It’s always a mistake to forget that word usage sets the rhetorical battlefield and restricts our thoughts.  Far too many on the freedom side of the fence tend to use the “pro-gun/anti-gun” formulation, or even worse, couch the constitutional contest over our commonsense human right as one of inanimate objects.

Such mistakes neglect the fact that leftists love guns.  They just don’t want them in our hands; that’s why there has been a sea change in their control schemes from outright bans to selective persecution.

But now that the winds of change favor the pro-freedom side of the political spectrum, leftists have suddenly started arming up for who knows what, and we have several stunning examples to prove the point.

A recent video from Langley Outdoors Academy gives us a quick rundown on something we thought we would never see from the gun-grabbing ghouls of the left.

The first example, from the New York Times magazine, is a piece most patriots on the pro-freedom side of the fence thought they would never see.  Most telling is that the article includes an illustration that would be at home in any “prepper” publication — three “break glass in case of emergency” boxes with first aid in one, a fire extinguisher in another, and the outline of a gun in the third.  That’s a pretty bold statement, which goes along with our contention that a firearm is just another piece of emergency equipment.  The piece is entitled “My Husband Fears Political Violence. Should We Buy a Gun?”

My husband and I are Democrats, and we live in a large left-leaning city. Considering the current political climate in the United States and deepening concerns that it will only get worse, my husband wants to purchase a gun for safety reasons. To be clear, we don’t have general safety concerns. We live in the heart of the city, and I feel safe. He is concerned about political or ideologically motivated violence. ...

I think guns are evil, and I believe that the world would be a better place without weapons. But I would hate to regret not having a gun if things get so chaotic that people need to protect themselves. Should I go against my own beliefs because of a possible future threat? —Name Withheld

So many leftists think an inanimate object is “evil.”  The “Ethicist” tries to dissuade the letter-writer from being able to exercise a commonsense human right.

It was a few months ago that the same New York Times had another surprising piece, at least for that paper — “They Never Planned on Buying a Gun. Until They Did.”  There is an interesting point in the middle of the piece:

We quickly learned that some gun owners don’t like the word “gun,” preferring “firearm,” in part because they felt it carried less baggage. I found myself thinking more consciously about my own language, wondering if I would alienate sources by saying “gun,” or be pandering if I avoided it. We used both words in our project, a kind of compromise.

Once again, we see that the left is tuned in to the language wars, far better than the pro-freedom right.  Guns are demonized as “evil” everywhere you turn, while leftists propagandize the public with the ridiculous phrase “gun violence,” as though inanimate objects are the problem.

It’s not just the New York Times pushing their people to arm up.  We have this sampling from the past few years of the national socialist media doing the same:

• Politico: They’re Afraid. They’re Buying Guns. But They’re Not Voting for Trump
• CNN: Liberal, female and minority: America’s new gun owners aren’t who you’d think
• Slate: Why More Democrats Are Buying Guns

As Mike McDaniel phrases it, these are anti-liberty cracktivists.  They aren’t “anti-gun.”  No, liberty-hating leftists love their guns; they just don’t want us to have them.  This is why they’ve added selective enforcement to their tyrannical repertoire, to take guns from their political opponents.

It’s human rights instead of “gun rights.”  Using the term “gun rights” almost has a subliminal implication that guns have rights.  Leftists have signs that play off this false impression, which say some variation of “protect kids, not guns.”

Thus, it’s much better to use the term “human rights” instead.  That makes it clear what we are trying to protect.  The authoritarians will talk all day against guns, but they wouldn’t dare say the same thing against human rights.

D Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, former director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites.  Find him on Substack.

Image via Pexels.