Yes, one side is in a bad-faith propaganda race. It's the side who doesn't take the time to comprehend the culture they're attempting to eviscerate. The propaganda comes from the emotional caterwauling that doesn't understand the mechanisms they're demanding be eliminated from society. Bad-faith? From people who are defending the tools they use to defend their lives?The phenomenon isn’t new, but in the weeks since the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., a lot of gun-skeptical liberals are getting a taste of it for the first time: While debating the merits of various gun control proposals, Second Amendment enthusiasts often diminish, or outright dismiss their views if they use imprecise firearms terminology. Perhaps someone tweets about “assault-style” weapons, only to be told that there’s no such thing. Maybe they’re reprimanded that an AR-15 is neither an assault rifle nor “high-powered.” Or they say something about “machine guns” when they really mean semiautomatic rifles. Or they get sucked into an hours-long Facebook exchange over the difference between the terms clip and magazine.
SNIP
If only these adversaries were a little more honest, I’ve often thought, and more precise in their language on the subject, we could have a serious debate on the finer points of a gun violence policy, instead of a bad-faith propaganda race.
One can be as ignorant as one cares to be on a subject. If you want to use a car, you'll learn how they work. One can live and work in a city without a motorcar and live a full (*cough*) life without ever needing to understand what an oil filter or a muffler is. However, when claiming to have the moral high ground and talking down to the Neanderthals impeding safety and societal progress, you may find it helpful to use language and jargon appropriately. Otherwise, you may get rhetorically smacked-down and neglected because you don't understand what you're talking about! Your ignorance is self-evident and undermines the volume of your screeching.
A. There's a Right to Bear Arms? Glad to hear it. Let's build on that.In this kind of war over words, both sides probably need to give a little. But the pro-gun side needs to give a lot more — not just because it’s been disingenuously gunsplaining to shut down discussions and close minds for years — but because the onus should be on those citizens who own the weapons technology, and purport to understand it, to share that understanding with the skeptical and less-informed. That’s a responsibility that goes along with the right to bear arms.
B. There are responsibilities that go along with that? When attempting to strip people of these aforementioned rights-in bad faith, I might add, is there any responsibility to use terms and concepts accurately?
C. Who's disingenuous? Anyone, and particularly the NRA, would be happy to help you understand firearms, while teaching proper terminology and demonstrating the responsibility to safely handle these tools. You're just not willing to learn, because, you might fall in love. You enjoy the bad-faith propaganda you've been warped into believing.