“WAR” they say? Are they saying the quiet part out loud? (What, exactly might they have in mind?)
Of the 8000+ firearms I have sold or transferred since the Presidential election of Barack Ubama, only two are known to me to have been weapons. Both were handguns, one chambered in .44 Magnum, the other 10mm. Both were sold as weapons for defense against bears that might be encountered in remote wilderness settings. I may have sold many more firearms that were similarly intended to be weapons, but their purpose never came up in conversation. I may have sold many firearms that were not intended to be weapons, but have been incidentally deployed as such to prevent or terminate a violent threat.
The point: To call something a weapon is to infer a particular purpose or use, and thus classify it as something intended to do harm (be it justified or criminal). For some, the use of the label is simply heedless, like calling a magazine a clip. But to the political bureaucrats whose mission is to destroy the Second Amendment, it’s a precise, calculated, poll-tested marketing term with one intended effect. Add to that effect force multipliers like “assault”, “high capacity”, “high power” or my favorite “of war”, and you have the makings of just another hyper-ventilating political outrage campaign. Every gun is a weapon. Weapons are violent and harmful. Violent and harmful things are unsafe. ‘Public safety’ justifies the infringement of any right. And that sensationalism fits the CNN, NPR and Washington Post narratives that dutifully nourish the Global left’s agenda.
I sell and transfer a lot of firearms, a few of which are weapons. Some may become weapons. All can be weapons. Most will hopefully never be weapons. What’s peculiar about this is that it isn’t usually the honest, decent, law-abiding gun owner who decides his/her firearm is to be a weapon. It’s the bear, the rabid coyote, the car jacker, the psychopathic mass murderer wannabe, or the authoritarian politician who decides.