The Media – Page 16 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Gun Control or Gun Freedom from a Biological Perspective

I have to admit this is a new angle on the issue I haven’t seen before in the media. The article is one of those middle ground articles, and one of my areas of disagreement is that the debate are at dogmatic poles. It only seems that way because the media doesn’t know anything else, and their reporting on the issue sucks. In truth, we’re currently at a middle ground, and will have reached a consensus when one side can no longer move the debate to one side or another very much. I tend to view the role of the courts in this whole affair as eliminating the outliers (like Chicago, New York, New Jersey, etc) and forcing on them a basic respect for the right, while perhaps letting them get away with a bit more in the way of controls as other places. One of my big beefs with these middle ground people is a lack of understanding that politics just doesn’t work like that. Politics arrives at a middle ground, because people on both sides struggle, and reach the limits of their political power.

UPDATE: Bill Quick of Daily Pundit:

You stand there without your gun, and Iâ€™ll attack you with a club and beat you to death. You obviously donâ€™t need a gun because I donâ€™t have one. Or if youâ€™re weak enough, Iâ€™ll just beat you to death with my bare fists. No weapon needed.

Heh. I wonder how much middle ground he could find in that scenario. I think there was actually a lot of wisdom wrapped up in the old saying that God may have made man, but it was Sam Colt that made them equal.

Redefining Insane

We’ve highlighted quite a bit of rhetoric from anti-gun advocates who view Second Amendment supporters as less than human, or at least as people who deserve less respect than they do as citizens. They want us thrown out of the political debate, our rights to petition our government officials stripped, our right to organize taken away, and our First Amendment right to even speak out with our opinions on what various government entities are doing in regards to firearms policy restricted.

With the Aurora shooting bringing more attention to the issue of mental health qualifications for gun ownership, I couldn’t help but notice a trend in quite a few pieces written by those looking for more gun control. (Emphasis added below.)

“US gun laws: Guilty by reason of insanity” – Laramie Boomerang: “Perhaps, if sane laws on gun control, including the ban on high capacity magazines, were in place, many in Aurora who are now dead or seriously injured would be alive and well today.”
Washington Post: “The gun lobby barely had to say a word before the media sent advocates of saner gun regulation shuffling off in defeat.”
New York Times: “The fact that Congress found it impossible to extend the law against guns that allow you to shoot off 100 bullets in a couple of minutes is simply insane.”
“NRA’s definition of ‘sane American‘ sure has changed” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Today, sane Americans can’t even talk about guns.”
“Gun Sanity” – The Record: “Stop the insanity. It is that simple. The Second Amendment does not give Americans a constitutional right to weapons of mass destruction.”
“Gun Insanity” – Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus: “The Luntz poll suggests that gun owners are saner than our leaders think. Responsible gun owners donâ€™t need access to assault weapons.”

They want to define their political opponents down. See, you can’t possibly be sane if you have a different opinion on public policy. If you’re not sane, well, we can’t trust you with firearms. It’s as simple as that…

Why Would Anyone Take the New York Times Seriously on Gun Policy?

When it comes to how much the New York Times knows about guns, a reader found me exhibit A:

New York Times Gun Reporting Fail

The caption says a .40 caliber Glock. The picture shoes a Les Baer 1911 in .45 ACP. So why, again, should anyone give a crap what the New York Times thinks about guns? Even your basic counterstrike kiddie (or whatever the kids are playing these days) can generally tell the difference between an M1911 and a Glock. I almost wonder if someone at the New York Times looked up this bit of satire …

Journalist Guide to Guns

… and thought it was real. I’ve been doing this long enough, when I see stuff like this now, I just want to declare the person unfit to have an opinion until they relieve themselves of ignorance. The real unfortunate thing is that people still read the New York Times, and thanks to New York’s gun laws, many of its readers are just as or more ignorant about the subject than the Times.

Searching for the old journalist guide satire, it turns out Extrano’s Alley has more to say about this picture going around.

UPDATE: That journalist guide had gone around so much I forgot it was Robb who created it, so credit should go to him.

Another Media Meme That Annoys Me

Every time you have a mass shooting, you see headlines about how this latest shooting has “Reignited The Debate on Gun Control!” See this USA Today headlineÂ as an example.Â The only people I see debating gun control are journalists and vacuous TV talking heads like Piers Morgan. If ordinary people were debating gun control, I’d have people all over my blog taking exception to nearly everything I say. But where are they? This is called manufacturing news and controversy. My message to the media is this: we had a debate on gun control, and your side lost. Get over it.

Chick-fil-a Controversy Manufactured by Media?

I came across this link which suggested that the entire controversy over Chick-fil-a and gay marriage was ginned up by the media. It included a link to the original source of the conversely, and being partial to making judgements based on original source material, I decided to read it.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Dan Cathy is opposed to gay marriage. His religious values would practically guarantee that. But I do have to admit the context in which he was speaking sounds more like heterosexual marriage rather than gay marriage:

It began as a college scholarship and expanded to a foster care program, an international ministry, and a conference and retreat center modeled after the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove.

