The gun control debate isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. Whether we like it or not, this will rage for generations to come.

While I’d prefer the matter to be laid to rest in the name of gun rights, I’m realistic enough to recognize that just as I’m not willing to give up the fight, neither is the other side.

And, frankly, I can accept that.

What I refuse to accept, though, is something that the incomparable Dave Workman recently took issue with. That is the idea that gun control somehow equates to safety.

As the establishment media has delighted in reporting the ongoing civil litigation against the National Rifle Association and its now-former executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, there has been no slowing down of efforts to portray gun control groups and efforts as “gun safety” organizations and advocacy.

While one can read in the Courthouse News about how Virginia Democrats are pushing “gun safety measures” with assistance from March For Our Lives co-founder David Hogg, it is also possible to see LaPierre attacked at the Daily Kos, by a writer observing, “You’d think a guy who’s dedicated his whole being to making random public shootings far more frequent, deadly, and traumatizing would be completely beyond reproach. Or at least be satisfied with L.L. Bean. But no.”

Check the Everytown for Gun Safety website, where this myth is perpetuated: “In recent years, the gun lobby has worked to allow anyone to carry guns anywhere in public, anytime, with no questions asked.”

This is how so-called “constitutional carry” efforts are described, essentially to portray gun rights activists as being in favor of arming criminals. It’s a lie, and they know it.

The mudslinging gets even better at Business Insider, where coverage of the NRA trial and LaPierre’s own testimony about alleged lavish spending includes this paragraph: “Gun control and gun safety advocates say they’re not sorry to see LaPierre go. A few took the opportunity to unload, so to speak, to Business Insider on what they described as LaPierre’s bullet-riddled legacy.”

Now, I’m not surprised that the media is taking this stance, but I’m still disappointed that it continues.

All of this is predicated on an idea that gun control is, in fact, gun safety; that the measures being proposed are not just going to reduce crime, but that people on this side of the debate actually think it will as well.

Why else would they act like every defense of the right to keep and bear arms is made from a standpoint of empowering bad people and leading to more deaths?

I have reasons why that pisses me off.

The media constantly present the gun control side as the pro-safety, anti-violence side. They’ve ever referred to numerous anti-gunners as “gun violence prevention activists” or some other euphemism designed to hide the fact that the totality of their efforts reside in gun control.

But gun control doesn’t equate to safety. It never has.

Even the progressive thinktank RAND, which grasps at every straw it can to support gun control, has largely been unable to find evidence to support the vast majority of anti-gun proposals. That alone should be a big, red warning flag for both activists and the media.

That’s not surprising for this side of the debate, though.

See, we look at the fact that RAND can’t find support for gun control and couple it with the violent crime we routinely see out of anti-gun areas and it’s not hard to see how those measures didn’t accomplish a blasted thing. We see that even in relatively pro-gun areas, the bad guys get guns through illicit means, which no amount of gun control will make go away.

So if the bad guys have guns, gun control is only impacting the people who want guns to keep them safe.

Gun control doesn’t equal safety because gun control is really the antithesis of safety.

It’s just too bad the media won’t see that fact.