If someone is talking about how a battalion was decimated in a battle and they never should have been there, and you point out that decimate was a specific term use describe a punishment to soldiers, you are NOT addressing the argument at hand.
Decimate's original meaning was to reduce by 1/10th - to kill one man in 10.
dec·i·mate
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -mat·ed; -mat·ing
Etymology: Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare, from decimus tenth, from decem ten
1 : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of
2 : to exact a tax of 10 percent from <poor as a decimated Cavalier -- John Dryden>
and most recent usage
3 a : to reduce drastically especially in number <cholera decimated the population> b : to cause great destruction or harm to <firebombs decimated the city> <an industry decimated by recession>
re: Racist usage
"Saturday Night Special" is, in fact, a racist term as noted by Clayton Cramer's scholarly work in
The Racist Roots of Gun Control. The fact that time has "worn down" the racist meaning does not change this fact or the fact that
the majority of early gun control laws were aimed squarely at Blacks for racist reasons.
Modern politics has pushed the racism aside in favor of bigotry against the lower socio-economic strata of society. You can find examples of decent quality, but inexpensive, firearms referred to as a SNS, including both Iver-Johnson and H&R breaktops because they sold for less than half of the "brand name" guns.
I can easily imagine a mostly polymer revolver, using steel cylinder & barrel sleeves in .22 and .32 calibers being made with a stamped metal trigger group inserted like the Ruger DA revolvers and selling for around $150. I can also imagine the politicians revising statutes to require a "minimum melting temperature" for revolvers in order to ban the gun too.