When I was going through the NRA's Pistol, Home Safety, Refuse to be a victim instructor training schools we were taught by the NRA Senior Instructors:
"You will no longer use the term "weapon" in your vocabulary. Every time we hear the word "weapon" you will put $1 towards the summer beer fund as punishment. The reason why is non-shooters get nervous, it scares them when they hear the word "weapon".
So, please try to keep this in mind and use the word "firearm(s)", a generic name ("pistol", "shotgun", or "that rifle right there") or the specific make and model (such as "That Ruger Mark III- no, the other one with the stainless finish")
By choosing the words we use, when quoted by the media they have to use the words we used at the time of the interview.
A few months ago the Denver Post's main editor was internationally smacked down because she made the judgment that a high school student who knew a deranged shooter "knew Kant". When they rewrote the Post's interview she defended her judgment by saying "a high school student wouldn't know who Kant was".
We can have the other news media outlets work for us by trapping them this way.
"You will no longer use the term "weapon" in your vocabulary. Every time we hear the word "weapon" you will put $1 towards the summer beer fund as punishment. The reason why is non-shooters get nervous, it scares them when they hear the word "weapon".
So, please try to keep this in mind and use the word "firearm(s)", a generic name ("pistol", "shotgun", or "that rifle right there") or the specific make and model (such as "That Ruger Mark III- no, the other one with the stainless finish")
By choosing the words we use, when quoted by the media they have to use the words we used at the time of the interview.
A few months ago the Denver Post's main editor was internationally smacked down because she made the judgment that a high school student who knew a deranged shooter "knew Kant". When they rewrote the Post's interview she defended her judgment by saying "a high school student wouldn't know who Kant was".
We can have the other news media outlets work for us by trapping them this way.