Alphecca

Weekly Check on the Bias...

Is it July 19th already? Gosh, the Summer is almost half-over! Well, in Vermont, anyway.

So here's the latest Weekly Check on the Media's Bias Against Guns... I examine some of the stories reported by the press regarding guns and gun-control and the bias of those reports. Most of my "material" comes from links from Yahoo and KABA. Let's get started...

Ya' know, you just stroll into a fine dining establishment to enjoy a good meal, and you happen to have a gun strapped on -- perfectly legal -- and suddenly you're surrounded by deputies and the local sheriff is asking you all sorts of questions...

[I spent an hour trying to locate this exact shot on my VHS copy of Unforgiven showing Gene Hackman as the sheriff after he takes Clint Eastwood's gun in the tavern. You know what happens next...]

It may not have been the biggest news of the past week (well, actually there was no BIG news the past week) but it was certainly the most interesting. I (and many other bloggers) gave this a mention last week but I'd like to go into it more now because I like to hear myself talk.

Here's the scenerio: Six law-abiding gentlemen stop at a local eatery for a bite after a day at the range. In conformity with Virginia [state] law, these folks are allowed to openly carry holstered firearms. Well! Someone makes a call to the cops because, um, just because. The Washington Post picks up the story:

Dispatchers quickly sent four officers to the scene. The officers were "extremely polite" and were hoping that some of the men were in law enforcement, said Sgt. Richard Perez, a spokesman for the police department. None was.

The men told the officers "they were just exercising their rights as citizens of the commonwealth," Perez said.

Turns out, packing a pistol in public is perfectly legal in Virginia...

Turns out, huh? Imagine that! Turns out the law allowing it is only about 300 years old! It will probably come as a surprise to the writer of this news story -- Tom Jackman -- that it "turns out" that a LOT of states allow open carry of firearms.

Here's another quote:

In Virginia, as in many states, carrying a concealed weapon requires a permit, issued by a local court. But no permit is required to simply wield a gun in the open, a right reinforced by a state law that took effect July 1. Not so in the District and Maryland, unless you're a police or federal officer.

Bias in a news story is a subtle thing. You might not think you've seen any yet but...

Fortunately, as the Gods of the Blogosphere would have it, one of our own -- Scott, of the blog Demosophia -- was one of those six men and filed a report. He hits it right on when he says:

...The most glaring bias, apart from the use of presumptive idioms such as "packing heat," concerns the fact that the author, Tom Jackman, never mentions that open carry is the accepted law-abiding response to statute restrictions on concealed carry. He also never mentions that the weapons in question were holstered, and even sews a rather erroneous impression of Virginia statute by recounting the law as meaning that "no permit is required to simply wield a gun in the open."

It may be a small point, but openly wielding an unholstered firearm could, and almost certainly does (depending on the circumstances), constitute a violation called "brandishing," for which there are severe penalties, including fines and possible imprisonment. We're not talking about Dodge City here.

Put another way, no one was "wielding" anything. The guns were and remained holstered. But the average liberal who was reading this article would immediately think that folks were waving their guns around. They'll be the first ones contacting their state representatives to enact some law against such outrages. And the Washington Post eggs them on with dire quotes from several gun-control advocates including:

Openly carrying weapons is "not a good idea," said Kristen Rand of the Violence Policy Center in Washington. "This is the gun lobby's vision of how America should be. Everybody's packing heat and ready to engage in a shootout at the slightest provocation."

Oh come on, honey, NOBODY wants to engage in a shootout! The very act of carrying a firearm is to discourage such violence from the mutant criminals who infest our society. This last quote is a simple scare-tactic by the writer. Let's put fear into everyones' minds and stamp out this horrible right.

WaPo followed up the next day with a slightly more balanced piece about how some of the folks openly carrying are hoping to "educate" their neighbors about the right to bear arms. But they still managed to include this quote:

Some, such as Cindy Jones, worry that openly toting guns could make them too accessible to the wrong fingers. "The image that comes to mind is a child could grab it," said Jones, 50, a psychologist. "It's frightening to think that that's the mind-set. It makes me think of a gunslinger with a holster."

Well, by that rational, cops shouldn't be allowed into restaurants either since a child could grab their firearm, too. And of course, once again we have the imagery of gunslingers.

Not content to leave well enough along, the Washington Post -- yesterday -- wouldn't let go:

On Friday afternoon, Kevin M. Tracy ordered signs to be posted in the windows of the four The Bungalow restaurants in Northern Virginia. They'll read: "The Bungalow, a Homeland Security model facility. No firearms, no WMDs, safe zone."

Tracy, the restaurants' director of operations, said the small chain decided to ban gun-toting customers in March after a man with a firearm strapped to his hip sat down in its Franconia restaurant and ordered a margarita. The man properly asserted that Virginia law allows him to openly carry his weapon. But Tracy thinks guns, with the exception of those carried by police officers, have no place in his restaurants.

The writer of this article, Maria Glod, leaves that vision of a "gun-toting" customer boozing it up until the penultimate paragraph where it's revealed that the margarita was for the man's wife! He had mineral water! THAT, folks, is what media bias is all about!

Meanwhile, on the "assault weapons ban" (AWB) front, the New York Times had an editorial which -- I'm sure you'll be shocked -- lamented the probable end to the ban on 19 firearms because of the way they "look". Since the New York Times is working as hard as it can, in news stories and editorials, to have President Bush defeated this November, they blame HIM:

Few Americans favor a return to the day when military-style assault weapons like AK-47's, Uzis and Tec-9 pistols could be manufactured and sold in this country, making them readily available for use by gangs and drug traffickers engaged in violent crime. Yet President Bush has still not made any effort to stop the 10-year-old federal ban on assault weapons from expiring on Sept. 13.

