(freshrant.com) Powerful NRA lobbyists have almost single-handedly controlled the national dialogue on guns, especially when it comes to legislators. In this context, we should note that the very term "gun control" has the ring of insult to freedom-loving, constitution-abiding, gun-owning Americans. It is also obfuscatory, if not completely inaccurate.
A majority of Americans are not in favor controlling most guns and hunting rifles. The NRA has been enormously successful in convoluting ownership of pistols and rifles into the discussion of restricting the sale of semi-automatic weapons and magazines capable of firing a bullet a second (as was the case in the Colorado theater shooting).
Identifying the problem of being able to legally sell seemingly infinite quantities of semi-automatic rifles and ammunition is not enough to counter the verbal bulldozing of the gun lobby and its many supporters. Legislators and public advocates need explicit language to be effective in making their case.
I propose the term "Crowd Killers" for both the weapons and the magazines. Semi-automatic guns are crowd killer guns that dispense rapid-fire crowd killer bullets. Anyone who has followed the tragic events of the Aurora theater massacre and other similar events would not think these descriptors extreme. These weapons and high capacity magazines have been proven too often as being more than capable of killing and injuring large numbers of people in crowds. Full stop.
Crowd killer guns could be abbreviated as CKG's. Crowd killer bullets, CKB's. The alliterative double hard "K" sounds in Crowd Killer give the words the force and impact of the subject they describe. Crowd killer guns is a short and easy five syllables. Crowd killer bullets, six.
One would have to look all the way back to the 1980's when advocates of sensible weapon laws spoke out against bullets sold with a hardened core and tagged them with the controversial but highly impactful moniker, "Cop Killer Bullets." Since then, the NRA has controlled how to talk about weapons that put the welfare and safety of the public at risk.
Rep. Jim Moran (D), Virginia, for one, has come out with creative and descriptive new ways to address the problem. "This is about freedom. It's just stunning to me that my colleagues are so soft on crime and domestic terrorism."
Indeed. We have found the Weapons of Mass Destruction and they are ours. Our WMD's are the CKG's awaiting purchase in plain sight. They can be bought online, at Wal-Mart or at that sporting goods store with the big friendly fish out front.
There will be the inevitable arguments claiming that making these CKG's illegal will just put them into the hands of the criminals. To counter that argument, both the shooter last week in Aurora and the one last year in Tucson purchased their guns and ammo legally. It is possible their respective massacres would have been limited if not entirely prevented if they would have had to resort to entering into an unfamiliar world of clandestine relationships with individuals selling illegal weapons. I suggest the loner, anti-social, secretive, even mentally disturbed personalities of many of these killers indicate a natural aversion to negotiating more risky and socially complex transactions.
It seems as ambitious to attempt to enter new nomenclature into the national dialogue on guns as it seems necessary. But for years the Republican Party has gotten its carefully defined talking points from its own hired gun, Frank Luntz, a skillful propagandist who has straight-jacketed all manner of Democratic Party ideas and helped facilitate GOP legislation via a multitude of verbal contortions.
It is past time for defeatist attitudes about being helpless in considering the public's rights when discussing gun rights. To borrow a phrase from the Second Amendment, we are overdue for "well-regulated" gun ownership. To that end, I humbly call upon advocates, policy markers and legislators to arm themselves with this freshly-minted CK weaponry specially calibrated to save lives. I invite all to freely retweet, recopy, repost this message honoring all victims, friends and families of crowd killer gun violence. I ask this as a remnant of remembrance beyond balloons and platitudes in hopes of preventing another cold, dead hand grasping skyward from a blood-stained theater floor.