Christopher Dorner is the ex-LAPD officer who went on a revenge rampage, killing several people before shooting himself in a cabin in Big Bear, California.  Nationwide news.

NBC News"...detailed the extent of the arsenal that Dorner had with him in his final days...Among the items recovered from the cabin where Dorner died and other locations and vehicles were numerous assault weapons; semi-automatic hand guns; a .308 caliber, bolt action sniper-rifle; high capacity ammunition magazines..."  Sniper rifle?

The media are learning firearms nomenclature.  As new words are incorporated into their vocabularies, each category of firearms receives a promotion in implied lethality.  Semi-automatic rifles, in use for 100 years, have become assault weapons.  The term semi-automatic has gained ominous overtones by the association with "assault rifles."  Pistols are semi-automatic too and are on the threshold of being included in the two minute hate with "assault weapons."

For those that tend to ignore the gun-controllers rant that deer hunters do not need military assault weapons with high capacity magazines, but can get by with just regular ol' deer guns, we find that a bolt action .308, a regular ol' deer gun suddenly now is a sniper rifle.

Reporting caliber and firearm descriptions give an aura of expertise to the media, but there is no indication of comprehension of ballistics or firearms.  Sooner or later we will learn that hunters don't need sniper rifles any more than they need machine guns.

The gun-controllers have telegraphed their next punch.  If or when they have succeeded in demonizing, banning and confiscating "assault rifles" and semi-automatic pistols, they will move on to "sniper rifles," another weapon of war.

Bumped