Category: The Media

It’s always funny when they find America, which you know, has a lower violent crime rate than California, and doesn’t see guns as some kind of demonic curse in sorry need of an exorcism:

He went on to say I could buy as many of them as I wanted and walk out with my arsenal today. “These guns have helped our industry tremendously,” he said. “They’ve attracted a whole new generation…. Is there one you want to try?” He brought down a Colt AR15-A3 tactical carbine, slammed in an empty magazine, and handed it to me. It felt disappointingly fake, an awesome water pistol, perhaps, or a Halloween prop. I asked if I would need to tell him why I wanted to buy a gun like that or what I intended to do with it. He squinted and smiled and appeared politely speechless. “Would you have to do what, now?” he asked.

I’m not big on slamming magazines into a gun in a shop for effect, I’ll be honest.

“I have six handguns—bought five of them here,” an old man said to me. I was waiting for Ron, who’d gone to the back room to find a gun he thought I might like. “I have five rifles, got all of them here,” the man said. “I spend most of my time reloading shells. All my friends are dead.” He had thin white hair and a long, sagging face dotted with age spots. “Do you know what the biggest problem with divorce is? It’s the bedroom. And a lot of it’s the man’s fault. Like a damn rabbit, on and off.”

It felt like we should have had rocking chairs, perhaps a set of checkers between us. This was one of the things I liked most about Sprague’s: the general-store feel. Groups would form, strangers becoming neighbors, sharing stories. “I lost my wife in November,” the man said. “Sixty years. Now my kids keep trying to get me to go live with them in California. My doctor said, ‘What’s your lifestyle?’ I told him guns. He said, ‘Stay in Yuma.’ “

I guess it’s a bit late for Markey’s Law Monday, but it’s still Monday out on the west coast. You have to love it when they are subtle about suggesting interest in guns is a sexual dysfunction.

“I just got that same Smith for my kid,” he said.

I looked at him. He appeared far too young to have a grown son.

“Wait, how old is your kid?” I asked.

“Six,” he said.

Yeah, buying a .22 for a kid. The horror.

Richard Sprague, the owner of Sprague’s Sports, is a slender man in his fifties with a tapered face, coarse graying hair, and an easy smile. Other Arizona gun stores would not even entertain my request to visit and ask questions about selling guns and ammunition, but Richard without hesitation invited me to spend as much time as I wanted at Sprague’s—behind the counter, in the back room, at the shooting range, anywhere I wished.

The other Arizona gun stores were smarter. I really wish gun shops would understand there is not much good that can come of speaking with reporters. I am definitely a fan of engagement, but there’s very little the media is going to report about several days in a gun shop that’s not going to end up being twisted like this horror. These people hate you. You don’t have to explain yourself. They are the barbarians, not you. If a reporter seems to try to want to understand you, the best defense is to walk away, because it’s probably a set-up. These people are not at all to be trusted.

The vampires among journalists will always feed to the greatest satisfaction off ordinary, good people, who honestly just want to talk and be understood. Don’t be tempted. They are out to get you. I think what bothers me the most is that this reporter is from Pennsylvania, which is still, last I checked, part of America when it comes to mostly respecting the 2nd Amendment. I grew up not 50 miles from where I live now, about 5 miles outside of Philadelphia, and I knew people who hunted, did target shooting, and carried guns for self-defense. Some of them I called family. It was not a novel or unusual concept for me. So I really have to wonder, if this reporter is from Pennsylvania, where exactly she’s from, because clearly she hasn’t seen much of her own state.

UPDATE: Someone pointed out the reporter was a woman, so the article has been updated accordingly.

You see this a lot from vacuous editorial writers that basically state, “Something Must Be Done!” No details, no policy prescriptions, just that we clearly have to do something, America, because before this editorial, pretty clearly we’ve done nothing.

It is time to do something. The hard fact is that too many guns land in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Each case is different, we know. Each one can somehow be explained away: He got the gun illegally; he stole it from his father; the weapon is legal but the shooter is crazy, and on and on.

Wait, wait… I have an idea… Maybe we should make it illegal for certain kinds of people to own guns, like felons and crazy people. We could also make stealing guns a serious crime. Hell, let’s just go whole hog here and suggest stiff federal sentences of up to 10 years for committing gun crimes. Juveniles should likewise be banned from possessing guns, and it should be a federal crime for them to take guns to school, with stiff penalties. You know what else might help? Background checks for people buying guns from a retail dealer. All that should clear this problem right up!

The AP is carrying a story on it, along with the Bar Association journal. I understand from folks on the ground in Illinois that gun control groups in the Land of Lincoln are having a cow over this. The national groups have already classified this as an affront to democracy (which begs the question as to whether they believe grand juries are likewise an affront to democracy). I think it’s really important to highlight this quote from the press release, because it tells you exactly what the gun control crowd stands for:

Our message is this: we will no longer use the power and authority of our office to criminalize and punish decent, otherwise law-abiding citizens who choose to exercise the rights granted to them by the Second Amendment of the United States’ Constitution to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and their families.

This is what they are freaking out about. It’s not criminals possessing guns, it’s not drug dealers possessing guns — they are freaking out because a prosecutor has declared he’s not going to try to put otherwise law-abiding, honest people in prison.

Looks like Bloomberg is taking advantage of the fact that most of Pennsylvania has an explicitly anti-gun media market, given that they are willing to reprint Bloomberg’s propaganda. Plenty of gun owners still subscribe to the papers that work daily to advocate against their constitutional rights. Starve the beast!

After any shooting, you’ll inevitably have inane articles like this:

Semiautomatic handguns are the weapon of choice for mass murderers because they are light and easy to conceal, and adaptable to using high-capacity magazines, experts say.

Experts should also say they are the weapon of choice for everyone, police, military, and armed citizens too. Why? They are inordinately useful for self-defense compared to the alternatives.

“There is no valid reason for civilians to have assault rifles, semiautomatic handguns and high-capacity magazines,” he said. “We have to start ratcheting down the firepower in civilian hands in the United States.”

Then why do ordinary citizens and the police overwhelmingly choose these for self-defense purposes? I love the logic that in police hands, suddenly these weapons become useful, even necessary, for self-defense, but me as some ordinary citizen, that I should be hobbled with a revolver, or an unwieldy shotgun or hunting rifle. The scary part is, who Greg McCune, the article’s author, is:

“I provide training for journalists in the Americas ranging from classroom, to online, eLearning, tip sheets, and blogging. I also serve as coordinator within Americas editorial for diversity issues and I run the Americas summer internship program.”

Teaching other journalists how to make one-sided hit pieces on gun ownership while apparently knowing little about firearms or firearm ownership. No wonder journalism as a profession is circling the bowl.

The Baltimore Sun is whipping up good old fashion straw-man stereotyping hoe down, where we celebrate those silly and stupid gun nuts who think people want to ban their assault weapons, regulate gun show out of existence and force registration of firearms. Silly gun owners. I have no idea where they could get such a nutty idea like that from. Really. How stupid can these ignorant rednecks be? I mean, we here at the Baltimore Sun know these types struggle with reading, but we are so much better than them. Let’s celebrate!

The folks at the Baltimore Sun want to shame us out of our activism with their own smug sense of superiority. Clearly they believe we should listen. I would. If you have a subscription to the Baltimore Sun, cancel it now. Tell them why. Starve the beast. It’s the only way to beat them.