The next time someone says assault rifle, say patrol rifle instead

[USAF_Vet]

You were the one who brought up slavery, my friend. I agree that it was a poor point to make, but you brought it into discussion.

I wasn't saying you did. I was simply touching on your response to what I said, but acknowledged it was way off the rails.

 

[Balrog]

New Jersey even defined the old Marlin Model 60 tube-fed .22 rifle as an "assault weapon" at one point. Does that mean you're going to claim that the Marlin Model 60 is clearly an "assault weapon" because there was once a law that defined it as such?
__________________

My point is that I am not scared of the term, and find it appropriate for the purpose I own those rifles. It's what I would want to have if I was under assault

 

[USAF_Vet]

This comment ...
So, are you saying that it's pointless to even attempt to counter the "anti's own stupid term?"

The label "assault rifle" has become so engrained in our culture (thanks, media) and is rife with so many negative connotations, that I think it may actually be worthwhile to "combat the use of the anti's own stupid term."

Modern sporting rifle is good. Sport utility rifle is good. I don't agree with simply calling black rifles "rifles." At this point, that's simply not going be widely accepted by those not in the gun culture, like it or not. Silly as it is, to most Americans, a rifle is wood and blue steel with a bolt or lever action. So, as the OP suggests, there's nothing wrong with us trying to re-frame the debate ...

Me, I just call mine "American Rifles."

If we use the definition appropriately, and correct it's misuse when we can, it becomes less of a stigma. It actually works. I've broken a co-worker or the "assault weapon" term and the misuse of "assault rifle" as being synonymous.

 

[GEM]

The horse has left the barn on trying to make ARs nice guns by renaming them. It is an appeal and whine to antis. See I have a nice gun, don't take it away.

BS - the 2nd Amend. exists so we have guns that are efficacious for self-defense and defense against tyranny. It is not to have a nice gun to shoot a bear or Bambi.

If it is for sport, it can be limited. 30 round mags are dangerous. You don't need 30 rounds of 5.56 to shoot Bambi. Thus, it is a sporting toy - limit it.

This comes up all the time. Even the antigun folks like the NYTimes see through the Modern Sporting Rifle whine.

 

[bannockburn]

In the overall scheme of things semantics really don't concern me all that much. My pistols and revolvers are handguns and my rifles and shotguns are long guns. That's about as simple and basic as I can make it for those people uninformed on such matters.

 

[Sam1911]

After my original post I googled "patrol rifle" and found many links to law enforcement and chiefs of police articles, training manuals and guidelines. Its pretty interesting to read them talking about bad guys with assault rifles and having an adequate LE response with "patrol rifles"---when they are exactly the same thing. ...

The use of language matters. Semantics are everything. Law enforcement has successfully embraced the "patrol rifle" ...

The reason I like the phrase "patrol rifle" is that it is short, rolls off the tongue, carries a connotation of safety, competence, good guy, acceptance. Sport Utility Rifle and Modern Sporting Rifle are a bit more cumbersome, and don't carry as much positive, warm, paternalistic meaning. To be on patrol is to be a responsible person, a guardian, a minute man, a patriot, in the defense of life, liberty, and the American way.

...

To my ears, law enforcement has figured out a way to better win the publicity, public relations, and spin game by adopting the term "patrol rifle" for exactly the same rifle that is so hated and misunderstood by the antis.

The problem with this approach is that words mean things. And in the case of law enforcement adopting or embracing the term "patrol rifle" the phrase has a highly specific meaning.

And that meaning is just as harmful and counter-productive to the cause of promoting armed American citizens as is "assault weapon" or "soldier's rifle" or "military weapon," or many other terms that might be applied.

Law enforcement agencies and trainers use the term "patrol rifle" in exactly the same way they apply that adjective to their vehicle, i.e. "patrol car." It is a tool used in the carrying out of a sworn officer's assigned beat and/or station.

Would you look out the window and ask the wife, "Honey, it's your turn to take the kids to school. Do you want to take the patrol car or the personnel carrier?" If that sounds idiotic, cartoonish, and aggrandizing, it should. And it's far WORSE when applied to your rifle.

So, you adopting it because it sounds "nice" and friendly and safe and responsible is just as harmful to our cause as "assault weapon" would be, for the simple reason that the term you're using carries within itself the clear distinction that this weapon is FOR the use of sworn agents of the state and FOR the carrying out of their specific duties.

When our entire basis for the understanding we share of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is founded upon the concept that it is the individual citizen's right and duty to be armed and stand ready to defend against all threats (including that by the agents of the state, in extremis), then using a name which baldly identifies that weapon as belonging to and being in the province of agents of the state is completely self-defeating.



(FWIW: I think that "modern sporting rifle" is a monumentally stupid name, too, and adopting it is giving into a number of subtle meaning and emphasis shifts that are fundamentally destructive to RKBA. But to the minimal degree that anyone's actually giving two soft poops about the "MSR" name ... and that's blessedly few folks, it seems ... what's done is done. We just are not going to spend any more of our political capital chasing our tails over another bandwagoneering name change effort to revamp our rifles' image.

In the end, we never should have strayed from the classic "EBR" (Evil Black Rifle) as that really says all it needs to, and does so concisely and in a way we can all support.)

 

[ClickClickD'oh]

Military arms? Oh pish posh. Pretty much every class of arms, when traced back to it's roots, is a military arm. That's just a cop out. Oh, you think your Remmington 700 has less roots in military arms than my AR-15? Let me laugh more. Oh, you would like to shoot my Walker... but don't like military arms? Sorry. That's just Fudd silliness, to pretend that one gun is inherently different from another because it's more obviously related to military use firearms in the modern era, than other firearms which have equal or stronger military roots... only forgotten by time.

Silliness

As for giving AR-15s cool sounding names like MSRs, Patrol Rifles. tactically kitty killer... whatever. Stop that silliness. It's a rifle, just like every other rifle. The other side is doing enough to make it seem special, why are we helping?

 

[Old Dog]

It's a rifle, just like every other rifle.

Yeah, it'd be nice if the other side and the masses understood that, but the fact remains, they don't ... The AR (and the AK) have been demonized so that whenever anyone sees anything remotely resembling an AR or an AK, they think "assault rifle."

The other side is doing enough to make it seem special, why are we helping?

So just how are we helping by trying to counter by using other terms? Do we just accept the terms used by the other side? That's what's really helping them. For too long, we've let the antis frame the entire debate and let them go on using their pet phrases ...

 

[Sam1911]

It's a rifle, just like every other rifle.

Yeah, it'd be nice if the other side and the masses understood that, but the fact remains, they don't ... The AR (and the AK) have been demonized so that whenever anyone sees anything remotely resembling an AR or an AK, they think "assault rifle."

The other side is doing enough to make it seem special, why are we helping?

So just how are we helping by trying to counter by using other terms? Do we just accept the terms used by the other side? That's what's really helping them. For too long, we've let the antis frame the entire debate and let them go on using their pet phrases ...

I say there is no value for us in these semantic games. The antis may have (long in the past, now) painted our rifles with a broad, generally negative, brush. Did that frame the debate? Well, sure to some degree.

And in the intervening decades, WE'VE done our own framing of that debate. And ours has been deeply powerful and monumentally effective! While they were playing name games, we went out and sold millions of these rifles to average citizens and took them shooting, and pushed these into all the major competition spheres (to the point of dominance in most), and made ARs (and to an only slightly lesser degree, AKs) THE rifle that most folks end up owning, once they take that step.

And oh how many have taken that step! Sure, the antis and the major media can prattle on about "assault weapons" but it really matters almost none at all now, in 2015, because millions upon millions of Americans shoot, compete, hunt, collect, and enjoy THESE rifles now and THEY ARE THE NORM.

You can't effectively marginalize and demonize the most common, most popular, most ubiquitous rifle in the citizens' hands. That ship has sailed. We're giving the whole idea far more concern than it deserves.

 

[Old Dog]

Well, Sam, I do agree that we're giving the idea more concern than it probably deserves.

However, simply because millions upon millions of these rifles have been sold and enjoyed -- the owners of these rifles are still in a very distinct minority of all American citizens.

Some hubris at display in some of the comments here. ARs and AKs are the norm ... in our community.

But it almost seems that since many here probably associate mostly with other like-minded, gun-owning folks, not enough of you are out there talking to the distinct majority who don't own guns, many of whom actively fear and despise guns (despite perhaps many of those having never even seen nor held a real gun). There are substantial numbers of Americans (of voting age) who will never believe these rifles belong in the hands of non-law enforcement, non-military citizens.

We've made many gains over the past twenty or thirty years, with respect to the RKBA ... but I'm not willing to concede that just because we, and all our buddies can currently own and enjoy our American Rifles (or even an AK or two), we have already won and need not concern ourselves with attempting to engage the other side -- even if it has to come down to trying to clarify terminology.

 

[Sam1911]

That's true enough. I won't fault someone for trying to engage the unswayed and uneducated "middle" of American voters. And I can't disagree that terminology is powerful and could be and should be carefully used. That's part of why I disagree so firmly with any attempt to call our rifles "patrol rifles" (and to a lesser degree, why I disagree fundamentally with the "sporting rifle" name the industry seems to be trying to foist on us all).

I think the whole "assault weapons" flak is twenty years past ripe and not worth spending a whole lot of energy on. When we do the sort of education and outreach that actually HELPS, the assault weapon concept simply evaporates because people exposed to guns and shooting are pretty inevitably struck by the epiphany that they've been duped all these years. Waving our fists and grousing at the media and the antis and trying to convince them to stop using the tired old "AW" term is pointless.

So we find ourselves here, trying to invent or borrow a non-threatening catchphrase instead of just saying "rifle" and being done with it. As if we think convincing ourselves to use a new cool term is going to somehow convince folks to listen to our views.

 

[pjeski]

Also let's get away from calling them WEAPONS. I know a NRA Trainers course I took a while back had a rule ... Call it a Weapon 3 times and you were OUT. For 99% of what we use them for they're rifles, shotguns or handguns. It would also help if the majority of gun ads DIDNT have a military, swat member or operator displaying the guns.

I'd bet that was the instructor's policy and not the NRA's. (Ejection from the course, that is.)

And personally, I think the NRA's position (or anyone else's for that matter) that calling a "weapon" a "firearm" is somehow beneficifial in any way is just plain stupid. The very definition of firearm is weapon. Calling things by words that you think people would rather hear is wasted effort.

 

[The Alaskan]

..the 2nd Amend. exists so we have guns that are efficacious for self-defense and defense against tyranny. It is not to have a nice gun to shoot a bear or Bambi.

So...here I go on the land mine again. I have to admit, I have to take issue with this concept. I understand and agree with the concept-the historically factual, accurate concept-that, at the time of the framing of the Constitution, the intent of the Founding Fathers was, indeed, to protect liberty by having an armed citizenry equal to or greater than that of the government's military. I would never dispute that.

But there is a lot of water, and a lot of, at the time, unforeseen firearm technology, gone under the bridge since then. The days of citizens being as well armed as the military are over, and have been for almost a century. We can't go back.

Someone (sorry, I forgot the user screen name) in this very discussion commented that he learned to shoot in the military and wanted to use the same gun he learned to shoot with. Well, hey, that's pretty cool. But I was a Missileer in the Air Force (not really-I was an aircraft electrician), so...I want my own Minuteman Nuclear Missile. See where we're going with this?

We can never again be as well armed as our military. We simply can not allow people to walk around with equivalent weaponry. We can't live in a country, where every nut job militiaman (South Central Patriots of Alaska-I'm talking about you) has his own little dirty bomb (or even his own surplus tank) to act as a deterrent against tyranny. If we need to be so well armed so as to defend against an invasion force of our own people, then it's already over. We have had our Civil War and you missed by about 150 years. We need to be (and we are) the kind of country where that isn't possible anymore. The belief that, one day, some day, some rogue president is going to invade the country, or the UN is planning a take over is insane. And even if it were not insane your screaming "Wolverines!" with your AR before attacking the armored column isn't going to save the country.

So, take your Revolutionary zeal elsewhere or try to focus on reality.

 

[Sam1911]

So, take your Revolutionary zeal elsewhere or try to focus on reality.

Fortunately, this is the sort of place where a well-tempered "revolutionary zeal" is cherished, though deliberately held in deep reserve. More of a guiding light than a plan of action.

