What should the new code name for a modern military style rifle be?

[Autolycus]

An AR is a rifle. Nothing more.

An AK is a rifle. Nothing more.

Homeland Defense Weapon sounds cheesy and sounds cheesy in my opinion. There seems to be a lot of people here who do not take the antis seriously and point out their emotionally charged adjectives. Like Assault rifle. Now doing the same thing by calling it a Homeland Defense Weapon is not any better.

If you tell someone that you want an assault rifle in my neck of the woods they may look at you funny and think your looking to kill someone. (I am in Illinois). If you tell them you want a homeland defense weapon they will still look at you funny and ask who is attacking your homeland?

If you tell them you want a rifle they will understand and there will be no need to start ranting about antis or the governement or tyranny.

Incidentally gunowners make other gunowners look bad I think when they go talk about things like this and dont see that they are doing the same thing as the people they complain about.

 

[10 Ring Tao]

Sport Utility Rifle seems to fit better than anything I've used to describe some of my favorite guns.

 

[mountainclmbr]

I did not find my choice "Constitutionally compliant personal safety protection device, all found in non-compliance shall be fined to reimburse government for placing individual into treatment for insanity". OK, maybe it was too long to make the list, but you could put this one on and leave most other choices off.

 

[SaMx]

no code names, we don't need to be disingenuous. It's just a rifle. Call it a defensive rifle if that's why you own it. Call it a target rifle if that's why you own it. Call it a hunting rifle if that's why you own it. It's a rifle.

 

[kfranz]

KFranz...yes, I do provide training in this area...

Come, grasshopper, learn the ways...

Behavoir is changed thru unwavering repetition. So, you, the individual person, can help by everytime you are about to speak of said rifles, using the term Homeland Defense Rifle. Use it to your friends. Use it at the gun store. Use it at the range. Use it in letters to your representatives and the media. Use it in your posts here or on other forums. See, now you have done your part.

Remember when the media started calling suicide bombers "homicide bombers"? It seemed to happen overnight, right? Now, I hear it on TV and don't even think twice. If gun owners would just take a second...this tactic is not hard to do and could achieve ALOT. Even if it's done with a nod and a wink, that's okay.

We need to start doing (OR SAYING) something else. Using simple reason to argue our 2nd Ammendment rights with those who would deprive us of them won't work...reason does not apply to those who are irrational!

Lets put the old terminology to bed.

You said "quickly". Your tactic will not work quickly, as it will not be heard by millions of idiots a day. FWIW, I haven't heard "homicide bomber" in probably two years.

 

[The Deer Hunter]

How about, uh, murder stick, or death maker or something like that. Not really, i voted for whatever it is. Assualy rifle was invented by anti's to gain support for their campaigns, sad but true.

 

[Sylvan-Forge]

Keeping it poignantly clear; Longarms and sidearms.
As in the right to keep and bear.

 

[Wes Janson]

Am I the only one who dislikes the recent usage of the word "homeland" to refer to semi/pseudo-patriotic subjects? Sorry, but it just strikes me as just a bit too Sovietesque for my tastes (Department of Homeland Security?). Consider the chorus to the National Anthem of the Soviet Union:

Sing to the Motherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!

Perhaps it's shortsighted/paranoid of me, but it makes me just a wee bit uncomfortable to hear the term thrown around, particularly by our government. "Us versus Them" is the oldest and easiest way to coerce masses into going along with what would be considered under other circumstances to be reprehensible and outrageous actions, and I don't like giving up linguistic territory for no good reason.

Personally, as I've stated elsewhere in regards to the "sniper" term, I think the entire argument is missing the point. Let the antis call it whatever they want, it's not going to change the fact that they're actively out to get them. Arguing semantics over select-fire versus semi-automatic is avoiding and denying the underlying fact that certain firearms were designed or built with the express purpose of being used, as someone else put it, on a two-way rifle range. The simple truth is that some rifles, handguns, and shotguns are more effective in combat than others. Trying to play the semantics game, or bringing up sporting purposes, is just backpedaling away from the truth of the matter: they're meant to be fighting tools. Seems to me that for too long we've been trying to hide behind hunting and competition uses rather than admit the obvious truth, and defending it openly.

