Old Dog
Member
Quoted in its entirety for truth. Well said.Years ago I was involved with what we called Cultural Resource Management and lots of general population got involved in that, peripherally. Any time there was a public forum many folks would interchangeably throw out terms like "preservation" and "conservation" without knowing that there's a huge difference in those words. And that using the wrong word easily can make the difference between your argument being heard or being dismissed out of hand just because you didn't bother doing basic research.
We can see semantics in action in the abortion debate. The Pro Life side were correct in getting themselves known as that, rather than "anti abortion". On the other hand they failed to label pro abortion activists in a way that would undermine their position. So, we now see pro abortion as "Pro Choice", but never as "the right to murder your unborn child", or "Pro Infanticide". This is a huge victory in semantics because if it were labeled as murder, then the overall public would likely view it entirely differently.
In regards to firearms, we've allowed the debate to become "gun rights" and "gun violence". Guns are inanimate objects and never do anything on their own, and do not require rights. So that leads the public to see firearms as the cause, rather than seeing that the person is the cause. This is nothing more than deflection so that the basic truth is harder to see. It's crazy and stupid that we are allowing this to happen.
We need to change the semantics so that we are viewed as people upholding the Bill of Rights because it's the 2nd Amendment that gives the entire document teeth and power.
Anti gun people need to be viewed as those who are working to undermine the 2nd Amendment and therefore weakening the entire Bill of Rights. If that distinction is made, then the overall public are likely to always fall on the side of protecting their basic rights. My feeling is that if we are painted as "gun rights" then the public doesn't need to care as much and possibly dismissing us as nut jobs.
I'm less concerned with minor terminology like clip vs. magazine. However correcting an anti with correct terminology as a means to let them know that they know less than they think is always a good thing.
So yeah, semantics is huge. Semantics is everything.
If we are to get bogged down in semantics, it absolutely must be big picture, RKBA stuff, not minor, inconsequential technicalities. Let's frame any discussion about firearms on the principles of ownership and usage, not the engineering terms.about the tools.