“That morphed into a marriage program in conjunction with national marriage ministries,” Cathy added.

Some have opposed the company’s support of the traditional family. “Well, guilty as charged,” said Cathy when asked about the company’s position.

“We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.

He’s speaking here of the WinShape Foundation, which has a program that is described thusly:

Truett Cathy‘s middle son, Don “Bubba” Cathy, and his wife Cindy, also head up efforts to minister to couples in strengthening their marriages. The retreat center offers several special events for couplesâ€”ranging from couples who have healthy marriages to couples who are actively considering divorce. The program seeks to promote healthy marriages and families.

If the claim that in this context, Cathy is speaking of heterosexual marriage, I buy it. But I think it’s a stretch to suggest that “biblical definition of a family unit” would ever include a gay family in the minds of the Cathy family, and as the Wikipedia entry notes, WinShape has given substantial funding toÂ Eagle Forum,Â Focus on the Family,Fellowship of Christian Athletes,Â Family Research Council,Â Exodus InternationalÂ and the Marriage & Family Legacy Fund. Since the controversy, it seems WinShape is agreeing to get out of the debate on gay marriage, and leave the political arena. For a business, this is wise.

So while the media may have ginned up a controversy from this one article which nowhere mentions gay rights or gay marriage, it’s a fact that the WinShape foundation has given money to causes that oppose gay marriage. As for the controversy, I think Popehat said it best in this “Eat Less Totalitarianism” post:

Menino could use his bully pulpit to call on Bostonians to reject Chick-Fil-A if they come to town. He could call for social opprobrium on Chick-Fil-A and its affiliates and even on its patrons. He could organize protests and marches and letter-writing campaigns. He could carry a sign in front of Chick-Fil-A saying “BE LES BIGOT” if it opens. But if he says he’ll use the coercive power of government to retaliate against Chick-Fil-A for views he doesn’t like, he’s totalitarian.

Read the whole thing.

SayUncle on Media Reaction to Aurora Shooting

“I’ll need more dick kicking shoes” We’re somewhere there is cable this weekend. The media has been covering this wall to wall, speaking of all kinds of things about the killer, and about the bombs, the guns, etc. Tragedy as entertainment. I’m now really glad I cut the cable. Starve the media beast!

A Tiger? In Africa?

An AK-47, in Queens?

Three men were murdered in Springfield Gardens Saturday morning in a drive-by shooting with an AK-47 assault rifle. At least 63 shots were fired, and questions are still looming over the incident, including why such a serious weapon was on the streets. The submachine gun was developed in Russia to be used as a military weapon. The 11-pound weapon can fire 600 rounds per minute, or 10 rounds per second.

The ignorance — it burns!

The Assault Weapons Ban, enacted by Bill Clinton during his presidency in 1994, banned automatic and some semiautomatic guns, including AK-47s.

This reporter has clearly been living in a hole when it comes to the gun issue, but yet is writing about it. Unfortunately for us, that hole is New York City. For those who think New Yorkers are these world sophisticated people, no. You will struggle to find people more provincial than you will find in New York City. Many people who live there have hardly ever left.

Stinkquirer Up To It’s Old Tricks on Guns

The ignorance of journalists when it comes to guns is astounding. What’s even more astounding is when they tell the rest of the world what to think based on their ignorance. Here they profile the phony baloney religious group “Heeding God’s Call.”

In 2008, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Wal-Mart created the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership, which asks stores selling weapons to follow 10 steps, including background checks of every customer and accepting only valid IDs.

Such sound rules should be incorporated into gun laws. But National Rifle Association lobbyists have managed to prevent that in Pennsylvania.

Can you remember the last time you bought a gun in Pennsylvania, particularly a handgun, without a background check and valid ID? Yeah, I can’t either. Maybe repeated insults to the intelligence of its readers is one of the reasons the Philadelphia Inquirer is seeing it’s subscribers melt away.

Can Someone Tell me Why People Call David Frum a Conservative?

D.C. loses power for a few days, and this guy says the solution is for the .gov to borrow tons of money to bury power lines. I’ve about had my fill of conservatives like this. We have overhead power lines coming down our street. I’d really prefer my neighborhood and property not be dug up to bury them. Hell, I’d wager it would be cheaper to buy everyone on the block generators for emergencies than to bury the lines in the neighborhood.

h/t to Instapundit, who normally I agree with on most things, but I just can’t stomach borrowing money we don’t have to fund something like this, even if I have to agree that most of Obama’s stimulus might as well have been flushed down the toilet.

An Amazingly Balanced Article

Buzzfeed is usually one of the more foaming at the mouth lefty outlets, so it’s surprising they did a pretty balanced interview and profile of David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh.