Alphecca: Weekly Check On The Bias

May 10, 2004

Weekly Check On The Bias

Once again, it's time for the Weekly Check on the Bias here at Alphecca. I look at a variety of newspapers to see how they're slanting things against gun ownership and the Second Amendment.

The big news was yesterday's Million Moms... No wait, Half Million... Hmmm... Hundred Thousand Moms... Dang, I think I've got it now. The big news was yesterday's Two Thousand Moms March.

Rather sparse looking there, huh? Maybe they were all crowded out of the Reuters photo by Jesse Jackson's huge ego. He's the one holding the sign with all the guns on it. The point of the gathering of "moms" (The Rev. Jackson, of course, is a "father" in his spare time...) was to urge Congress to extend the phony "assault weapons ban" due to expire this fall. The ban is based on various mostly cosmetic features. They "look scary" so let's ban them.

Here's the Washington Times:

A few thousand women and a handful of men came to Washington Sunday for the second Million Mom March, urging President Bush to renew the federal ban on assault weapons.

The Mother's Day march was the largest pro-gun control event since the first Million Mom March in 2000. But that one attracted hundreds of thousands of women, including celebrities and politicians.

Organizers told the Washington Post that they expected a smaller turnout this time, describing the march as the kickoff of a nationwide campaign.

I wonder if MMM and the Brady Bunch realize that -- despite a $50,000 dollar full page ad in the Washington Post -- if this is the largest "protest" (or if you prefer, rally) they have been able to put together in four years, maybe this isn't much of a hot-button issue with voters. That might make lawmakers take pause before casting a vote to extend the ban. That's if it even comes up before the elections.

Interestingly, Yahoo linked to this press release by John Snyder of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:

"Obviously," continued Snyder, "the good citizens of the United States of America would rather spend Mother's Day enjoying their time with the mothers of America than wasting it on Brady bunch nonsense."

Snyder said that "the much balleyhooed Million Mom March United With the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence today drew such a pitiful crowd of supporters that automobile traffic on the bridges crossing the Potomac River from Virginia into Washington, D.C. flowed more quickly than normal."

Incidentally, I'm doing things a bit differently today. Yahoo's Gun Control Debate Page didn't have any links on the actual "March" as of 8:00 AM this morning so I'm completely relying on "search the news" for items about it plus just scanning my bookmarked newspapers. Strange, considering that this was the only major story of note on gun control this past week. By the time you read this, that might change. Or maybe Yahoo simply doesn't want to report on how lame and wimpy the turn-out was.

So, the Washington Times reports the story relatively straight-up. How did the Washington Post do? How do you think? From a story today titled Moms Unleash Their Anguish, Anger...

Thousands March to End Gun Violence, Renew Assault Weapons Ban
Protesters, most of them women, gathered on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol yesterday for the largest gun-control demonstration in four years, a loud and calculated effort aimed at forcing President Bush to renew the soon-to-expire federal ban on assault weapons.

The rally lacked the star power, and certainly the numbers, of the first Million Mom March in 2000, when hundreds of thousands of women flooded the Mall on Mother's Day. Organizers this time put the crowd at close to 3,000, a figure that could not be confirmed because police no longer estimate crowd sizes.

WaPo then proceeds to relate the heartfelt stories of loss by various attendees. Look, I think the death of a child, anyone actually, is indeed a tragedy.

But the issue here isn't the type of firearm used. It's that a firearm was misused by a criminal. To quote a bumpersticker, "Criminal Control, not gun control." Should we ban scary looking knives? Ban swimming-pools? Maybe an even better slogan should be "Parental Control" since most of these gang-bangers seem to lack such. And let's face it, most children killed by guns do so at the hands of young street thugs and gang members.

Oddly enough, the New York Times was a little more balanced in their reportage, even mentioning a counter-protest:

Gun rights supporters also held a rally on Sunday a few blocks away from the White House. Organized by Second Amendment Sisters, a group of women who support gun rights, the rally drew several hundred.

"Self-defense is a basic human right, and a firearm is the most effective means of self-defense," said Maria Heil, the group's spokeswoman.

Like Mr. LaPierre, Ms. Heil said she did not believe Congress would act on the bill extending the ban. She said the rally was timed to coincide with the Million Mom March because "we can't let them go unanswered."

If the MMM organizers couldn't come up with a celebrity other than the Rev. Jackson, the Second Amendment Sisters did come up with semi-celebrity Shemane Nugent, there to attend a conference held Saturday. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Mrs. Nugent came to Washington yesterday, but she left her .38-caliber revolver and her rock star husband, Ted, at home.

He would have been out of place anyway at the Conservative Women's Network luncheon, where a roomful of Washington's elite ladies heard the mantra of empowerment through firepower.

"The Second Amendment is a commandment we must defend," Shemane Nugent told those gathered for the lecture. "I like to think of a firearm as an equalizer."

