack.

I always laugh when I read a story about a guy who had "thousands of rounds of ammunition." I nearly always have thousands of rounds of ammunition in the trunk of my car, though at the moment it's down to about 600.

We rarely shoot fewer than 100 .22LR rounds at a time, and I once went through an entire box of 500 taking three boys shooting.

- Jim

Mike1951 wrote:In another thread, I joked about what the media would have said the day my friend and I hit a series of Walmarts as he bought 46 bulk packs of .22LR, totaling almost 26,000 rds.

Along those lines, I posted some time ago about my trip to Victoria for my first Farnam advanced class. I wasn't completely sure what I needed to bring from the course description...meaning I wasn't sure if we'd be shooting rifle and shotgun in addition to pistols, or rifle or shotgun. So always wanting to be prepared, I tried to make sure I had everything I needed.

My first course with Farnam I learned that if you had an equipment failure, you were on your own. Hopefully, a classmate would have brought something extra you could shoot if you had the right ammunition for it. I loaned an XD9 to a woman in that class who was having a lot of problems with her Hi-Power.

So on that drive down to Victoria I had four pistols (you need a primary and a BUG, so I brought a spare for each), with about 1,200 rounds each of .40 and 9mm, two ARs with about 1,200 rounds of .223, and two 12 gauge shotguns with 500 rounds of 00 and 100 slugs. As I sat in a traffic jam on 59 just past Sugar Land, I was thinking about how the "Are you armed?" question would go if were to be pulled over.

"Uh, yes, officer. You might say that."

I think in a case like that, it might be a good idea to preface the answer with an explanation of where you are going. Otherwise I could see the situation getting tense.

I don't know why police are asking these questions. I have never once been asked by a cop if I were armed. A couple of times, when they wanted to know, they frisked me (I'm not kidding about this). They never asked.

It makes no sense to ask. An honest person who is armed is not a threat, and a criminal isn't going to tell the truth.

Sorry about the thread drift, but you started it.

- Jim

From Brady Bill II (S.1878 As introduced in the Senate, February 28, 1994)

Sec. 204 - Federal Arsenal Liscense

a) Offense.--Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 203(a), is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

"(x) It shall be unlawful for a person to possess more than 20 firearms or more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition unless the person--

"(1) is a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer; or

"(2) has been issued an arsenal license pursuant to section 923(m).".

Here is the Thomas record of S.1878

This is how the anti's have attempted to define "arsenal" in the past.