beatledog7
Member
ZeSpectre,
I'm not looking for a compromise on RKBA, just for a new message that helps preserve it.
I'm not looking for a compromise on RKBA, just for a new message that helps preserve it.
I said I was a weapon, I didn't say it was made for killing. By accepting the anti's premise that weapons are 'made for killing', you've already given away the store. The rest is just the terms of the surrender.Nice rant, junyo, and it proves my point.
You say quite adamantly that it's a weapon, made for killing. And while I agree that ARs can serve effectively in that role, most of them in civilian hands will never kill anyone. The message that such vehemence as yours sends is a major reason why the anti's think we're all itching to shoot someone.
Is there no middle ground among us? Are we all so wedded to our preferred terminology that we can't get around it? We complain about antis calling ARs assault rifles, saying we don't assault people with them and they're not select fire. Yet we insist on saying they're for killing people, then we say we probably won't ever use them for killing people, so nobody should fear them.
Look, I fully understand the need for a hedge against tyranny, but the antis don't. That message has proven grossly ineffective with the vast majority of those who want to ban ARs. We need to find a message that works. Our shrill cry that these are the instruments of freedom, though true, is failing to change anyone's mind.
Definition of WEAPON
1
: something (as a club, knife, or gun) used to injure, defeat, or destroy
Once upon a time that was understood that good people could use and recreate with weapons, which is why so many sports are of martial origin; we don't throw the javelin because someone thought it looked cool, we did it to practice throwing spears at the enemy, and then at some point it morphed into a fun activity. But now we're in a time where the idea, that I, as a tax paying, law abiding adult might want to own a weapon give hippies the vapors. I'm sorry (not really), but if someone can't wrap their brain around the fact that empowering good people to take care of themselves, to be prepared gasp! do harm if needed to things that threaten them is a good thing, then there's no hope for them. Or the society that cuddles them. And in the end, you can call it what you like, they will think you're a blood thristy murderer in training anyway, because it rationalizes away their own worthlessness.
Modern compared to what? They've been around a while.
Would you refer to a Ruger 10/22 as "modern"?
Sorry, but adopting political correctness is not the answer. Educate folks on good old fashioned values and why the founding fathers created the 2A. Sorry, I can't go along with any political correctness, that is not the answer in my opinion.I did a search on "modern sporting rifle" after perusing the thread on the heavily boycotted and now all but canceled Eastern Outdoors Show:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=696041
There are many news stories about this, but here is one from The Washington Post, dated 24 January:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/pa-outdoors-show-focus-of-boycott-after-ban-on-assault-weapons-is-postponed-indefinitely/2013/01/24/2a255f9e-664a-11e2-889b-f23c246aa446_story.html
A brief quote from the article:
One could argue that those comments are rather Fuddish, but that’s neither here nor there.
So, back to my point: Are we presenting a united front when we call the civilian versions of rifles modeled on what were originally military designs “modern sporting rifles”?
I know they have sporting purposes. I know they have utility purposes. I know they are the best form of small arms to hold in defense against tyranny. And I know we have gun owners on all sides of the argument over what to call them and how to describe them. But is the moniker “modern sporting rifle” broad enough to be applied to a cadre of platforms which many supporters of RKBA view as the most effective last resort “anti-tyranny” device on the civilian market and which they own predominantly because of that view?
It’s been beaten to death on this and other forums, but the national coverage being afforded this event shines a light on it once again. Plenty of anti-gun people are aware of what was going to happen but now is not happening in Harrisburg, and they’ll also be keenly aware of how divided the gun community is on how it views these kinds of rifles, the ones antis incorrectly but almost unanimously call “assault rifles.”
My view is that supporters of RKBA and 2A should somehow link arms on this and figure out what to call these rifles. In the past I suggested the term “operator configurable rifle” for the AR. It’s a term that makes sense in that it’s both technically accurate and broad enough to cover all the ways in which the platform is employed. It also de-emphasizes all the "bad" stuff the antis throw out. It’s not perfect, nor is it the only option. But using it -- or any standardized term -- beats the heck out of fighting amongst ourselves over what we should call them.
If the antis can unite in labeling these firearms, why can’t we? It would be a step toward presenting a united pro-2a front, a feat at which we consistently fail.
I thank you, sir.It is sad that this is what the world has come to. The common citizen is so far divorced from the concept of armed self defense that any reference that that icky old military is damning. So we'll call it a modern sport rifle. Or how about a 'unicorn peace and love launcher'? Maybe a 'rainbow gumdrop dispenser'?
Well, eff that. It's a weapon. The reason why it looks a lot like what the military carries is because the people in the military use weapons, as weapons, every day. Therefore what they've found works/does not work, is pertinent, since in ones daily life as an accountant in Topeka, one does not get to personally test whether or not his 'fairy twinkle shooter' will work when it truly comes down to the come down. Which is why every flashlight on the face of the earth is 'tactical'. It's way 'mil-spec' is a marketing term. In a million other product types it's perfectly acceptable to admit that yeah, we're aping the military. But non-gendered and unpersonified higher power forbid that in the one area where the military has a monopoly on daily experience that we emulate them
It's. A. Damn. Weapon.
I won't apologize for that, I won't hide it, I won't do this lawyerly parsing of phrases like it means something. It's words, and more words, and the conversation gets dumber and dumber, because we've ceded the fact that not only is it okay to have irrational fear, those fears are a valid basis for policy. Do you think it will be more acceptable to people who are too incurious to educate themselves that the evil black baby killer has been re-branded? It still has the shoulder thing that goes up, which obviously makes it a weapon of mass destruction. Call it a 'tulip sunset drizzler', call it a 'blueberry muffin slingshot', call it a 'freedom fire stick'; the next time someone gets shot, we'll be right back here.