The idea of an armed citizen having parity with the armed forces of the United States is silly, and none (or few) of us would try to claim that the straw man you're bludgeoning is valid.

However, as our revered founding father and Constitutional Convention delegate Tench Coxe said in 1788:

"The power of the sword, say the minority..., is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for The powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans."

Read that carefully. He does not say, "so one of us can stand up and fight off an oppressive government." He says these arms, the weapons of war, are the birthright of the citizens because the armed citizens represent a powerful force, together, that must be dealt with, must command attention and a measure of respect, has the ability to resist if the cooperative and beneficial relationship between government and citizenry is abandoned.

He doesn't say, "and they'll easily stop a column of tanks..." or "... and a squad of weekend warriors can stand up against artillery..." He says, the people are a powerful armed force and that's absolutely true.

The fact that the people are armed with the weapons of war means that they must be reckoned with, must be convinced, not coerced. Must be treated with as citizens, not as subjects or serfs. Study the history of civilization and you'll understand what an incredibly unique, rare, and valuable concept that is.

 

[bearcreek]

I'd bet that was the instructor's policy and not the NRA's. (Ejection from the course, that is.)

And personally, I think the NRA's position (or anyone else's for that matter) that calling a "weapon" a "firearm" is somehow beneficifial in any way is just plain stupid. The very definition of firearm is weapon. Calling things by words that you think people would rather hear is wasted effort.

Nope, 3 strikes and you're out is official NRA policy, at least at the NRA Basic Pistol Instructor course. Stupid. All of my guns, even my single shot deer rifle, are weapons, plain and simple. My ARs are not "modern sporting rifles" or any other such ridiculous PC term and I won't buy from a manufacturer who refers to them as such. If someone asks me what I need an assault rifle for I politely say that thats what the 2nd amendment is supposed to be about but unfortunately it has been violated and I am limited to semi automatics rather than actual assault rifles like we're supposed to have.

 

[Tirod]

To say we can't be as well armed as the military isn't reality - we are MORE armed on a daily basis.

We can carry concealed, they can't. We can own as many AR's, rifles and pistols, store them in our homes, transport them in our cars, the military, not so much. Some posts it's mandatory you store them in the MP armory. You definitely don't transport them on post, and at work, you cannot by policy and regulation carry personal weapons at all.

Even the length of working knives is regulated - even in combat units. The Commander says "No knives over 4" and violators are up for UCMJ as insubordinate.

The military does NOT wander around with live ammo locked and loaded 24/7 - they usually can only draw enough to qualify and those circumstances are tightly controlled.

You and me? Well, if we avoid our nosy neighbors, we can legally store as much as the law allows - and some frequently more. Our concerns are life/safety in case of fire - not insurrection.

And add me in on the list for wanting a "patrol rifle" just the same as the police use - full auto M16's issued to the department for LEO use. Just like - maybe even the same one I used to shoot in the USAR. That's what "patrol rifle" really means - it's a full auto M16A1 or A2 which is excess property to Uncle Sam out on "lend/lease" to who? US - our local PD's, sherrifs, deputies, and patrol officers on the street. You know, the same guy that lives down my block working his two dogs with two PD's locally.

"WE" very much do possess and have the use of more weapons than the military on ANY given day. There are over 200 million guns - we have more than the Armed Forces by a factor of 10, easily.

I'd say DOD has a way to go just to try to catch up. The average shooter in the US - of the 44 million who own guns - has more guns that he can reasonably carry for self protection. A soldier? One M16/M4, maybe a pistol if they are an officer, if MP it's not issued for simultaneous use, and ammo? Never stored with weapons, ever. It's always in a secured location. National Guard/Reserve have to go drive up to 200 miles to get any - tends to be a coordinated logistical exercise. Ask me how I know - 22 years USAR, IN/OD/MP.

I'm better armed sitting in my living room that on post.

