Assault Weapons! Social Media! And You? Oh My!

Part 1 In Series

Social media, Facebook in my case, was burning up after the Orlando mass murder travesty. I tried my best to mind my own business but as it reached a point of absolute ignorance, I could keep quiet no longer.

In this series of articles, I am going to share with you a lot of information about rifles, including the AR-15 and others, and the Second Amendment, so you can be equipped when talking to people. But equally as important, I am going to tell you how I use social media to disseminate this information, which may help you to make your posts the most effective possible.

The goal is to educate – not to change minds. By keeping your focus on education, it will modulate the tone of your posts and help keep your emotions out of it. Especially when responding to posts on a friend’s Facebook page, I always keep in mind that I am utilizing my friend’s forum to educate all of his/her friends, not trying to change my friend’s mind. This has had amazing results, and I think you will find yourself becoming more effective if you do this too.

As you read my Facebook post about the term ‘assault weapon’ below, you will notice that I always include links – whether on my own posts, or in response to someone else’s post (in this format instead of links I have identified key words for you to google). This allows anyone to substantiate my claims for validation if someone wants to read the original source and also gives the post a strong measure of credibility. I quote references that have recognizable professional standing. I keep emotions out of it other than using it as a lead in to prompt the reader to want to read more. I try to keep it as brief as possible, often by breaking up points into different posts, posted days apart so as not to overwhelm or bore my friends. I often try to use levity when responding to posts made by my friends – or their friends.

This is what I wrote on my Facebook page:

“I cannot take it anymore – the misinformation and misunderstanding is just too much. The term “assault weapon” is never defined; it is just thrown out there. To assault is a verb. Anything used to assault can be a weapon, whether it is a gun, a knife, a chair, a baseball bat. So I put my journalist hat on and did some research. Here is what I found:

“There is no such thing as an assault rifle. If you mean fully automatic machine gun – those were made illegal for people to own in 1986 via the Firearm Owners Protection Act (google FOPA 1986).

“According to Bruce H. Kobayashi and Joseph E. Olson, writing in the Stanford Law and Policy Review: “Prior to 1989, the term “assault weapon” did not exist in the lexicon of firearms. It is a political term, developed by anti-gun publicists to expand the category of “assault rifles.”” (This document has to be purchased, but I saw this exact quote referenced in a variety of publications).

“According to David Kopel, writing in The Wall Street Journal: ‘“What some people call ‘assault weapons’ function like every other normal firearm—they fire only one bullet each time the trigger is pressed. Unlike automatics (machine guns), they do not fire continuously as long as the trigger is held. … Today in America, most handguns are semi-automatics, as are many long guns, including the best-selling rifle today, the AR-15, the model used in the Newtown shooting. Some of these guns look like machine guns, but they do not function like machine guns. ” (google David Kopel, WSJ, Newtown shooting).

And that’s it! Hopefully you now know a little bit more about the term ‘assault weapon’ and also about effectively utilizing social media. You can email me at ctyreeccbd@gmail.com

Next month I will tell you what I have learned when investigating non-assault semi-automatic rifles at a local gun shop.

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