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

Claims: 1. I counter that 'gun control liberals' do not make a majority of liberals, 2. The person you cite as having coined the term, Josh Sugarmann belongs to the Violence Policy Center, which is an organization unaffiliated with the media. 3. I challenge my opponent to produce evidence of his allegations that a 'liberal media' has a 'hidden agenda' for gun control. (I love challenges :-P) Rebuttal: 1. Gallup reports that there is a big difference on the partisan's gun control view. Here is an interesting statistic supporting that view. *The strong majority of Democrats feel that gun laws in the United States should be stricter, while only about 4 in 10 Republicans feel this way. Forty-eight percent of Republicans feel gun laws should remain as they are at the present time. 2. I must argue quite the opposite. While Josh Sugarmann and other gun control advocates aren't necessarily on the salary of the "media", they are a part of it. Consider this... In a two year study by the Media Research Center of over 653 morning and evening news stories on the major new networks brought these results. a) TV News Has Chosen Sides (nearly 10 to 1 advocating more gun control) b) Evening News Shows Favored the Anti-Gun Position by 8 to 1 c) Morning News Shows Favored the Anti-Gun Position by 13 to 1 d) News Programs Are Twice as Likely to Use Anti-Gun Soundbites e) News Programs Are Twice as Likely to Feature Anti-Gun Guests f) Pro-Gun Themes Were Barely Covered Some of the resolutions provided a) More debates and less lectures b) Factual context instead of emotional anecdotes I don't know how you can claim that the gun control advocates aren't a part of the "liberal media" when they are given that much more airtime. Since this debate is about the liberal media on gun control, I will leave it at that, but there are plenty more examples in other topics to prove that the media is liberal in most issues. 3) I will admit, hidden agenda does kind of imply they they aren't to verbal about it. While they may not always come out and say that "guns should be banned", the previous argument decisively proves that they do lean toward it. However, every once in a while, we do get direct quotes of this. Here are some examples. "There is no reason for anyone in this country ... to buy, to own, to have, to use a handgun ...The only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns." "In fact, only police, soldiers -- and, maybe, licensed target ranges -- should have handguns. No one else needs one." -MICHAEL GARDNER, PRESIDENT OF NBC NEWS "Why should America adopt a policy of near-zero tolerance for private gun ownership? Because it's the only alternative to the present insanity. Without both strict limits on access to new weapons and aggressive efforts to reduce the supply of existing weapons, no one can be safe." "...The Times supports a near-total ban on the manufacture and private ownership of handguns and assault weapons, leaving those guns almost exclusively in the hands of law enforcement officials." -EDITORIAL, LOS ANGELES TIMES "Why not just ban the ownership of handguns when nobody needs one? Why not just ban semi-automatic rifles? Nobody needs one." -JACK E. WHITE, TIME MAGAZINE NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT "Every civilized society must disarm its citizens against each other." -GARY WILLS, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST Resolved: The majority (not all) of Democrats are against gun control (It would save to assume that the liberals would agree more with the Democrats) Resolved: The media is biased and is decisively leaning toward the liberal side of gun control. This is in an effort to eventually pass all out bans on weapons. The term "Assault Weapon" was created (among others) to help promote that. Conclusion: While I will commend the proposed result that the liberal media is trying to accomplish (less violence), they are going at it the wrong way. In fact, to lower crime and violence, gun restrictions should be lessened. Anything else that restrict gun rights will eventually lead to confiscation and banning.