As for the rare liberal who would bring up the subject of "assault rifles," they tend to make a cheap comment while exiting stage left - they are usually too cowardly to engage in adult conversation over it, just finding targets of opportunity to ambush someone and pretend they are brave for dissing them in public - usually in front of other women who's opinion they want. On the rare occasion they stand their ground I don't debate the language - I remind them they paid me to learn how to shoot full auto weapons, gave me free room and board doing it, and told me to shoot it all up so they could order up even more for next year. And there are over 24 million others who were required to do that, to. In fact, you can count on at least 1 of every 100 citizens to be experienced in the use of full auto machine guns - it's required in Basic with most services. And that they let the government actively recruit more every day.

We subsidized the education and training of thousands of young men and women in the use of assault rifles annually. I suppose if I join the Sherriff's Reserve I could wrangle one for myself, but ya know, it's not all that.

We didn't and couldn't shoot them full auto all day long anyway - human beings can't physically carry that much ammo. All you get is 300 rounds and then you wait for someone to bring more. If you can.

That's what is stupid about the "assault weapons" discussion - too many people are ignorant of the facts, and taking it up with the anti gunners on their terms means debating the words instead of recognizing and accepting facts.

We have plenty of guns in the US, MORE than the military, and MORE ammo in hand, and are MORE ready to use them on a moment's notice because we are armed right now - not after a two day prep to issue weapons and get ammo.

And that is exactly what the anti gunners are trying to stop. They don't want any resistance at all.

 

[bearcreek]

BTW, Sam, you're a moderator. We need to talk to somebody about getting a like button on this forum. Your posts in this thread have been excellent and deserve appreciation.

 

[Sam1911]

:blush:

 

[basicblur]

And personally, I think the NRA's position (or anyone else's for that matter) that calling a "weapon" a "firearm" is somehow beneficifial in any way is just plain stupid.

Just going thru this thread has revealed to me why the "other" side has made so many gains over the years (i.e. assault rifle).

We're in the game, whether you like it or not - as they say; you may not care for politics, but that does not mean politics does not care about you.
We can think it's a stupid game and refuse to play if we want, but doing so will allow the other side to continue to score with the general public before moving up the chain.

And for those that consistently pooh pah citizens standing up to an oppressive leader...
It used to be standard policy for many LE agencies to assign you to an area outside where you grew up. The stated reason was to get you away from friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc. in case you were into something less than legal, and to make it more difficult for you to get involved in such by dropping you in a new environment.

I had one fellow who was with the State Police told me a secondary (unofficial) reason was should martial law ever be invoked (by an overreaching politician / elected official, or ?) that those tasked with carrying it out would not be doing so against friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc.

Should the worst happen, those tasked with controlling the masses may do so grudgingly (and some probably won't do so at all), but who is to say if they were doing so against relatives and folks they grew up with how many would view that as the straw that broke the camel's back?

Now throw armed citizens into the mix - those same officials that were tasked with implementing martial law (or whatever illegal order they've been handed) might grudgingly do so against an unarmed populace, but if they were to go into a neighborhood / town / city etc. and find armed citizens opposing them instead of unarmed...well, how many of those officials would view that as the straw that breaks the camel's back?

With some of the politicians / policies we've seen over the last few decades, who is to say had the American public been unarmed that someone would not already have tried some type of takeover / control of the population?

 

[jamesjames]

It seems like the antis have created a false dichotomy that has lodged in the public's mind... that the military should have these rifles and the responsible, gun-owning public should not. Granted, this is a vague notion, not a fact. But politics is about perception, not necessarily about facts.

The police have adopted the patrol rifle. And we, the people, are much closer to the police than the military. They are among us, they are in our communities. The decision that the patrol rifle is a better choice than the shotgun is a strong endorsement of a rifle with a lot of utility. It breaks down the dichotomy between military arms and what responsible gun owners "should" have access to under 2A.

If its good enough for the police, for all the positive reasons they use to justify it, then its good enough for the populace. The police are professionally determining the capabilities they need to meet the force used by criminals. As a non-military entity, the police are much closer to the citizenry than the military, and provide a bridge across the false dichotomy created in the minds of the antis regarding the AR. If we have a right to self defense, and we have a right to the same (main) platforms that the civilian police use, then the patrol rifle is an accepted, justified, legitimate platform for the citizenry.

