SAD! Media Realizes “Assault Weapon” Term is Meaningless Before Congress Does

250 years later and this is still the best the American press ever did.

Did journalism just get a little, teeny, tiny bit more honest on guns?

As you know, one of the anti-gunners’ most useful tools is the gaggle of useful idiots who have the nerve to call themselves “journalists.” For decades, the mainstream media has been thrilled to refer to semi-automatic, civilian-legal, military-looking black guns as “assault rifles.” The gun grabbers know that there’s a difference, but they’re hoping to fool Joe and Jane Sixpack into thinking that anyone can just stroll into a gun store and buy a full-auto machine gun. (As you also know, they don’t just want your guns. They want your mind, too.) Up until now, the Associated Press has gleefully assisted in this blatant lie. But apparently someone at AP finally sat them all down with a giant chart, some Play-Doh, and some crayons to snack on … and voila, the discourse just got a little tiny bit more honest.

Of course, Congress hasn’t figured that out yet. Many such cases! Sad!

After years of incorporating the terms “assault rifle” and “assault weapons” into news reports involving firearms, especially when used in crimes, journalists are now advised by the Associated Press to avoid the “highly politicized terms,” and the Second Amendment Foundation says it’s a “smart gun change.”

“It’s about time the media realized the terms ‘assault rifle’ and ‘assault weapon’ are inflammatory and meaningless,” said Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Those terms have become part of the gun prohibition lobby’s lexicon, and unfortunately, journalists across the country have been all-too-willing to adopt their vocabulary and repeatedly use it in their reports.

“I’m glad to see the AP Stylebook now recognizes that these firearms only fire one round each time a trigger is pulled,” he continued, “and really function no differently than any other semi-auto rifle, pistol or shotgun, all of which have been in common use in this country for more than a century.”

Dear Associated Press: THIS is what an assault weapon is. Notice the wooden furniture and absence of scary-looking black bits hanging off of rails.

According to an AP Style Tip, “The preferred term for a rifle that fires one bullet each time the trigger is pulled, and automatically reloads for a subsequent shot, is a semi-automatic rifle. An automatic rifle continuously fires rounds if the trigger is depressed and until its ammunition is exhausted.

“Avoid assault rifle and assault weapon,” the AP adds, “which are highly politicized terms that generally refer to AR- or AK-style rifles designed for the civilian market, but convey little meaning about the actual functions of the weapon.”

As noted by Gottlieb, “The gun prohibition lobby has always used ‘assault rifle’ or ‘assault weapon’ to confuse and frighten the public and make people think it’s a fully automatic ‘weapon of war.’ Now we’ll have to see how intellectually honest journalists will be in adopting this correct terminology, rather than continuing to use these deliberately misleading references.

“This laudable effort by the Associated Press may help restore the level of trust the public should have in the media,” he observed. “It will be interesting to see if the media now challenges politicians and anti-gun lobbyists whenever they use such terms, especially since ‘AR’ never referred to ‘assault rifle’ but to Armalite Rifle, and the gun control crowd has always known it.”