The NRA and its allies use jargon to bully gun-control supporters

[billh58]

Last edited Thu Mar 22, 2018, 02:22 PM - Edit history (1)

If you don’t know what the “AR” in AR-15 stands for, you don’t get to talk.

The phenomenon isn’t new, but in the weeks since the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., a lot of gun-skeptical liberals are getting a taste of it for the first time: While debating the merits of various gun control proposals, Second Amendment enthusiasts often diminish, or outright dismiss their views if they use imprecise firearms terminology. Perhaps someone tweets about “assault-style” weapons, only to be told that there’s no such thing. Maybe they’re reprimanded that an AR-15 is neither an assault rifle nor “high-powered.” Or they say something about “machine guns” when they really mean semiautomatic rifles. Or they get sucked into an hours-long Facebook exchange over the difference between a “clip” and a “magazine.”

Has this happened to you? If so, you’ve been gunsplained: harangued with the pedantry of the more-credible-than-thou firearms owner, admonished that your inferior knowledge of guns and their nomenclature puts an asterisk next to your opinion on gun control

It can be infuriating, being forced to sweat the finest taxonomic distinctions among our nation’s unlimited variety of lethal weapons. I know this feeling acutely, having covered gun violence critically for the better part of a decade and having just buried an old mentor, killed in the Parkland massacre.

-Snip-

Gunsplaining, though, is always done in bad faith. Like mansplaining, it’s less about adding to the discourse than smothering it — with self-appointed authority, and often the thinnest of connection to any real fact. (If gunsplaining had a motto, it might be Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher’s macabre old saw: “Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/03/06/the-nra-and-its-allies-use-jargon-to-bully-gun-control-supporters/?utm_term=.e452f2023b02

NRA supporters and apologists can't seem to bring themselves to confront logical reasons for the need for stricter gun control laws and regulations, so they resort to gunsplaining. Their argument goes something like, "if you are not completely knowledgeable about guns, gun attachments, and ammunition, you are not qualified to have an opinion about guns." Then they begin to try and educate the unwashed about the virtues of guns and gun ownership, care, and handling.

What I need to know about deadly weapons in order to call for more strict regulation of them is this: they are instruments of death, and are inherently dangerous. Over 30,000 needless deaths by guns annually in this country is all the "facts" I really need to formulate this opinion. Gun deaths have exceeded automobile deaths, and we regulate automobiles for driver competency, liability, and safety. Why not guns? You need look no further than the insidious right-wing gun lobby and its lobbyist the NRA/ILA (as financed and promoted by ALEC and the Koch Brothers) and their greed for more profits.

As with most of its positions, the right-wing gunspalining crowd is disingenuous with respect to the connection between gun fetishism, and the Second Amendment's guarantees of the right to keep and bear arms. Every right comes with responsibilities, and is subject to reasonable regulation and control.

Gun violence has reached epidemic proportions in this country, and a majority of Americans have decided that the time for stricter regulation has come.

[ExciteBike66]

1. Also: AR-15 vs. M16 (bs distinction)

Technically speaking the modern M16 series rifles have a 3-round burst setting that civilian AR-15s don't have. Gun-nuts like to use this "distinction" to claim their civilian rifles are NOTHING LIKE the military versions.

Don't let this fool you! Infantrymen (like me in earlier years) are taught NOT to use the 3-round burst function, as it is generally regarded as a waste of ammo. Besides, we have larger, belt-fed automatics in our infantry squads that are perfectly capable of laying down suppressing fire.

[billh58]

3. Gunsplaining at its finest n/t

[Fred Sanders]

2. Rights come with responsibilites. Logicsplain that to a gunsplainer.

Wait for a lecture on "safety" and the danger of knives...the childish deflections are awesomely hilarious.

[Girard442]

4. Gunsplaining is definitely a thing, but...

...if you've noticed the way pro-gun people argue, they basically just throw word salad out to keep the debate going in endless circles. Wouldn't matter if you could match them caliber-for-caliber and screw-for-screw. You'd end up discussing the fine points of, oh, I dunno, Siberian permafrost, or some such damn thing.

[brewens]

5. I got into that with a guy spewing NRA babbling points. I intentionally started talking about the

assault weapons ban from 1985 to bait him into it. Of course I got the, "those guns were already banned, you already couldn't own fully auto weapons..." the usual bullshit. I counter with that is what it is commonly known as and only you guys seem to be confused with what we're talking about. I posted a link and some of the text of the actual House bill.

I then pointed out that for the purposes of the bill, they were called semi-automatic assault weapons (SAW) and that was in bold text from the bill right there too. He jumps in with, "no. SAW stands for squad automatic weapon....." More bullshit. Then I told him, for the purposes of legislation, any kind of training you might ever have had at a company, any technical documents you might ever read, you can use an acronym for brevity any time you want. If my blood center has some equipment or a procedure where it would make sense to use SAW, it makes no difference whatsoever what the army calls one of it's light machine guns. If I'm learning to maintain some blood collection equipment, I'm not going to be confused and wonder if they are talking about a machine gun.

[Aristus]

9. If he spews that acronym shit at you again, remind him that 'NRA' actually stands for

'National Recovery Act'.

[brewens]

14. Damn! Why didn't that come to me? "Look you dumb fuck, NRA stands for...LOL

Thanks

[Aristus]

15. Glad I could help.

[Hoyt]

6. Cracks me up when gun-enthusiasts say we can't have an opinion on slugs penetrating heads of kids,

adults, police, innocent people, animals, etc., if we don't know the difference between a magazine and clip (to their satisfaction).

I've seen that BS right here among people who can't even read the 2nd or 5th Amendment correctly.

[billh58]

7. They have turned the Second Amendment

and its interpretation into an organized religion, and we all know how that mindset twists an adherent's perception of the truth.

[SCantiGOP]

8. In my opinion there are two types of guns

1 - handguns for personal protection and rifles/shotguns for hunting; and,
2 - military weapons such as AR-15s that should be limited to military and police use only.

And the type 1 guns should be regulated like cars, meaning required training, licensing and insurance. Concealed carry should of be highly regulated and permitted only when a true need can be demonstrated.

I think this would fully comply with the Founder’s intent when they included “well-regulated militia” in the language of the Sevind Amendment.

[billh58]

11. Any rational person

would quickly agree with you. Irrational people would argue that unless you know the complete nomenclature and characteristics of the weapons you wish to regulate, and successfully passed the Second Amendment purity test, you could not possibly be trusted to recommend such measures, and should be dismissed as an "anti."

[Aristus]

10. Someone was here not long ago insisting that we had no right to judge gun-crazies

unless we became proficient with guns ourselves.

I called him out on that pile of bullshit.

[billh58]

12. That premise is being

promoted on DU as we speak...

[Aristus]

13. Exactly.

I refuted him directly, citing my firearms training in the Army, and my unshakeable anti-gun position.