Words matter.
Using jargon to bully press control supporters
Mrs. Harvey Weinstein, Jr., spokeskitten for Hermaphrodites Of The World, typed a WordStar podcast for a Better Homes & Gardens investigative journalism piece calling for a ban on inorganic molecular printing presses with neutronium moveable type of the sort used by the Parkland shooter to disintegrate 17 people in a blast of gamma ray particulate radiation. In a radiation-free school zone, no less.
Well… no. Mister Adam Weinstein, an editor, wrote in a WaPo Op-Ed column that RKBA supporters are unfairly expecting those who would regulate and ban defensive and hunting tools to know WTF they’re talking about.
Words. Effing. Matter.
Gun owners want to know what you plan to ban next, so we can plan accordingly ourselves. Are you going to ban semiautomatic rifles based on the original AR-15 pattern, or are you going to ban double-single action 1911s, bullet-piercing bullets, ghost bullets, heat-seeking bullets, 30 caliber rapid-fire magazines, shoulder things that go up, and multi-burst trigger activators? None of which exist, but all of which have been proposed for bans.
The Supreme Court will want to know, too; “unconstitutionally vague” laws get tossed. Banning imaginary stuff is pretty darned vague.
We tend to object to “assault weapon” for similar reasons. Weasels like Weinstein think we should just know what that means. But in most of the country the term has no meaning; we aren’t being glib and obfuscatory. It means jacks**t. Sure the term is defined in a few states…
…with definitions that vary by state. A California “assault weapon” may or may not be an “assault weapon” in Connecticut. Tell us what you mean. Know what you mean. Be able to tell the courts what it means. Be able to tell the courts why your definition makes one model of a given firearm an “assault weapon,” but somehow excludes an operationally identical model without being “unconstitutionally vague.”
You don’t like us condescendingly telling you that AR-15 doesn’t mean “assault rifle?” That isn’t condescension, that’s because “assault rifle” does have a specific, uniform meaning, and it is physically freaking impossible for a stock AR-15 to be one. We want you to tell us WTF you’re talking about. SCOTUS will expect the same thing.
You might as well be demanding a bill to make pi equal to 3.2, or to square circles. When your language — your words — don’t reflect physical reality, we tend to think either 1) you’re an idiot, 2) you’re schizophrenic, 3) deliberately confusing people to force a ban they wouldn’t actually want, or 4) All of the Above.
What Weinstein actually said:
In this kind of war over words, both sides probably need to give a little. But the pro-gun side needs to give a lot more — not just because it’s been disingenuously gunsplaining to shut down discussions and close minds for years — but because the onus should be on those citizens who own the weapons technology, and purport to understand it, to share that understanding with the skeptical and less-informed. That’s a responsibility that goes along with the right to bear arms.
In short, the “pro-gun side” needs to give up accuracy and reality. We’ve tried to “share that understanding with the skeptical and less-informed,” only to be told we’re “gunsplaining.” The fact that uninformed people with no interest in facts have trouble grasping facts does not mean the reality-based gun owners are shutting down discussions.
Weinstein is the victim-disarming equivalent of someone who heard that the Internet runs on tubes, and wants to regulate PVC and cast iron plumbing, and guarantee firehoses to everyone in the interest of “net neutrality.”
If you don’t know what you’re talking about, the “onus” is not on your opposition to reduce their IQ to your level by voluntary lobotomy.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and bills.
There is one thing I find to be true, those who promote tyranny are constantly wrongly accusing those who promote liberty as being the bullies and liars that those who promote tyranny are.
It’s like when you hear one of their false accusations it’s really is only a reflection of them.
The word you’re searching for is projection.
+1
Some salient facts from the Market-Ticker. Designer is spot on….
“The NY Times and others are arguing for banning something because fewer than 0.0033% of them are criminally misused; all of the rest are owned and used for perfectly-legal purposes by law-abiding Americans. This is equivalent to arguing for the banning of ownership of pick-up trucks because a religious nut used one to murder people in New York, which I remind you did happen just last year.
In addition about 90 Americans a year are murdered while traveling in Mexico, or about the same number of people killed with Armalite-style rifles (and about the same number murdered in mass-shootings annually too.) Yet only about 25-30 million Americans visit Mexico a year which means on a per-person basis it’s 10 times more dangerous to go to Mexico than it is to go to school, a mall or other place where mass shooting occur (which basically every American does.) Is anyone seriously considering destroying Mexico for this outrage? Or shall we talk about the number of illegal invaders that murder Americans every year — also far more than 100. May I remind you that the Democrats — and the “David Hogg” crowd — are all for those illegal invaders being here, even though they’re here illegally, and even though they are responsible for about 22% of all homicides. Were we to send all of them home every one of those homicides would not happen.
To put numbers on this that amounts to about 4,000 murders a year or some 40 times the number of people killed in mass-shootings. David Hogg supports the policies that cause every one of those 4,000 murders. He’s a liar and a fraud — period.”
The liar and fraud assessment can be expanded to include most of the democrat/SJW/socialist/communists. More have killed bother government than by war and et al. Statism kills.
There’s nothing left to talk about with these bastards.
They’re now calling the NRA a terrorist organization.
Next will be member lists to round up.
We need our rifles more today than in any time in the history of our country.
It’s time for war against these progressive bastards.
Sounds like the current educational disaster known as common (rotten to the) core. Teach to the lowest common denominator. And the leftists do not “think”. They would never agree to having to explain why they NEED their iPhone, or their Jaguar, or their ________. Because well, they needzzzz…
Well if they ban..anything. We must consider the very real possibility of direct action. The Jews in Germany in the 1920’s and 30’s gave up weapons without a fight. Everybody here knows how that turned out. They say publicly that they mean to kill every gun owner. Every Christian. Every Jew. I take them at their word. I think I would rather die fighting than I would in a dark room after a train ride. In Warsaw they killed 60 to one. We can certainly do better than that.
If someone does start direct action you will need to terminate the political one who voted for it, as well as their security and the LEOs; until someone see the errors of their ways and corrects it. (The FIRST Rule of Leadership in NEVER issue an ORDER that WILL NOT be followed).
I do not know or can guess the following:
1.) How many LEOs will continue trying to confiscate firearms after they see the death and injured on their side for what is gained.
2.) How the Political “leaders”, their security and LEOs will react when they are targeted when on patrol, on/off duty, at home, traveling and so on. (no it is not fair, but neither is life, BTW thank you for the weapons, ammunition and equipment, we will put it to good use defending Freedom and our God given rights from tyrants).
3.) How fast the breakdown of society in cities will take (I figure 2-3 days), it likely will look like the city fighting in Stalingrad during WWII as both sides try to destroy the other.
And lastly I can not believe how many ignorant, foolish and even stupid people on both sides believe “IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE”, because it can! And will unless DEMOCRATS and the left learn to do what they promise they will do (Like the 2006 promise to built a wall between Mexico and the US); and “compromise” does not mean my side gets everything they want and the other side gets anything they want!