Beth Alcazar, writing at USCCA, has bought one of the victim disarmers’ biggest lies.
The Constitution Didn’t Intend for Us to Have So-Called ‘Assault Rifles’
Interesting how people have infiltrated our reference tools and inserted interpretations. Well, so be it, then. Here’s my interpretation: An assault rifle is any kind of rifle being used by an evildoer to attack someone. In other words, it’s a weapon that a violent person is using to harm or kill others. (Or, to use the active voice and clarify the subject and who is actually taking the action of the verb: The term “assault weapon” refers to a violent person using a gun to assault people.)
No, no, no.
An assault rifle is a real thing: a select-fire rifle chambered for an intermediate-power cartridge. The term — and the class of weapon — dates back more than seven decades. You no more get to change the definition than a snowflake gets to call “speech I disagree with” violence.
Then there’s “assault weapon,” which generally means absolutely nothing. In certain jurisdictions, the term is defined in law, but one state’s ordinary rifle may be another state’s “assault weapon.” and vice versa. It’s arbitrary and confusing.
By deliberate intent.
As best I can tell, the term “assault weapon” originated with victim disarmer Josh Sugarmann in 1988.
“The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these guns.”
Congratulations, Alcazar; you just bought Sugarmann’s große Lüge. What’s next; are you going to adopt George Skelton’s “Mass-Shooting Gun” terminology?
Alcazar is wrong on another point. The Constitution was meant to protect our right to every “terrible implement of the soldier” as the “birthright of an American.”*
No matter what you try to call it.
* The Supreme Court somewhat disagreed in MILLER; holding that the Second Amendment only protected our right to military weapons. As no one showed up to counter the prosecution’s ignorant claim that short-barrel shotguns aren’t used by the military, the Court rolled with that.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
(More Tip Jar Options) |
