WashPo: Explaining To A Leftist How Guns Work Is 'Gunsplaining'

The phenomenon isn’t new, but in the weeks since the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., a lot of gun-skeptical liberals are getting a taste of it for the first time: While debating the merits of various gun control proposals, Second Amendment enthusiasts often diminish, or outright dismiss their views if they use imprecise firearms terminology. Perhaps someone tweets about “assault-style” weapons, only to be told that there’s no such thing. Maybe they’re reprimanded that an AR-15 is neither an assault rifle nor “high-powered.” Or they say something about “machine guns” when they really mean semiautomatic rifles. Or they get sucked into an hours-long Facebook exchange over the difference between a “clip” and a “magazine.”

Has this happened to you? If so, you’ve been gunsplained: harangued with the pedantry of the more-credible-than-thou firearms owner, admonished that your inferior knowledge of guns and their nomenclature puts an asterisk next to your opinion on gun control.

Campus Reform’s Cabot Phillips asked young people who went to the March For Our Lives rally what an ‘assault weapon’ is... they had absolutely no idea.

This video shows how uninformed anti-gunners are. pic.twitter.com/BZz9K9TjQ7

— Ryan Saavedra 🇺🇸 (@RealSaavedra) March 25, 2018

Signs from the #marchforourlives in State College (@camillecstefani | TDC) pic.twitter.com/NX4SahGNha

— Collegian Photo (@TDC_Visuals) March 24, 2018