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This is a machine gun
So there I was quickly scanning my newspapers last Thursday morning while riding a Yellow Line Metro train from Huntington Station in Fairfax County toward the River City, also known as the District of Columbia.
Ahaauhhh!??? I exclaimed.
Heads turned on that quiet morning train filled with freshly scrubbed but tired commuters.
Red faced, I did not dare look up as I incredulously read the newspaper correction over and over:
"U.S. law-enforcement officials have seen a spike in heavy-caliber rifles heading to Mexico. A World News article Saturday incorrectly quoted William D. Newell of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives describing a spike in machine guns. "Machine gun" is a technical term for a classification of a firearm that doesn't describe the type of weapon he was referring to."
This correction was printed on page 2 of the Wall Street Journal on March 5, 2009, and made me feel like I had slipped into an Orwellian world of “newspeak.” You know, the language being promoted by the ruling elites of England in Orwell’s book 1984. Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar whose aim is to make any alternative thinking impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on.
Let’s review some basic terms:
A "semi-automatic firearm" fires one round with every pull of the trigger, just like a revolver.
A “machine gun” fires “automatically” two or more rounds with one pull of the trigger.
An “assault rifle” is a military term for a rifle which can be fired semi-automatically or as a machine gun, automatically, by way of a switch to select the mode of fire.
But an “assault weapon” is just an Orwellian term coined by anti-gun politicians for “scary looking rifles” which are not machine guns – just dressed up cosmetically to look like military assault rifles with pistol grips, flash suppressors, and perhaps a bayonet mounting lug.
And as the Washington Post’s investigative reporter Tom Jackman discovered in reporting on the 2006 slaying of Fairfax County, VA police officer Vickey Armel by madman Michael Kennedy, it turned out to be Kennedy’s hunting rifle, and not his “AK-47-style assault rifle,” which fired the rounds capable of penetrating officer Armel’s vest.
Misuse of the term “machine gun” to describe ordinary run of the mine rifles by the Wall Street Journal goes to show you that when it comes to guns, the mainstream media knows no shame. Labeling a machine gun a “technical term” for certain rifles is about as kookie as saying a tank is a special type of automobile.
But like Syme said to Winston Smith, “[i]t's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word?” George Orwell, 1984 at 51 (1949).
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
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- DC: Georgia legislator introduces bill to repeal permit requirement to open carry handguns!
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- Los Angeles: Why they take guns from the people at all. With thanks to Paul Harvey, Patriot
- Minneapolis: An open letter to Senator Jim Webb and pro-gun democrats
- National: When lighters are outlawed...
- Seattle: Why Greg Nickels’ proposed gun ban would never work
- St. Louis: The import ban cometh
Comments
Perhaps the WSJ isn't innocently deficient in its reporting. After all, how many Wall Streeters, have plenty of reason (self-inflicted) to dread an armed citizenry in view of what they have wrought? I can see a possible convergence of interests by Wall Streeters and D.C. based politicians. Can't you?
Ergo, I must ask myself the question, could this really be ignorance, coincidence, or defense of the indefensible? At the moment,we don't really know enough to choose one possibility over the others, but each seems as likely as the other two.
Cynicism? Possibly, but if so, I would point out that it is not natural to me, I was not born with such a predilection, it is simply training from a lifetime of watching them and living under the conditions that these two bodies have brought about. MORE THAN ONCE.
What the heck is a "heavy calibre" rifle? Are the bullets weighed in ounces or pounds?
"a spike in heavy-caliber rifles"
They corrected and incorrect term with yet another incorrect term. There is no such thing as a "heavy-caliber" rifle. Caliber refers to the diameter of the bullet. A .50 caliber bullet is 1/2" in diameter. A .22 bullet is .22" in diameter (less than 1/4"). The chances are that the ammunition is question was the standard .223 military/hunting round. Those bullets are just about the same diameter is the pellets used in that .22 air rifle you shot as a kid.
I must state that Straightarrow beat me to it and said exactly what I was thinking.
And let's not even get into the great unmentionable reason why any weapons should be crossing the border with Mexico - the failed WAR ON DRUGS. It is truly amazing that a nation that can produce as many history books, documentaries, television shows, etc. can't manage to learn anything from a period of time less than one hundred years ago. The same crime, violence, etc. that plagued this country during alcohol prohibition is still plagueing us and every country south of our borders as a result of the black market that drug prohibition has created. Are common sense and freedom so anathema to americans now?
Mr. Stollenwerk, I believe you are inadvertently supporting the idea that there are categories of weapons to which the public should have no access.
The 2nd Amendment was written to protect private access to military weapons. I don't believe that focusing on the distinction between military and civilian arms - even if it is only to blur the distinction - serves to bolster our rights.
I think more people need to know that even if there is a distinction, it still doesn't negate our right - and RESPONSIBILITY - to keep fully automatic AK-47s in the home.
The idea of "machine guns" is a boogeyman to begin with. Who cares if people have access to machine guns?
Answer: people who can't deal with freedom.
Just to muddy the water some more. The 'This is a machine gun' picture, probably was one, but not necessarily. There is a small firearms collector clique which assembles semi-auto only 'machine guns' using modifications OK'ed by our beloved BATFE. The most common semi-auto "MG's' are the Browning 1919 & M2, with an occasional 1917, Vicker's and Maxim's. These firearms drive the gun phobic type nuts.
The cynicism is justified that the brown shirted ATF agents want more power. Maybe if we had enough weapons on the street it would create a new agency called, Respect and Fear the Public - the RFP might cause a few politicos to stop and think before signing that next spending bill.
There I am in dreamland again - the real Orwellian nightmare:
Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
One other point about Mexico. Mexican drug cartels are not buying hand grenades at US gun shows. Grenades have been outlawed for civilian ownership since 1934. But, nobody, not the US government, the Mexican government, the Main Stream Media, or anybody on the East Coast or the Left Coast, wants to admit to the depth of corruption in the Mexican Army.
that's as bad as the woman wanting to ban rifles with forearm heat shields
"But an “assault weapon” is just an Orwellian term coined by anti-gun politicians for “scary looking rifles.” I think you might be referring to Josh Sugerman's famous quote, "The semi-automatic 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 that chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons." — Josh Sugarman, 1988, Violence Policy Center.
There's sleazy and disingenuous for you. Talk about semantics!
The government has every right to be afraid of it's constituency, but no right to disallow any firearms. It's THE CONSTITUTION STUPID! Better closely watch what's in that next piece of legislature you sign, you lying thief.
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
- Lysander Spooner
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