Seeking to prod the White House into action, two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles Schumer of New York, released a letter this week that was signed by Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and urged Mr. Bush to take a forceful role in rallying Congress to save the law. At a time when terrorism is a serious threat, the former presidents wrote, it is even more imperative to renew the ban, the Assault Weapons Act, and limit access to military-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.

It seems doubtful that Mr. Bush will heed his predecessors' message. His zeal for fighting terrorism and crime appears not to extend to risking the wrath of pro-gun extremists who are vehemently opposed to the renewal of this proven public safety measure, even though it has led to a sharp drop in the use of assault weapons in crime. The weapons ban also has support from every major law enforcement group in the country.

Notice that they now use the phrase "military-style" twice to describe these few firearms. I suppose they think that brings up images of soldiers in Iraq. "Assault" doesn't quite do it anymore, probably from overuse. Gun-control advocates have obviously tired of the trite expression "sensible gun control." The carrot didn't work so now comes "the stick."

And once again, they bring up the specter of "terrorism" to bring terror to voters' hearts. Frankly, while guns are used for such in some parts of this world, I have a feeling that al Quada and company prefer something BIG such as crashing planes, bombs, biologicals, and so on.

Normal people would never be swayed by what Ford, Carter, and Clinton have to say about anything, but I'm sure the leftist, Bush-hating crowd in the Democratic Party will GUSH over it.

Regarding the same issue, the Salt Lake Tribune (UT) had a truly schizophrenic editorial comparing the fight against gay marriage with the fight to renew the AWB! I quote:

This being campaign season, there is more posing in Congress than at a Mr. Olympia contest. Exhibit A: The spectacle of senators prattling about whether to amend the Constitution to prevent gay marriages. Everyone knew that the proposed amendment had no chance of getting the two-thirds support necessary to pass, but Republican leaders staged the debate anyway. They wanted to score campaign points with the religious right.

Strangely enough, the GOP potentates in the House used precisely the opposite reasoning to deny Democrats a debate on extending the assault weapons ban. That ban, enacted in 1994, expires on Sept. 13. Yet Majority Leader Tom DeLay insisted that because a majority of votes to pass the extension was nowhere in sight, there was no point in debating a bill. Thus, the Republicans denied the Democrats a chance to score points with the anti-gun left.

There is a difference between these two issues, however. If two gays marry, no one is harmed. If the assault weapons ban, weak as it is, expires, it will become at least marginally easier for mentally ill people or criminals to get their hands on the kind of semi-automatic firearms that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris used to wreak havoc at Columbine High School.

The National Rifle Association and other enemies of firearms regulation claim that the existing assault weapons ban is ineffectual and senseless because it only outlaws cosmetic features of certain guns whose action is identical to that of legal hunting rifles. They are largely right.

While the contrasting strategies of Republicans is a clever one to point out, that is just politics as usual and is something both parties do every day. When's the last time you saw a Bush nomination to a high court come up for a general vote? But more important, the editorial admits that the AWB vote would simply have been to score points with the "anti-gun left."

They further concede that the ban is ineffectual and later the unsigned editorial states:

The goal should be to create a new law that not only extends the current ban but strengthens it to accomplish the original intent, which is to ban military-style, semi-automatic weapons that fire many rounds in quick succession.

Aha! So that's their real agenda. But then why press for a pointless vote on a useless existing law? Of course, they use the same imagery as others of lots of bullets fired quickly. They fail to mention that pretty much all guns operate the same way. If the bullets come out quickly, it's only due to the dexterity of the shooter's finger. That leads to the logical extension of their desire: That all guns -- since the triggers on them could be pulled quickly -- should be banned. You catch my drift...

Last week I mentioned the supposed controversy that WaPo was stirring up between the NRA and hunters. I admitted that I didn't know much about it all and I welcomed your comments and most of you made it clear that hunters DO support President Bush and the NRA. Here's further proof that you were right:

A National Wildlife Federation poll of Wisconsin's hunters and fishermen shows the solid majority are Republicans who voted for George Bush in the last election.

Results of the nationwide poll conducted by Bellwether Research & Consulting that were released Wednesday show while sportsmen are opposed to some of Bush's conservation policies, 68 percent voted for Bush in 2000 and 66 percent identified themselves as conservatives this time around.

That last line is confusing. The majority voted for Bush in 2000, but the article doesn't say how many will this time 'round. Read the whole thing.

I suppose this report is a bit shorter than some but things slow down in the Summer.

* * * * * *

Fortunately, there are plenty of other pro-2A bloggers with good stuff:

Publicola scolds Hugh Hewitt over gun control. Also a Bush/AWB meme.

Les Jones has his Thursday Gun Links up.

Via Smoke on the Water comes an intriguing idea by NeanderPundit for a bloggers' postal match. Get out those .22s and mail your targets in!

Matt Rustler at Stop the Bleating has much more on Virginia and carrying.

Blogger Garrett at "Me" takes me to task over the MN judge tossing the Minnesota concealed carry law. Last week I said that it doesn't matter how a bill gets enacted, that is, if it's attached to an un-related bill. DiFi is trying to do this with the AWB extension. I said that lots of laws are enacted this way. Garrett says this is wrong and the judge was correct.

Bitter Bitch tears one on a NJ Senate leader.

Say Uncle reports that the American Bar Association is urging Bush to renew the AWB. Otherwise, they'll just have more to file lawsuits about...

The Countertop Chronicles is challenging the Washington Post over their failure to publish his letter about open-carry in Virginia.

Kevin at The Smallest Minority scoops on self-field-stripping firearms. It's not as pleasant as it sounds...

There's much more but it's just about midnight and I have to stop sometime. Thanks to all of you for stopping by!

Posted by Jeff Soyer at July 19, 2004 12:28 AM