Bryan Fischer, the director of issues analysis of the conservative American Family Association (AFA), says that AR-15 assault weapons like the one used to massacre school children in Connecticut should not be banned because they are just a “fancy-pants” version of the muskets used in America’s Revolutionary War.

“Whoever controls the language is going to control the debate,” Fischer explained in a recent radio broadcast obtained by Right Wing Watch on Monday. “They picked the word ‘assault weapon’ to make it sound bad, to make it sound mean. They’re trying to say the Second Amendment does not protect assault weapons.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“I say exactly the reverse. That is exactly what it protects, that is exactly what it was designed to protect,” he continued. “It was designed to protect the right of the American people to keep and bear arms.”

Fischer went on to insist that today’s assault rifles were “the same kind of arms, rifles, assault weapons, military-style weapons that were used to defeat the British.”

“They just used their hunting rifles and used them to defend their independence,” he continued. “So the Second Amendment is exactly designed to protect assault rifles [and] that’s just nothing more than a fancy-pants hunting rifle.”

Watch this video from AFA’s Focal Point, uploaded Dec. 7, 2012.