I grew up around guns and I always thought loaded meant bullets are in the gun whether or not anything is chambered.
Ultimately that's a safety call, but inaccurate.
Since the vast majority of negligent discharges include someone racking a round in, thinking they're racking a round out, because they didn't drop the magazine first, it's a common safety training technique.
But it ain't gonna go "bang" unless you rack the slide, and chamber a round.
Also tends to be used as an overall safety technique when mixing vastly different firearms.
Most bird hunters like to carry break-open shotguns for example, so everyone can see when you're carrying it over your shoulder that nothing is in it.
Rifles, lots of places want to see the bolt open. Ironically or perhaps to help prove or disprove the point, two of my rifles will not stay open without an empty magazine inserted, others will happily hold open with a round already in the chamber and they're only a button press to close the bolt and then a trigger pull to fire from there, even without a magazine.
Revolvers... Well, they load themselves if they're double-action and there's a cartridge in the next chamber, all it takes is a trigger squeeze. If they're single action, you'll have to pull the hammer back yourself.
And then there's semi-autos like my S&W with a magazine disconnect that even with a round in the chamber, if you drop the magazine, it won't fire.
So... It's very dependent on the specifics of the firearm but none of them will fire without a trigger pull. That's why the number one safety feature is not to put your booger hook inside the trigger guard unless you're ready to fire it. And if it's in a holster that covers the entire trigger guard, it isn't going to ever do anything. It's just a hunk of metal doing nothing.
Modern polymer pistols just don't do anything without 5-10 lbs of force exerted against the trigger. And without a round chambered they have no way of chambering one on their own. I'm guessing that's the type of pistol the kid had. Even a single-action semi-auto like a 1911 with nothing in the chamber, can fire or load itself.
It takes a very specific set of events to move a round up from the magazine and even have a chance of firing the pistol and if no booger hook enters the trigger guard, you can technically "unload" the whole magazine by loading the gun however many times necessary to eject all the live rounds. (That'd be stupid, but possible. If you ever get a magazine stuck in the magazine well, you can still unload it safely.)
One of my pistols that mimics the single-action 1911 design, has a significant change, where you can leave the safety engaged and rack the slide as long as the hammer is back AND a magazine is inserted. Remove the magazine, it won't rack.
Makes it a little less likely to cause a problem if Mr. Booger Hook were to wander into the guard for any reason. Drop magazine and rack and never take it off of manual safe, to clear. Slide locks back on empty magazine.
1911, not so much. There's always a critical stage unloading a 1911 where the manual safety is off and a 3 lb pull will fire it, and you have to rack it in that condition.
So... The only definition that really works for "loaded" is... "will fire if manual safety disengaged, and trigger is pulled".
But I know where you're coming from, when talking about training.
The other thing about most modern pistols is that they do have a loaded chamber indicator. Some are visual only and you have to look at them. Others are able to be felt in the dark and usually are also visual at the same time.
Since they're not consistent in implementation, I just use the old school method. Don't hand me that thing unless the mag is dropped and the slide is locked back. Period.
And no matter what, I don't care if you think you unloaded it, you never point it at anything you don't intend to destroy, or anyone.
So I'm "understanding" of the "it's loaded if there's rounds in the magazine" phrase. I'm just not going to give it a complete pass as accurate.
Speaking specifically about the typical modern semi-auto... If you lay it on a table with one in the chamber, it isn't magically going to fire and take out a schoolroom of kids. It definitely won't fire ever, if there isn't one in the chamber.
Oh well. Call it what you like. Education is the important part.
My groupings with the 1911 were nice tonight but the XDS was punishing my lower trigger finger, which developed quickly into me slapping the trigger and my groupings suffered.
Once I decided to press through and hold even though the little bastard was whacking my trigger finger with muzzle flip and the bottom of the trigger guard, the groupings came right in as tight as the pistol with an extra 1.5" sight radius.
The XDS may get sold. Don't know yet. But right now it's not my favorite pistol to shoot. Definitely not a 100 round range gun. Might need sandpaper grips. It just wants to flip too hard.
Karen wants to shoot tomorrow so I'll probably take the much nicer shooting S&W Gen 3 in 9mm and enjoy myself, instead of being punished by the little mule kicker in .45 ACP.