I know I said in my last opinion piece that I didn’t want to get into the gun control debate, but after seeing the recent coverage of the Parkland Shooting and the deceptive lies various politicians and media figures have told Americans, I feel compelled as a second amendment advocate to point out several falsehoods that have unfortunately become accepted by a large amount of America.

Let me be upfront about my bias: I am a proud gun owner and consider myself a constitutionalist. While I believe that all of our God-given rights as Americans are extremely important, I believe that the second amendment is essential to protecting the constitutional rights we have.

This is because our right to bear arms is the backbone of the rest of the constitution, ensuring that the American government cannot erase the fourth or first amendment. So now that my bias towards the second amendment is clear, let’s proceed to the lies told by the left when it comes to guns.

The first fallacy is the various terms leftists use when talking about firearms and gun control as a whole. Talking heads like Don Lemon and Cenk Uygur toss around phrases like “assault rifle”, “military-grade weapon”, “weapons of war”, “common sense gun control” and many others. My favorite of these is the asinine term “fully semi-automatic”.

This idiotic saying has been used several times, but my personal favorite one is from a recent CNN news report in which a CNN reporter, who had obviously never used a long gun before judging by his piss poor stance, started shooting an AR-15 at a range before ominously proclaiming to the camera that he was going to turn it on “fully semi-automatic” in order to make their leftist viewers piss their skinny jeans in fear.

Let’s be clear here folks, the term “fully semi-automatic” is just plain stupid and inaccurate. Fully automatic and semi-automatic are two entirely different gun operations. For those of you who don’t know basic firearm knowledge, semi-automatic is when each pull of the trigger fires one round. Fully automatic is when holding down the trigger fires multiple rounds until the trigger is released. Fully automatic firearms, commonly called ‘machine guns’ or ‘assault rifles’, are all but illegal in the United States, requiring tons of paperwork, time and a background check in order to purchase just one.

The second fallacy is thus: the hatred of the AR. Gun control advocates seem to have a hard-on for hating the AR configuration, some even claiming that it’s the favorite gun for the psychos who commit mass shootings. Let’s get one thing perfectly clear from the get-go: AR is only a firearm design.

When one talks about an AR style rifle, the AR aspect of it is simply the configuration and build of the rifle. An accurate analogy would be if some sicko ran over a crowd of people with a BMW and the government responded by banning the type of frame used to build the car.

AR style rifles are also not the favorite guns for shooters. If one simply looks at American crime statistics, the vast majority of gun crimes are committed with handguns. The man who shot up the Pulse Nightclub — I refuse to use that bastard’s name — used a Sig Sauer MCX rifle and a Glock 17 handgun. The Columbine shooters used a variety of firearms, including the TEC DC9 handgun, Hi-Point 995 carbine rifle, and several shotguns, but no ARs.

Now it’s true that some shooters have used ARs, such as the Sutherland Springs shooter and the madman who shot up Parkland, but like I said earlier, AR is simply the build of a gun. If a psycho truly wanted to harm others, they could just as easily use an AK variant or a Sig Sauer, like in the case of the Pulse Nightclub shooter.

The third and final fallacy is not so much as a fallacy as it is a criticism of the gun control advocates on the left. That criticism is the fact that so many of them are incredibly ignorant about firearms. Like I said during the first fallacy, hardly any of them actually get into the specifics about what they want to ban. When they do actually talk about the different variations and actions of firearms, they spew such blatantly false information and ideas that it’d make any gun owner cringe.

So many of them act like ARs and other scary-looking black semi-auto rifles have uniquely enormous magazines and stopping power. Here’s a basic firearm fact for any leftists reading this: the standard caliber for most AR rifles is the 5.56 NATO round. Compared to other rifle calibers, this round is rather weak. Not only are far stronger gun calibers, but many non-semi-auto firearms have rather large round capacities. One example is the famous Winchester 1873 lever action rifle is fitted in 357 and can hold 13 rounds. Various pistols can come in rounds as powerful as 45 ACP and can hold over 10 rounds in their magazines.

I think it’s imperative that people know this basic gun information and how clueless the liberal media and politicians are. As someone who loves America and her Constitution, I think people need to know at least some rudimentary facts about the arms we all have the right to bear. Don’t always swallow what the Mainstream Media feeds you about guns, chances are they’re illiterate on the subject. If you’re one of the people who want to restrict guns, please be specific about your ideas. Don’t make vague statements about common sense or claim that hunting rifles of handguns aren’t as powerful as a tactical rifle.