Let's lose our labels

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One thing the anti's in conjunction with the media have managed to successfully do is get us to label ourselves and our firearms using their terminology.

When we ourselves refer to our guns "assault rifles" & "semi-autos" we have succumbed to their verbal assaults; and have allowed negative labelling of our very means of protecting our elderly, our handicapped and our children from molesters - and our means of recreation - to pass into the negative vernacular.

How much could we regain if we refused to lazily use their language, and instead used our own, more valid descriptions?

Examples:

Q: "Is that a semi-auto pistol?
A: "No, this is the gun my Granny left me, it only fires a single round when the trigger is pulled. Granny never shot this gun, but just having it saved her from harm once, as it has done for me."

and

Q: "Is that an assault rifle?"
A: "No, it's not capable of assaulting anybody on it's own. It's a rifle that fires only one round when I press the trigger after I load it and take the safety off. I use it to poke holes of less than a 1/4 inch in paper targets, mainly for my health. See, if I can shoot five shots in an inch group it means my blood pressure, heartbeat and stress levels are just fine."

What do you think, can we fight fire with fire?

The pen is mightier than the sword. The gun grabbers remember that, so should we.
 
I think we would get chased around in circles if we abandon every term the antis use against us.

ANTI: "Single action? Must mean it only takes a single action to kill a playground full of our children! It sounds bad. Let's ban it!"

ANTI: "Double action? You mean all you have to do is keep pulling the trigger and more bullets keep coming out? A gun nut could kill a playground full of our children with such a thing! It sounds bad. Let's ban it!"

It would put us even more on the defensive than we already are. Eventually we wouldn't be able to talk about firearms at all for fear of giving the 'wrong' impression.

A "semi-auto" is a "semi-auto". Let's not let them brainwash the non gun owning public into thinking it's something unusually dangerous.

-boing



[This message has been edited by boing (edited July 11, 1999).]
 
I agree that we shouldn't give into thier terminology, but we're never invited into the conversation anyway. They've already labeled us and our weapons without ever giving us a chance to respond.

On the other hand, so what! I'm not ashamed of my guns. They can call my AR-15 a "Offensive Attack Death Weapon" for all I care. I, as an American and a free man, have a right to own one and anybody who disagrees with that can kiss my a$$!!!

Did that make any sense or did I just contradict myself? Sorry. It's late.
 
Boing,

Good points, but I was thinking more about voiding the pattern of the successful negative labelling altogether.

Let's face it, even we gunnuts have trouble with our terminology. To me, single action means a Colt revolver of the kind that must be cocked manually before it can be fired.
Today single action may mean another action type to the people in our gun culture.

My point is; that to people outside our culture who are being conditioned by the press, all types of actions are labeled bad when they are accompanied by the term "assualt" or even "semi-auto ". They don't care about the nuances...guns are BAD! Especially if the terms "assault" or " XXX-auto" show up in the description of them.

We need to emphasize - even amongst ourselves - that a "semi-auto" or "assault rifle" simply does not exist, and that each and every firearm only fires when the the operator presses the trigger.

When the operator fires the gun, the operator is responsible.

The action type or media description of the gun is irrelevant at that point, and we should guard against them making the gun the issue.
 
Im not clear what you mean by saying that semi -auto and assualt rifle do not exist.
For example an M16 is an assault rifle while an AR15 is a semi-auto but not an assualt rifle although an M16 can usually also fire semi-auto.

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
Splitting hairs over terminolgy isn't the answer. It's like when "Slick" was trying to define the difference between what is and what isn't sex. The english laungage is far too flexible to nail down what a single term means to many different people. To us Semi-auto discribes a type of action. To the antis the same words describe an entire class of dangerous and deadly guns that are only good for killing people.
We can only try to educate them, if they don't want to listen then there is nothing more we can do.
I'm not going to worry about it.
 
Grayfox; Im not going to haggle about it either.Personally Ive not seen very many converted antis.

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
I have had this conversation about 1000 times at Rec.guns (before I stopped sunjecting myself to rec.guns)...

No, we should not change our terminology to suit the antis. Wear the gun shirts & hats, put the NRA stickers on your car, carry black guns if thats what you like and call a spade a spade.

A gun is a weapon.

A Colt Sporter is a semi-automatic rifle which is very much like the current assault rifle issued to the US Army.

My Glock has high-capacity mags. (note that "we" called them high-capacity long before the 1994 ban. Some of us choose to think that we should refer to them as "standard capacity" as if we never called a gun that held 12+ rounds "high-capacity" before 1994!)



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-Essayons
 
Before the term assault rifle became common, I recall that the civilian versions of military small arms were called paramilitary.
 
Miss D; Yes I know and in that respect you are unique. Apparently the truth was able to convert you. Unfortunately the truth is of no significance to most antis.

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
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