Merriam-Webster Changes Definition Of ‘Assault Rifle’ After Parkland

hominishostilis:

scrawnyflannelman:

yourunclejingo:

bethrogers:

Before:

“Assault weapon” and “assault rifles” are malleable terms often used in public discourse to scare people. After all, all guns are designed to “assault” something. The usual proper use of this term is to describe fully automatic machine-gun-style weapons, which in the United States have been banned from civilian use for years. Notice that the Merriam-Webster change stretches this definition to include anything that looks like such a gun regardless of whether it shoots like one.

The entry for “assault rifle,” which was updated March 31, 2018, reads as follows:

After:

Hey look…dictionaries are lying to you. Shocker.

Manipulate the language and you can manipulate the culture

Everything before the “; also” in the second version is pretty accurate.

But that “also” makes a HUGE difference/ it purposefully conflates “function“ with “cosmetic”.

This is how it starts-they start changing the meaning of words so that they can change the truth to be what they want it to be.