Incidentally, I realize that most of you think “wtf do they even care about this issue so much?” - there are a few things to it. And I’m not looking to start seperate debates, but rather to quickly attempt to explain:
First, the general belief that the second amendment is about having an armed citizenry that can fight as an unorganized military force if necesary. In recent times, we’ve been subjected to bullshit like “we won’t come after your duck guns, hell, I’m a hunter myself!” from politicians, the idea imprinted in various laws that the legitimate purpose for legal guns stems from “sporting purposes”, and a general attempt to divide and conquer the gun advocacy world by marginalizing people who believe that guns for military purposes and self defense are more important than some asshole’s hunting guns.
Second, going along with the first, a lot of us think it’s absolutely silly and complete bullshit that despite a completely safe record of legal gun ownership of any “machine gun” by US citizens, they were banned anyway. But that wasn’t enough - now we have to go after guns that don’t have that function, but they look like they could - and it’s easy to confuse the public about the issue.
Third, a lot of us appreciate military weapons for their various qualities - they typically are very rugged and functional, often they have a very interesting place in history, and they’re often aesthetically interesting. I have a Mauser 98k rifle that was made in Yugoslavia by the rebels in WW2 after they captured the equipment. It’s a rugged, reliable, beautiful rifle with an interesting history. Few people would think anything bad about me collecting it. But if I wanted to collect a military weapon from a few decades after that, for the same reasons - oh no, now I have evil intent.
So not only am I against deliberate spreading of ignorance and lies by the media in general, but I think it damages the public perception about what the second amendment is about and what useful roles guns can provide in our society, but it also is a deliberate attack on a hobby of mine.
To make an analogy, imagine that there was an extended media campaign to demonify sports cars. Eventually, all cars were forced to put a limiter in them keeping them from exceeding 70 miles per hour. Oh, but that wasn’t enough - the media and politicians were still on their crusade against fast cars. Even though all cars are limited to 70 miles per hour, they still want to ban cars that look like cars that could go faster, but can no longer function that way. Under this scenario, gearheads might be a bit miffed and get annoyed every time the media lied about the issue. And that only covers the hobby part - the issue of functional role of guns in society is by far of much greater importance.
So when we encounter this lie, we’re pretty passionate about fighting the ignorance it spreads. The fact that this board, dedicated to the eradication of ignorance, has plenty of people willing to defend it when they know it’s a lie, is unfortunate.