Loaded Words from the Gun Violence Debate

The Brady Campaign found itself in the awkward position of using a firm called Point Blank when it needed help last month.

When Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. promised ideas for responding to the massacre, he said he was “ shooting for Tuesday.”

“We know that there is no silver bullet,” Mr. Biden said last week about stemming gun violence.

Candidates “target” their opponents, lawmakers “stick to their guns,” advocacy groups “ take aim” at hostile legislation and reporters write about a White House “under fire.”

“All of that ties into the frontier tradition, rugged individualism, a single American with a flintlock or a gun of some kind holding off the Indians or fighting off the British,” said Robert Spitzer, a scholar of gun control at the State University of New York at Cortland.

Gun control advocates these days generally do not use the term gun control; instead, they talk about curbing gun violence, recognizing that “control” stirs opposition among legal gun owners who fear their rights being trampled.

“My opening line was, his speech was a misfire; he missed the target,” Mr. Spitzer recalled. “I liked using the gun metaphor because I think it’s doubly appropriate for him.”

For an editorial last week criticizing Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, for his past solidarity with the N.R.A., The New York Times used the headline, “Senator Reid Takes Fresh Aim.”

Candy Crowley, the CNN anchor, introduced an interview by highlighting “our conversation with N.R.A. point man Asa Hutchinson.”

Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential nominee, for using cross hairs on her Web site to identify Democrats like Ms. Giffords who she said should be defeated for re-election.

But during a discussion on fiscal talks, he [Obama] too used the terminology of firearms. “What I will not do is have that negotiation with a gun at the head of the American people,” he said.