We Must Wholly Reject the Liberal Narrative, Starting With the Term “Assault Weapon”

For too long the right has allowed the left to define not just the debate, but the very terms used in the debate. We’ve allowed the left to define the cultural narrative and now find all the ills of society laid at our feet. Even when a radical Islamic terrorist targets a gay club, the fault is ours. It’s time to stop allowing the left to paint us as their perpetual scapegoats. They have given comfort to and emboldened an ideology that wants them dead; but rather than reexamining their culturally suicidal worldviews, they would rather try to disarm lawful Americans.

Thus, we have discovered, if you allow your political opposition to control the narrative, you will likely wake to find a lot of people subscribing to a narrative that blames you for all of society’s problems. We must reject this narrative, and to do so we must reject the very terms they use to frame to debate, starting with “assault weapon” and “assault rifle.”

The left is rallying to a narrative that blames “assault weapons” as the source of the problem and that banning their ownership will solve our problems.

How many guns were used on 9/11? In the Boston bombing? At Oklahoma City’s Federal Building? The 1993 World Trade Center Attack? I digress….

Now the country and media are focused on “assault weapons” — the only problem being that “assault weapon” is a totally made-up term used by liberals to regulate our right to bear arms. While this fact is probably mind-blowing to leftists, most of us on the right know the term “assault weapon” is hogwash — it simply describes the aesthetics of a gun and has nothing to do with operation or functionality. In fact, there is nothing operationally different in an assault rifle than a hunting rifle.

That’s why “assault weapon” bans are nonsense — they seek to ban guns based on how they look, not how they perform. But to the left, it’s a way to attack the 2nd Amendment without sounding like they’re against all guns, even though they are.

So why have those of us who know better accepted this term? Why are we not constantly calling out the media and liberals on the fact that they have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about? The words “assault weapon” should always be put in quotations. We must not allow them to define the terms of the debate, or we shall surely lose.