“In most parts of Florida, you can buy a rapid-fire assault weapon at a private gun show without a criminal background check. But you do need one, complete with fingerprints, to help consumers sign up for health insurance,” William E. Gibson of sun-sentinel.com reports. To be fair, Gibson goes on to make the distinction between Americans exercising a Constitutionally protected right and entrusting personal health data to strangers sucking off the tit of political patronage. For our purposes, the appearance of the term “rapid-fire assault rifle” is more worrying. It’s a brazen attempt to [further] conflate semi-automatic rifles with fully-automatic machine guns. The People of the Gun may laugh, but this kind of Orwellian double-talk but it should be resisted at all costs. Words matter. wgibson@tribune.com or 202-824-8256