Based on the responses to Zumbo, I'm guessing that a significant percentage of others here would agree with me about the RKBA. We shouldn't be fighting a running retreat in the battle over public perception by trying to call things anything but their true name.

 

[MatthewVanitas]

Assualy rifle was invented by anti's to gain support for their campaigns, sad but true.

Nope, "assault rifle" is a literal translation of "sturmgewehr", a German military term from WWII (earlier?).

The antis were big on the term "assault weapon", but I have heard some argue (with pictures of book covers as evidence) that the gunnies used this term before the antis grabbed it.

The 2nd edition of the "Gun Digest Book of Assault Weapons" came out in 1989, for example. Can't quite track down what year the 1st Ed was. Here's the snazzy cover of the 6th, in its full F-U glory.

-MV

 

[sm]

Titan6 wrote:

A is A

To steal from Rand, Plato, Socrates and Descarte A is A. A thing can not be anything other than what it is. To put forth anything different is dishonest and morally bankrupt. If we stoop to that level than we have already lost.

Excellent Post and I agree!!

 

[Axman]

Patriot freedom rifle!

 

[ReadyontheRight]

"Rifle".

Unless of course you prefer "shotgun" or "handgun" -- there's nothing wrong with that.

I don't really care how they load a round into the chamber. I care how well they shoot.

 

[Groovski]

Keeping it poignantly clear; Longarms and sidearms.
As in the right to keep and bear.

Well said, oo7. Political correctness just muddies the waters and weakens what 2A was all about. There's no need to apologize or whitewash our rights:

"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson,

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Thomas Jefferson,

"The beauty of the Second Amendment Right is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." -- Thomas Jefferson

"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually. . . ." --George Mason, Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention

 

[ReadyontheRight]

Great point Groovski. "Arms" has worked well for centuries.

I also vote for "Vera".

 

[Gord]

+1 for "murder stick".

Seriously, this thread and pretty much everything in it is retarded. Nobody in the MSM or the Brady Bunch is going to stop calling them "assault weapons" no matter what we call them. They are properly rifles or longarms and anything else is a label applied by someone who has an agenda to further. Simple as that.

 

[EricTheBarbarian]

im going to call my ak Katie from now on

 

[ndh87]

Why cant we just call things what they are? A rifle is a rifle reguardless of what type action it has. The same goes for pistols and shotguns. Anything can be an "Assult weapon" If i threw a brick at someone then it could be said that the brick was a weapon and i assulted someone with it. Lets just throw out the semantics and call things what they really are.

 

[sharkhunter2018]

call 'em whatever it actually is.

 

[ambush]

Seriously, this thread and pretty much everything in it is retarded.
Thanks Tactical Ninja....my thoughts on this subject make me retarded in your eyes. And you are correct....my agenda is to make sure WE can keep on enjoying or Second Amendment freedoms.

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

I call my AK "Nadia", since it is Romanian.

From current events we should call the EBRs ...

"Zumbowskis"

 

[ron8903]

Just plane old RIFLE

 

[trainwreck100]

Boomstick

 

[gunsmith]

ZK!

ZOMBIE KILLER!

I often refer to them as Sport Utility Rifles

 

[nramember2]

Seriously. This has already been debated. The Pro-gun activists use two groups, "Sporting arms" and "Hunting arms" They do not use "rifle", "gun" or "weapon" they feel the use of these terms feeds the anti's. The 2a says arms.
with no distinction.

Sporting arms include, arms used for any other purpose other than hubting.
Hunting arms, Self explanatory.

 

[Titan6]

Arms is just fine. A little antiquated but still valid today (I don't go to the arms shop to buy some arms).

Get rid of the sporting and hunting bit. Sell that to Zumbo and the Brady. They say that they do not want people to give up arms for sporting and hunting.

The 2A is not about sporting and hunting, never was. As soon as you give up the ground that that the fight should be fought on we lose.