Posted on 04/01/2018 7:57:44 AM PDT by Simon Green
Soon after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Merriam-Websters online dictionary changed its definition of assault rifle.
The entry for assault rifle, which was updated March 31, 2018, reads as follows:
noun: any of various intermediate-range, magazine-fed military rifles (such as the AK-47) that can be set for automatic or semiautomatic fire; also : a rifle that resembles a military assault rifle but is designed to allow only semiautomatic fire
After 17 people were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, activists have been using the tragic events to make the sale of so-called assault weapons illegal.
An Internet archive search shows the Merriam-Webster entry for assault rifle appears to be different now than it was before the shooting. A cached version of the same entry from June 13, 2016 has this definition:
noun: any of various automatic or semiautomatic rifles with large capacity magazines designed for military use
Assault weapon and assault rifles are malleable terms often used in public discourse to scare people. After all, all guns are designed to assault something. The usual proper use of this term is to describe fully automatic machine-gun-style weapons, which in the United States have been banned from civilian use for years. Notice that the Merriam-Webster change stretches this definition to include anything that looks like such a gun regardless of whether it shoots like one.
Yet media and politicians often use this term inaccurately, as doing so furthers their desire of getting Americans to support gun-control policies. As Sean Davis pointed out on our pages last year, when the United States had a federal assault weapons ban, lawmakers defined the term cosmetically instead of by function and, contra Merriam-Webster, had nothing to do with a military-esque design (whatever that means):
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
The liberals have driven this country stark raving insane and are out of control.
They are emboldened by the lack of equal and opposite reaction, which is being actively blocked by the press, MSM, Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al, all domestic enemies. So, we have to go around all of them, then we go through them from behind.
So is the living and breathing U.S. Constitution for Leftists.
I think we're safe on that front until 2020. I they take Congress and the WH, all bets are off.
Hilarious!
Leftism corrupts everything.
Maybe for them. Passing another AWB would be the death knell of their party, as only the lunatic fringe of their base will ever support such an infringement of our gun rights.
Like I said, even typical Dem voters are increasingly exercising their right to keep and bear arms. Not only are they obtaining guns for protection against the growing criminal element in deep blue areas, the long term thinkers among them have realized that the right is light years ahead of them in personal armaments.
An AWB in the near future would only put the left at a tactical disadvantage. We on the right are in pretty good shape.
Time to move the Merriam-Webster dictionary to the Fiction section of your local libraries and bookstores, folks.
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