No, people often use less-formal language when addressing an audience containing subject matter lay-persons and non-experts. Other people also just prefer informal prose; it's less intimidating.

Everyone's favorite faux pas, clip vs magazine, is a mostly useless distinction. Both items offer a similar functionality to decrease the reloading time of their respective guns^W firearms; and there is rarely a case where both a magazine and a clip exist for a particular gun^W firearm so it shouldn't be a cause for much confusion. It doesn't help the gun-nomenclature pedant's case that magazines are commonly marketed by gun/shooting retailers as "clips". Another one is bullet vs cartridge vs round but depending upon context bullet is the only one that is unambiguously connected to guns^W firearms.

I'm a gun^W firearm owner, and TBH I don't see a lot of diversity of opinion among firearm-rights activists; so while it might be easy in some cases to debate only those who share my interests, it isn't particularly productive. It's up to firearm-rights activists to accommodate debate from laypersons (and politely educate them if needed), just as doctors, scientists, and other experts must do so for respective laypersons they encounter in each of their fields.