Her speech coincides with tomorrow's Million Mom March, which organizers hope will persuade Congress to renew the ban on assault weapons. Puget Sound police officials, including Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, have asked Congress to extend the ban past its Sept. 13 expiration date.

Whether owning guns deters crime against women has been a contentious issue in the larger gun debate, with both sides referring to studies that give conflicting answers. Either way, the female gun lobby is a growing force.

Groups such as the Second Amendment Sisters have formed to represent female gun owners, a population the Sisters number at 17 million. They view self-defense as a basic human right enshrined in the Constitution.

The whole tone of this article is rather sympathetic to the pro-gun view, something the Seattle P-I isn't known for.

The LA Times gave barely a mention in their news briefs today:

About 3,000 women spent Mother's Day in front of the Capitol demanding that Congress extend an assault weapons ban due to expire in September.

The Million Mom March was much smaller than the first such gathering in 2000, which drew tens of thousands of women to Washington and to rallies in about 70 other cities.

The marchers promised to lobby their representatives until the federal ban, which outlaws 19 types of semiautomatic weapons, is renewed or made permanent. They promised to hold rallies in about 20 states and at the Democratic and Republican national conventions.

I think we can pretty well sum yesterday's rally -- irregardless of spin -- as a non-event.

Here's what some pro-2A bloggers are up to:

Armed women fighting breast cancer? Kevin at The Smallest Minority has the story, and a fisk of the response by some.

Say Uncle has more on the march.

Naturally, Les Jones has his Weekly Gun Links up. Now, he's on the road again...

Backroad Blog is pissed at Kroger's in Ohio for posting "no guns allowed" on their stores, in reference to the new concealed-carry law of that state.

I better stop now because this post is already late... As always, thanks for stopping by!

Update: A reader who was at the Second Amendment Sisters counter-protest reports that John R. Lott, Jr also spoke at their rally. She (Janine) also says the "Million" Moms were carrying a lot of Kerry signs. No surprise there since he spoke at their first event in 2000.

Posted by Jeff Soyer at May 10, 2004 08:37 AM

Comments

Was in D.C. for a Wedding on Saturday and woke up Sunday to look out our hotel window and see a couple of hundred people in Freedom Plaze celebrating the second amendment.

Have a small post on the subject - but suffice it to say that their numbers were much greater than the post gives them credit for.

Also, for what its worth, I doubt that there were even 2000 commie mommies present. We certainly didn't see that many in our casual drive around the mall Sunday. Of course, it was a beautiful day with thousands of people on the mall enjoy the WWII Memorial, the Washington Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and just the sun and fun. The Commie Mommies were all but invisible amongst the average americans present.

Posted by: Countertop at May 10, 2004 12:20 PM

Last night, I watched moron after moron make emotional and fact-challenged speeches about the horrors of assault weapons, and how we needed to extend the ban on them, lest there be another Columbine.

As I watched, I cradled my new AK-74 clone I had just picked up from my FFL that afternoon. The gun is fully compliant with the ridiculous 1994 ban on certain features of semiautomatic rifles.

Posted by: Moonbat_One at May 10, 2004 03:34 PM

I'm shocked that the media reported the low turnout at all. In fact, I blogged on this earlier today.

It's true, the numbers don't lie. But that's only true if you actually have all of the numbers. My previous post about the 2,000 mom march reminded me of something - protests, gatherings, kibbutzings, whatever, here is DC usually aren't that well attended. Often times, the media doesn't tell you that.

What the media reports is the number of people "estimated" to show up, before the fact. Take the recent WTO 'protests' for instance - the week leading up to them, national news outlets were reporting that 20,000 protesters were "expected" to show up. DC shut down many streets in preparation for the march, and they had riot police all over the place. Guess how many people showed up? According to the Post, it was around 2,000. By my own estimate, though, I'd put the number at less than 1,000. (No, I wasn't down there demonstrating with these goofballs, but I did happen to jog past a couple of their so-called "events.") The problem is that the national media rarely reports turnout numbers after the fact. I dont know if it's an intentional omission on their part or if it's simply that "poor turnout" isn't newsworthy enough to make the cycle, but either way, the result is that the nation is left with a distorted impression of the actual turnout.

Sometimes, I think that the media does purposely mislead as to the size of a particular demonstration. I'm reminded of an anti-Iraq-war demonstration that happened sometime in the past year - before the fact, the media was reporting that tens of thousands of people would be in attendance. But only about 400 people showed up for that one. Did the media report the low turnout? No. And it wasn't because it simply wasn't newsworthy - national media outlets ran stories after the event, saying things like "the crowd marched to the White House to demand so-and-so," but they never mentioned a number. You can be sure that if the turnout was large that they'd sure as heck give you an estimate of the number of people. The worst part is that some papers carried pictures of the 400 protestors, and they were all carefully framed such that it looked like a large protest.

