AP Stylebook recommends use of more accurate/less politicized terms

[Demi-human]

The more I think about it, I’m convinced this change is to demonize ALL semi auto firearms.
Global warming was changed to climate change so every weather event could be explained and capitalized. (And it’s YOUR fault for the freeze in Texas and the heat wave that followed) This wording on firearms will be used against us.

This is exactly what I think. They are not on our side and this is no concession.

 

[wgp]

Media tend to gravitate toward simplicity. Saying "assault weapon" is simple, just as the terms "mass shooting" and "common-sense gun control" have become go-to terms. Stylebook or no, so long as popular media almost exclusively depict ARs and AKs in war or in criminal shootings, spraying bullets by the hundreds, people will continue to be conditioned to associate those guns with "assaults" and thus they remain "assault weapons". Also note this is only the stylebook of the Associated Press, not of any other medium that chooses to go a different way.
I also tend to agree that this may not be a good thing. Right now I suspect many non-gun people distinguish what they think of as an "assault weapon" from other rifles and pistols. What will result from continuing, unending reference to a bad person's use of a "semi automatic"?. Will they begin to associate any semi-automatic with "bad"? .

 

[Pat Riot]

Isn’t it telling that when a media news source makes a change that the immediate response is distrust?

In my opinion the media and the way they conduct themselves is a form of tyranny. They get away with it because they have the First Amendment. There’s a little irony for you.

 

[herrwalther]

I haven't trusted the mainstream press in over 20 years. Not going to change now because they suddenly decided to get on board with one firearm term.

 

[I6turbo]

But the people pushing for more gun laws don't understand guns or current gun laws.
Nearly half the time they are screaming for laws already on the books.

The useful idiots don't understand, but the ones at the "top" driving the push absolutely do. The problem with the current gun laws, TO THEM, is that they don't enable confiscation of all guns and a disarming of the citizens. THAT is the goal. "Reducing gun crime" is just a shiny object to bamboozle the gullible. Unfortunately, it works on them.

 

[bdickens]

There's a big difference between a style book and orchestrated collusion. Some of y'all don't seem to understand that.

Not that the mainstream media isn't largely a propaganda mouthpiece for one certain political orientation....