Adoption by law enforcement helps justify the AR in the hands of the public. The nomenclature of "patrol rifle" was no accident. It is the deliberate use of public relations and branding to support and justify the adoption and use of a platform that the general public is skittish about. The more it is accepted as a patrol rifle, the more comfortable the general public will be with the platform.

Yes, there are 4-10 million ARs in civilian hands (I'm groping for a ballpark figure... too lazy to look it up). But that is not the same ubiquity as the 80 million or so bolt guns out there. We are crossing the threshold with the American AR rifle, but we're not there yet. We should not ignore the careful branding done by law enforcement in the adoption of their patrol rifle. This is a success story that needs to be paid attention to and emulated among responsible gun owners.

We are a cantankerous bunch, and that doesn't always benefit our cause with the general public. One way to solve the perception problem is to agree on and use a more positive name for the platform that inspires confidence in the general public.

 

[JWH321]

I heretofore have never named a gun, but in reviewing this, I have decided that I will start using the brand name.

So my handguns will be Smith & Wessons, Sigs, or H&Ks. My SHotgun will be the Mossberg.

Now I have a dilemma with my rifles. I have a Ruger which I can call the Ruger, an Ithaca which I can call Ithaca, and a couple of Anderson based ARs. Should I refer to them as Andersons?

I keep one of the Andersons in my car which is a Mini Cooper.

So I will define them further by call ing the one on the bedroom the House Anderson. That means the one in the car I can call Anderson Cooper.

I'm all set.

 

[pjeski]

Nope, 3 strikes and you're out is official NRA policy, at least at the NRA Basic Pistol Instructor course. Stupid. All of my guns, even my single shot deer rifle, are weapons, plain and simple. My ARs are not "modern sporting rifles" or any other such ridiculous PC term and I won't buy from a manufacturer who refers to them as such. If someone asks me what I need an assault rifle for I politely say that thats what the 2nd amendment is supposed to be about but unfortunately it has been violated and I am limited to semi automatics rather than actual assault rifles like we're supposed to have.

Would you have a link or a cite for the three strikes thing?

 

[Sam1911]

If its good enough for the police, for all the positive reasons they use to justify it, then its good enough for the populace. The police are professionally determining the capabilities they need to meet the force used by criminals. As a non-military entity, the police are much closer to the citizenry than the military, and provide a bridge across the false dichotomy created in the minds of the antis regarding the AR. If we have a right to self defense, and we have a right to the same (main) platforms that the civilian police use, then the patrol rifle is an accepted, justified, legitimate platform for the citizenry.

You're completely missing the fundamental chasm that ruins your argument.

When the average non-gunner looks at an agent of the government, s/he doesn't care whether the uniform they're wearing is green, or blue, or tan, or SWAT black. It's all agents of the government, and those are the "guys with the guns."

Pointing out to them that these AR-15s are the guns the police use CANNOT help to make them accept that their friends and neighbors need to have those weapons, too.

Look at all the flak (even in gun lovin' places like Texas for heaven's sake!) over Joe Citizen walking around with a pistol on his hip. OMG!!! "Man with a gun! Call 911!" Or at least that's what anti-OC folks will tell you happens. And in some places it does happen, indeed.

But what happens when your "one of us" cops walks into Arby's with his holstered sidearm, pepper spray, taser, baton, cuffs, etc? NOTHING. Because he's an agent of the state. He's one of the uniforms who's SUPPOSED to carry all that stuff around. Not Joe Citizen.

The "Patrol Rifle" naming is simply a dead end. I see your reason for liking it, but it doesn't work for us, it works against us.

Let it drop.

 

[ColoradoShooter77]

Do I think a very determined tyrant could take over the American population, yeah.

Do I think that a skilled, armed populace is a very strong deterrent to that prospect, absolutely!

What's the core motivation for disarmament from the left? It makes subjugation of the populace much easier.

 

[HoosierQ]

+1

My AR-15 is not a "patrol rifle", no more so than it is an "assault rifle".

Frankly, you're coming up with your own stupid term to combat the use of the anti's own stupid term. In the end, there is no winner, it's all semantics, and it's all pointless.

It is just a rifle.

At the end of the day this is it. I am afraid I agree with many. Getting a name change "on the books" isn't going to make a bit of difference. When I refer to my AR I call it my carbine. I also have a bolt action carbine.