Because of my own first-hand observations, I'm very skeptical of any media coverage of demonstrations, especially those overseas. Every once in a while you'll see a story such as "Italians turn out en masse to show their hatred for President Bush." When you do, take a closer look - is there an aerial shot of the demonstration? Or is the photographer carefully choosing his shots so as to misrepresent the event in order to push a particular political agenda?

Posted by: jkhat at May 10, 2004 03:50 PM

"Irregardless?" Is that the opposite of regardless? Your arguments might have more credibility if you spoke English.

Posted by: GAB at May 10, 2004 04:10 PM

Like it or not, irregardless is a word that is a synonym for regardless, even though this is the result of years of misuse.

And if you could stay focused on the subject at hand, you might have more credibility.

[ir]Regards,

Posted by: SayUncle at May 10, 2004 04:23 PM

haha, gab...

YOU GOT SERVED!

Posted by: dan jurgens at May 10, 2004 04:59 PM

Irregardless "is a word", but a bad one. Corruption of the language (distinguished from innovation and evolution) is something that we should strive against.

But more importantly, one wonders if Rev. Jackson thinks that even a single Steyr AUG has been used to commit a crime in the US? What about the SIG AMT, which is what another one of the silhouettes looks a lot like to my eyes.

I imagine in his world, if not for the AWB, gang-bangers all over the country would be using $3,000+ European military-style rifles to shoot people, rather than stolen pistols and shotguns.

Ah, to have such clarity...

Posted by: Sigivald at May 10, 2004 05:29 PM

"Commie Mommies" - I like that.

Posted by: Agent Smith at May 10, 2004 07:58 PM

Million Nanny March?

Posted by: PS at May 10, 2004 08:44 PM

Yeah Jeff, I think you definitely should adopt this as your tagline:

Makes Kim du Toit look like a guy named "Kim"

Posted by: Ken Summers at May 10, 2004 09:01 PM

Actually I like Kim's blog. I was the one who said stupid things last year, and he was rightfully angry. That's all in the past. We need all the Pro-2A bloggers we can get... This coming election is going to be nasty, and for all of us who support gun-rights, as lame as Bush has been, Kerry would be an absolute disaster.

Posted by: Jeff Soyer at May 10, 2004 10:42 PM

I like Kim's blog, too. Outstanding archive of gun reviews. But I can't pass up a great line...

Posted by: Ken Summers at May 10, 2004 11:54 PM

"Non-event." Good summary and good conclusion. Thanks.

Posted by: Steve at May 11, 2004 12:16 AM

Capitalization error?
MMM = Million Mom March
or
mMM = thousand Mom March?

Posted by: Glenmore at May 11, 2004 07:47 AM

My contribution to geekery:

I saw the placard that Rev. Jackson was holding for the photographer and I immediately started trying to match the guns with their damage equivalents in various role-playing games.

Rev. Jackson tries to stop the violence, and ends up abetting the crowd who knows both major definitions of RPG.

Posted by: Jason Hinds at May 11, 2004 10:41 AM

"Corruption of the language" through the use of well established synonyms? What're you some kinda frog language police? An unchanging language is a dead language - just ask the Romans...

Posted by: mojo at May 11, 2004 11:25 AM

Hey folks, I'm a tired old man with nothing more than a HS education. Not counting quotes, I've written over a million words here over the past 19 months. I think that if you all read through more than just one post, you'll find that I generally do a pretty good job with the language. It's not like I have an editor helping me out...

GAB: You must have your dates confused... The discussion group by assholes meets next week.

Posted by: Jeff Soyer at May 11, 2004 12:38 PM

Deport those socialist cows to the UK

Posted by: Death at May 11, 2004 05:30 PM

That sounded worse than I meant it to. My point really is just that if the only thing anyone can find to criticize about my arguments is that I used a "non-standard" word, than I'm way ahead of the game in my "gun control" debate.

Obviously, MAB couldn't think of any real arguments so he nit-picked. Say Uncle slammed him good. I just wanted to get in my own shot at him as well...

Posted by: Jeff Soyer at May 12, 2004 11:39 AM

My contribution to geekery:

I saw the placard that Rev. Jackson was holding for the photographer and I immediately started trying to match the guns with their damage equivalents in various role-playing games.

Rev. Jackson tries to stop the violence, and ends up abetting the crowd who knows both major definitions of RPG.

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Posted by: Buiga at September 2, 2004 04:09 AM

Note: Comments close down on posts after seven days and then
the comment input form disappears.

Your comments are welcome. You don't need to enter a URL and you don't need a "valid" email address, either. Note though that MT Blacklist is installed to flag suspiciously spam-like strings. Unfortunately, because of the bastard spammers, the strings "google.com" and "yahoo.com" (even in your email address) are currently banned as well. So are strings such as "cialis" (a common spam) which rules out words such as "socialism". Try putting a hyphan in a word like that.

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May 10, 2004

Weekly Check On The Bias

By Golly, you're reading an archived post. Click Here to head to the main page and read current stuff...

Check it out:

My group sci-fi blog novel:

Colony: Alchibah