The Stylebook’s weapons entry offers guidance on terms including semi-automatic rifle, assault rifle, assault weapon, military-style rifle and modern sporting rifle. pic.twitter.com/RvNrZp1lu2
— APStylebook (@APStylebook) July 13, 2022
Nearly two years after the Associated Press issued a “style tip” to the press that reporters and editors should “avoid (using the terms) ‘assault rifle and assault weapon,’” reporters and newspaper copy editors continue using both terms despite the AP’s admonition that they are “highly politicized terms” that “convey little meaning about the actual functions of the weapon.”
Back on July 14, 2022, even Alan Gottlieb at the Second Amendment Foundation expressed appreciation that the AP, which produces what is essentially the “bible” of the media—the Associated Press Stylebook—stated, “It’s about time the media realized the terms ‘assault rifle’ and ‘assault weapon’ are inflammatory and meaningless. Those terms have become part of the gun prohibition lobby’s lexicon, and unfortunately, journalists across the country have been all-too-willing to adopt their vocabulary and repeatedly use it in their reports.”
The AP even posted their recommendation on X to spread the style tip as far and wide as possible. Yet today, newspapers and broadcast news agencies persist, suggesting a philosophical bias exists within the establishment press.
For example, when KDVR in Denver reported on Colorado’s effort to ban modern semiautomatic rifles, its lead sentence said, “On this week’s ‘Colorado Point of View,’ political analysts look at whether an assault weapons ban could become law in Colorado.”
In Illinois, WBEZ reported on the effort to register semi-auto rifles, noting, “A new law allowed gun owners to keep assault weapons if they disclosed them. Illinois county registration rates ranged from 0.5% to 1.8%.”
WVEC in Hampton, Virginia, reported last month, “The Virginia General Assembly has passed identical bills to ban the purchase, sale, and transfer of assault rifles.”
This obviously is not how Gottlieb would have preferred the establishment media to react to the AP style type when he observed, “The gun prohibition lobby has always used ‘assault rifle’ or ‘assault weapon’ to confuse and frighten the public and make people think it’s a fully automatic ‘weapon of war.’ Now we’ll have to see how intellectually honest journalists will be in adopting this correct terminology, rather than continuing to use these deliberately misleading references.
“This laudable effort by the Associated Press may help restore the level of trust the public should have in the media,” he added at the time. “It will be interesting to see if the media now challenges politicians and anti-gun lobbyists whenever they use such terms, especially since ‘AR’ never referred to ‘assault rifle’ but to Armalite Rifle, and the gun control crowd has always known it.”
Of course, the Washington Post, which has routinely endorsed every gun control scheme ever launched on Capitol Hill, reported on the gun control efforts in Virginia early in February: “Assault weapons ban. The House and the Senate have passed on party-line votes measures that would ban assault weapons. Sponsored by Helmer, the House version passed 51-49. The Senate bill, brought by Deeds, passed 21-19. Both bills would prohibit the sale of any assault weapon manufactured after July 1, 2024. That’s different from past failed attempts at assault-weapons bans that did not grandfather weapons already in private hands and had even some Democrats concerned about the state confiscating legally purchased weapons. Both measures would prohibit anyone younger than 21 from buying or possessing an assault weapon, regardless of when the firearm was made, and both would ban high-capacity ammunition-feeding devices.”
In a single paragraph, the WaPo used the term five times, which might be some kind of record.
In the aftermath of the Lewiston, Maine rampage by Robert Card back in October, the Portland Press-Herald reported, “Card killed 18 people and injured 13 more at two locations in Lewiston, and in at least one location used an AR-10 assault-style rifle.”
Some news outlets show they’re trying, however.
Fox News, for example, has endeavored to put the term in quotation marks, which is an acceptable variation because it signals the term is so-called rather than an accurate description.
“A federal judge in the Southern District of Illinois had initially ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding PICA did not respect the Second Amendment rights of Illinois residents.” Fox recently reported. “District Judge Stephen Patrick McGlynn, a Trump appointee, blocked the state from enforcing the ‘assault weapons’ ban, finding it not only restricted the right to self-defense, but in some cases, ‘completely obliterated that right by criminalizing the purchase and the sale of more than 190 ‘arms.’”
Out in Boise, Idaho, the Capital Sun’s report on gun control in neighboring Washington state last year said, “Washington’s new prohibitions on the sale, distribution and importation of semiautomatic firearms can stay in effect while a challenge against them plays out in federal court, a judge in the case ruled Tuesday.” This news organ avoided the term altogether, instead properly describing the guns at issue as “semiautomatic.”
A little progress may signify a small victory, but until the establishment media drops the gun control lexicon altogether, it still has a tremendous credibility problem among Second Amendment advocates and grassroots activists. And doubt will persist about media bias, which remains heavily tilted toward the left.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
