In Case You Missed It

Here is my article that recently appeared over at AmmoLand.com... I had actually forgotten to post it up over here on the blog until just the other day, so here it is. Now, this post received a bit of push back from the NSSF folks... which is to be expected. MSR is their baby, after all, and they have spent a great deal of time and money over the last several years trying to make it mainstream. I think they cherry picked my ho-hum "assualt rifle" comment and presented it way out of context, so read the article below for yourself to get the full gist of what I was saying. The point that I was making was simply that the term MSR has not effectively accomplished what it sought out to do... That is to change the dialogue of the debate. Agree or disagree (we all have to make up our own minds), but here is my opinion on the matter:



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I Dont like the Term "Modern Sporting Rifle"

There, I said it… I know that I’m going to catch heck for this, but somebody needs to say this. I love the idea behind it all. I love the effort to change the dialogue and to control the debate. Words are powerful, and choosing to use certain words instead of others (i.e assault rifle) can have a powerful influence on public opinion. But come on… lets be real… “Modern Sporting Rifle” has not been an effective choice of words.

We threw it up against the wall, but it just didn’t stick.

The biggest problem is that it has just not caught on. I have never, ever heard anyone outside of the firearms industry use this phrase. Yes, Mossberg has chosen to use it as the designation for their newest firearm introduction and that will bring it more to the forefront, but really its gotten to the point where its simply a non-starter. Say it to anyone who is not a gunnie and they look at you like you just spoke to them in Latin. No one outside of our circle knows what it is unless you explain it to them, and once you do they get a look on their face like you told them you just bought a timeshare in Cuba.

Modern Capacity Magazines
I think a big problem with the ineffectiveness of the phrase is that it just sounds like we are trying too hard when we use it. Its like we are almost acknowledging the fact that we are trying to game the debate and I believe it comes across as an obvious ploy. Its kinda like if Volkswagen all of a sudden tried distancing themselves from their Nazi roots by using the term “Modern People Movers“. Or what if we all started running around saying “Modern Capacity Magazines“? It just sounds silly. Its also difficult to realistically attach the phrase to a very large number of guns which just happen to look like assault rifles. Firearms like AKs, bull-pups, pistol variants, SBRs, and countless other semi-automatic forms of firearms whose legality shouldn’t even be in question.

So, I think we should drop the term “Modern Sporting Rifle“. Please, don’t misconstrue what I am saying here. I don’t think that we should give up the effort to change the dialogue, but I think we need to find a better term to use.

I honestly don’t know what we should choose, but I think the time has come to move on to something different. Heck, perhaps we should just embrace the term “assault rifle” and normalize its usage so that there is not a stigma attached to it anymore. Or perhaps we should move in the direction of limiting the terms to just “rifles” or “handguns” or “firearms“.

Then we can easily call out the radical left out for what they really want to do, and show the entire country who the gun grabbers really are… people who want to ban guns.