AR-15 has been the buzzword being thrown around after the Orlando shooting. It is of course, the same rifle that the media is quick to point out, the same rifle used by the Sandy Hook shooter and the Aurora shooter. Another buzzword attached to this debate is “assault rifles.”
So the debate now revolves around banning “assault rifles” and AR-15 has been labelled as an automatic rifle. Right after the shooting, democrats chanted “where’s the bill?” They demanded that Republicans take responsibility for the atrocities and pass laws to regulate these rifles.
However this line of calling a ban on assault rifles only harms the liberal cause in reducing gun violence. This only allows room for Republicans to point out how out of touch they are from the technicalities of guns.
The Guns Myths That Liberals Perpetuate
Liberals, in fear of facing a political hunt, refuse to directly tackle the 2nd amendment. In the course of that, they have perpetuated myths about guns in a failing attempt to quell fears of Republicans saying that democrats are out for their guns. So they claim that they are only interested in taking certain guns. So what are these myths?
One common myth is that there needs to be a ban on assault rifles or semiautomatic rifles. This is normally associated with the AR-15 rifle. Assault rifle, is normally defined as a rifle that can be switched between automatic fire (full-auto) and semiautomatic fire (burst fire). By that definition, the AR-15 isn’t an assault rifle as it is semiautomatic. The problem with this is that assault rifles have been banned since 1934. That means assault rifles have been out of civilian hands for more than 70 years. Then there are hell fire triggers, a device that allows semi-automatic rifles to be modified to have a rate of fire almost approaching an automatic weapon. These too have been banned since 1994, almost 20 years ago. So technically, assault rifles are banned, a technicality that Republicans have pointed out that falls deaf on the ears of Liberals.
The other myth is that there is no ban on assault weapons. The first problem with that statement is that no one has been able to come up with a consistent definition of an assault weapons. That’s why the debate on this has been confusing as it can range from the ability to attach a bayonet to a rifle that has stock that looks like a M16 to high capacity rifles. The former has often been a source of jokes amongst soldiers, who call that category of aesthetics on weapons “tacticool” for its resemblance to tactical weapons, but not the same abilities. If that doesn’t give away anything, such attachments only mean aesthetics. Gun control advocates more often than not stressed that they are not here to take away all guns and they are willing to leave behind hunting rifles or “modern sport rifles.”
Therein lies another problem, weapons like the AR-15 or the Sig-Sauer MCX is normally considered to be “modern sport rifles.” It’s not the same rifles used on the combat theatre. Just because they look the same, it does not mean they are the same.
This is why the NRA and Republicans are able to win the semantics debate about guns. Liberals don’t want to argue the validity of the 2nd amendment first but want to ban some guns. This is where liberals who are averse to guns and unable to create distinctions fail to keep up with the jargon and terminologies.
How the “Semantic Debate” is Harming the Democrat Cause?
If Democrats continue to debate at this level, they will forever be trapped in a cat & mouse game. Unfortunately Democrats fear tackling the constitution. So they have to go through all these technicalities. All technicalities allow are loopholes to be exploited.
When governments around the world plan to legislate seatbelts, they don’t add in technicalities where they say seatbelts can be removed if the windshields are of a different type or how certain cars are safe enough to make sure their passengers don’t need seatbelts. Everyone just argues the necessity of seat belts.
Democrats don’t fear certain type of guns, they fear the access those with intentions to hurt, main or kill have towards guns. Yet, they don’t argue the source. When the Port Arthur massacre happened in Australia, the government didn’t argue that they are going to take certain type of guns or “assault weapons” only.
They stepped away from the semantics and looked at the source. As long as you are able to a gun, that is designed to kill another human being, then those guns need to be taken away. They didn’t let their opposition drag them to their level and get bullied around. This unfortunately is what the Republicans are doing; bullying.
Since they control the terms of the debate, it’s easy for them to make Democrats look dumb when it comes to guns. They look out of touch when they get the wrong terminology (and for that, I’m sorry if I made any wrong reference in the brief explainer above), misuse jargons (like assault rifles) or even make categories that don’t even exist because it looks scary (assault weapons for tacticool weapons). Combine all of that, the Republicans did a good job. Anyone who has any interest in guns would look at Democrats and see how helpless they are when they start naming these weapons.
Here’s a simple analogy. Remember how silly James Inhofe looked when he brought a snowball to disprove global warming? Or how silly Donald Trump sounded when he said that he felt cold during winter, thus proving his crazy conspiracy theory that China fabricated global warming? It’s because they refuse to deal global warming on a scientific level and they don’t know the right terminologies to deal with. This resulted in Democrats having an upper hand to make them look stupid. The same thing is going on with Republicans bullying Democrats in this debate.
We will forever get stuck in this semantic war of attrition if we refuse to deal the core: is the 2ndamendment still applicable today?
Originally written for Opinions Unleashed
Terence Aaron is a contributor for Eccentric Journal
