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How
Terminology Influences the Gun Control Debate The
ability to control the terminology in a debate conveys a powerful advantage.
In the national gun control debate, this principle has been expertly
exploited by gun control advocates. The
emotionally charged, but technically meaningless term, “assault weapon”, is
a perfect example. The
term “assault rifle” dates from WWII Germany, where it was intended to be
less powerful than a normal rifle so that soldiers could more easily use it in
fully automatic mode and carry more rounds of the smaller ammunition.
These guns started life with the unimposing, but technically correct
name, “machine carbine”. These
fully automatic rifles of reduced power were not favored by Adolf Hitler,
because his experience in WW1 convinced him that rifles must fire powerful, long
range ammunition. Only after the
machine carbines had been produced without his permission, did he angrily
sanction the project, assigning the more heroic title, “assault rifle” (sturmgewehr).
It was a sensationalist name, chosen for propagandistic reasons.
It is not known for sure if Hitler invented the term himself or if it was
offered by his officers to appease the propaganda loving dictator.
It is ironic that anti-gun groups have appropriated Hitler’s dramatic
term for their own purposes today. This
less-powerful, fully automatic rifle concept was copied by the Soviets
immediately after the war, resulting in the AK-47. (The '47' stands for 1947)
The US and other countries followed suit after military theorists decided
that a smaller caliber, less lethal, automatic rifle could actually be an asset
on the battlefield, since a wounded soldier weakened the enemy forces more than
one who was killed. Civilian
ownership of assault rifles has been extremely rare in the Unites States, since
they are capable of fully automatic fire and have therefore been regulated to
near non-existence by the National Firearms Act of 1934.
Unfortunately, weapons that look even vaguely like AK-47’s are now
labeled as “assault weapons” by journalists and gun control advocates,
implying that a ban is needed to stop an epidemic of automatic weapons, when
such a ban has already been around for over six decades. Semi-automatic
variants of the AK-47 and other assault rifles are properly called carbines.
They are sold and used for a variety of legitimate civilian purposes,
including hunting. In fact, they
are functionally similar to many common hunting rifles, except that they fire a
less powerful cartridge. When gun
control advocates call for a ban on “powerful assault weapons”,
hunters are justifiably concerned about their right to own their even
more powerful hunting rifles and shotguns. Although
many experts have pointed out that “assault weapon” is a confusing and
illegitimate term, it lends drama to media stories. Therefore, sound bites from gun control organizations are
heavily laced with such misleading terms. Emboldened
by their media victories, anti-gun groups fabricated another new oxymoron,
“semi-automatic assault weapon”, to aid their attacks on other types of
weapons. The media loved it and
added their own variations. One
reporter for NPR recently made up
the bizarre term, “large caliber urban assault rifle.” Where
will this blatant misuse of terminology stop?
Even some handguns are now miscast as “semi-automatic assault
weapons”. One example is the
Tec-9, which is a rather low-tech pistol that fires a low-powered cartridge (the
9mm). The 9mm cartridge,
exaggerated in the press as a deadly high-tech bullet, was put in service in
1898, but the media often specifies this cartridge by name, implying that it is
especially modern and deadly, or worse, “high powered”.
Media reports now routinely mention the fact that a particular crime was
committed with a semi-automatic firearm, as if this somehow makes the crime more
alarming. Gun
control advocates and poorly educated journalists have mis-labeled many very old
and ordinary firearms with intimidating, technical-sounding, multi-syllable
terms. The result is that the
public has been led to believe that a wave of high-tech, military arms and
machine guns are flooding the streets, when these weapons have been heavily
restricted for decades and very rarely involved in crimes. Anti-gun
groups use these misleading messages to frighten the general public and dupe
journalists into promoting their real agenda, which is to ban guns one class at
a time. Each time they declare that they are only targeting this one class of
particularly evil weapons. Each
time they say that this is the “criminal’s weapon of choice”.
The definitions are kept deliberately vague, but with catchy titles, like
“Saturday night specials”, “junk guns” or “assault weapons”.
Later, those vague definitions can be expanded to include all guns. Dr. Michael S. Brown is an optometrist in Vancouver, WA who moderates a
large email list for discussion of gun issues in Washington State. You can reach
the rest of his archive here.
He may be reached at mb@e-z.net |
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