The term "Assault Weapon" is a liberal media created scare tactic.

First of all, thank you for picking up this debate. I hope it can be informative for everyone. I like your format, I hope you don't mind me copying ;-) Claims: 1. The first is that "Assault Weapon" is a term made up as a scare tactic. The opposite is actually the case. Gun manufacturers and sellers originated the term. Eventually gun restrictionists picked up the term. 2. Your argument assumes that all liberals are for gun restriction. Speaking for myself and many liberals I know, I am all for gun rights in their entirety. The second amendment clearly protects that right. 3. "Assault Weapon" does classify looks and features, but does not have the negative connotation (scary) that my opponent claims. After all, the term was originated as a way to sell weapons, not ban them. Rebuttal: 1. In fact, this claim is wrong. Many claim that Josh Sugarmann from the Violence Policy Center (anti-gun) coined the term with his study titled, "Assault Weapons and Accessories in America" published in 1988. Before that, the term was unheard of. Here is an excerpt, "Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons..." I think the confusion is the difference between the term "Assault Rifle" and "Assault Weapon". Assault rifles are any of various automatic or semiautomatic rifles with large capacity magazines designed for military use.[1] This term is an English translation from the German sturmgewehr, which means "storm rifle." [2] 2. While I agree that all liberals aren't for gun control, you would be mocked for saying that the majority weren't for gun control. In fact, an exception exists in my home state (Ohio) with D. Gov. Strickland. However, the majority of people that would call themselves liberals agree with most of the political ideologies of the Democratic Party and it is well established that one of the ideologies is stronger gun control. On a side note, I am personally proud of liberals that can stand up for a protected right in our Constitution while going against the majority. 3. In fact, that was exactly why the term "Assault Weapon" was created. Let me expand on the earlier quote from Josh Sugarmann's study (my apologies for the repeated part, but I feel that you need to read the whole quote to get the point). "Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The 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 the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons." Notice how even the gun control supporters admit that because the guns "look" scary, they should be outlawed. Second point. The infamous Clinton Assault Weapon Ban of 1994. This classified 19 named guns and other semi-automatic guns as "Assault Weapons" based on whether or not they had a certain number of features that "looked bad" (pistol grips, flash suppressors and bayonet mounts to name a few). In case anyone is wondering, a flash suppressor is just the slots on the end of some rifle barrels designed to suppress the flash (who would have guessed :-P). None of these features affect the lethality of the weapon. In fact if you removed just two of those three features from the weapon. It would still be fully functional and just as lethal, but it would look less scary and therefore, be legal under that ban. I hoped that I have proved that the term "assault weapon" has always been used as a scare tactic (since it's creation) and because of the majority's ideology (which happens to be liberal) are the proponents that use this in it's intended negative connotation, it can be said that it is a "liberal scare tactic". [1] http://wordnet.princeton.edu... [2] http://www.freep.com...