[ExI] lock-and-load

[Olga Bourlin]

From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at satx.rr.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>

> As a don't-have-a-gun guy, I've always been puzzled by this phrase. 
> Wikipedia doesn't help. Is it possible to first lock and then load 
> something? Take a car, for example: standing outside the supermarket with 
> all the doors and the back hatch locked, I'd find it quite difficult to 
> load my goods. Do you lock some part of a gun to prevent its going off in 
> your face while you load the ammo? Or do you load the bits that fly out 
> the end and through the air and only then "lock" some part of the 
> mechanism to stop you shooting your dick off? In which case, shouldn't the 
> manly cry be "load and lock!"?

Damien, a gun-totin' friend of mine named Joel Jacobs (from Texas, yet, of 
all places) wrote this:

"First we have to go back to the early days of firearms.  The LOCK is a part 
of the mechanism that helps the firearm to go boom.  There are flint locks, 
wheel locks, percussion locks, etc.

The LOCK must be placed into a position where the firearm can be loaded and 
fired.

Once firearms became "modern" the LOCK was the part that "morphed" into the 
action of the firearm, the "area" that contained the cartridge: breech, 
bolt, and such.

It was necessary to LOCK the weapon into a SECURE position in order to be 
able to load it.  LOCKING placed the weapon into a "safe" condition."

All rightie ...?

Olga