Posted on 03/09/2018 8:56:40 AM PST by MarvinStinson
A pair of left-leaning reporters complained in an op-ed and on social media that gun-rights activists are wrong to demand that they learn gun terminology before opining on gun policy.
Writing for the Washington Post this week, journalist Adam Weinstein complained that "The NRA and its allies use jargon to bully gun-control supporters."
"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," Weinstein wrote.
"Perhaps someone tweets about ‘assault-style' weapons, only to be told that there's no such thing," he continued. "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."
Wesintein coined this phenomenon "gunsplaining" and complained that it is "always done in bad faith."
"Like mansplaining, it's less about adding to the discourse than smothering it," he added.
Vox reporter Zack Beauchamp agreed, arguing on Twitter that there is not a need for gun-control proponents to have knowledge of the terminology.
Zack Beauchamp
Saying you need to understand gun terminology to have opinions on gun policy is the equivalent of saying you need to understand the biology of a heroin overdose to have an opinion on the drug war
Beauchamp's tweet was promptly "ratioed," with journalists and activists on the other side of the issue expressing their disagreement.
Jay Caruso
It’s not just terminology. When people say things like, “The AR-15 can fire 700 rounds a minute” or say handguns “are too slow” to stop a school shooter, they speak from a position of total ignorance. Why should we listen to them?
Noah Rothman
This analogy aside, we should always demand intellectual rigor and specificity from folks commenting with any authority on public affairs. And we do.
Stephen Miller
Isn’t it your job to explain things?
Kinda like getting your trannie fixed,
because it’s slipping....
“Saying you need to understand gun terminology to have opinions on gun policy is the equivalent of saying you need to understand the biology of a heroin overdose to have an opinion on the drug war”
A fine defense of stupidity and ignorance.
Lazy sods.
Ooops. I didnt mean “shoots”. I meant “FARTS”.
Could you be thinking of assault weapon? I believe assault rifle does have a definition in the military as a selective fire rifle of medium power. In contrast, assault weapon is some sort of made up political term.
The left is always bullying everyone. They’re always projecting.
They think remaining innocent about guns is virtuous. Their entire lives revolve around proclaiming their virtue, and looking down on others.
Before we had all these terminology fetishes, when I was growing up, we just called them “assholes” and left it at that.
I carried a m16 a1. Never once called it an assualt rifle. I know the Germans had the storm rifle intermediate cartridge auto rifle. That is claimed to be the genesis of assault rifles. I will stick to my guns on this out of overt cussedness in any case.
Come to think of it, we didn’t call our M16’s assault rifles either, but I was navy. Those were for defense to repel boarders. I’ll start calling the M16 a defense rifle then. We assaulted with torpedoes and cruise missiles. Guess I’ll start calling them assault torpedoes and assault cruise missiles.
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