NRA Public Relations and Politics
The NRA trains thousands of people a year in proper firearm handling and safety classes. They also represent the protection of the second amendment and gun rights in the United States. In NRA training they iterate repeatedly that a gun is not a “weapon”, it is a “firearm”. They say this despite during police and military training, the term “weapon” is the terminology used when they are trained to use a gun. The new terminology according to the NRA, is to use the word “firearm”. It is the belief that terming the gun that way makes the public think of it more as a tool, instead of something used for harm. I researched both words and their usage, and the term “firearm” makes a huge spike in popularity, especially around the turn of the 21st century. It can also been seen as the civilian logic in gun use, because unlike the military or the police, a civilian is going to be using their gun as a tool, for either target and sport shooting, to hunting non-human animals. As a result, they recognized that the average person needs to be taught about use and safety in terms they could relate to, instead of just keeping a military training type standard with the terminology. 
