The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
This is what a news article on the Five-Seven would look like if the topic weren’t sensationalized, and the news media took their facts from someone other than the Brady Campaign.
h/t again to Instapundit, who deserves a lot of credit for getting this information out there to a wider, non-gunnie audience.
Instapundit points out the press is being silly when it comes to the FN Five-Seven. This Wired article actually isn’t too bad, but some interesting tidbits from it:
Gun control group The Brady Campaign says it bought and test-fired a Five-Seven, and that it successfully penetrated a police vest. That said, it doesn’t seem quite accurate to call the Five-Seven a pocket-sized assault rifle. Its barrel would give it a lower muzzle velocity than a PN90; likewise, it strikes me as unlikely that it would give a shooter much more accuracy and effective range than a standard pistol. And plain-vanilla pistol round can be devastating enough: Think of the Virginia Tech shooter, who used a Glock 9mm and Walther .22.
Wired at least seems to know the basics, or did some research before spouting about cop killer guns. The Brady’s once again don’t offer the complete picture. All police armor is not created equal, and I have little doubt the round they used penetrates the lowest level of body armor, which are of the older generation. But so would a hot 9mm round, or a 22 magnum. Also, the round the Brady Campaign tested with is no longer available on the civilian market (or any market, it was discontinued).
UPDATE: It has to warm the heart to see a Brady press release over at Opposing Views bringing up the old “magazine” v. “clip” debate in the comments. It’s reminiscent of the old Brady Blog, back in the days before Reasoned DiscourseTM took over.
This article in the Louisville Courier-Journal talks about the resurgent militia movement. It’s actually fair treatment, I think, but pretty clearly SPLC has been driving interest in this story. Looking at these pictures, looks to me just like a group of people enjoying a day at the range. But I see the blue helmeted conspiracy folks are still alive and well.
The Roanoke Times was one of the few newspapers to endorse Creigh Deeds. I guess I can understand why they might want to lash out at this point. But what kind of minerals does this take to say something like this, when McDonnell’s lead has opened up to double digits.
So, fine, if the NRA wants to be an extremist organization that rests its endorsement on Deeds’ support for one, very popular issue, it is free to. But it shouldn’t make Deeds’ election sound like it would be the beginning of the apocalypse. Not, that is, if it wants to regain any credibility.
I’m not sure it’s NRA that has to worry about their credibility in this election.
Megan McArdle reports that newspapers are in the process of collapsing. The numbers of subscribers lost is astonishing.
Two articles in the new rags about Militia resurgence. One in a Kentucky paper, and one in Maine. I don’t think there’s any “resurgence” but it’s odd that two papers report on this in a short period of time. I’m not sure they have it right about the Maine militia. Judging from the looks of that dude, I’m not sure he ever got the word that the Governor stood down the militia after we whopped those uppity rebs.
Jim Shepherd has a rundown of various attempts to get guns into the mainstream media outlets as of late. We all know about the recent Bushmaster Maxim ad, but others in the outdoor communication world have been beating down that path of new outlets for a while now. And we may see some payoff soon:
But the challenges of convincing other networks to carry outdoor programming – especially programming that’s not strictly fishing and hunting, is a constant struggle. Fox Sports, for example, won’t accept “gun shows” on their national network. Despite that refusal, they will their regional networks to accept those shows. Others, like ESPN, will accept hunting shows, but have absolutely nothing to do with handguns or pure shooting. In both instances, execs say it’s an owner’s policy (Disney owns ESPN), but don’t seem inclined to buck the trend.
Next year, however, the obvious concern of average Americans over their personal safety isn’t being ignored. A new two-hour programming block dedicated to the topic of self-defense, awareness and crime avoidance will air on a network that has not accepted any prior shooting programming.
We’re not cleared to say much more about it, but having seen the demo and spoken with sponsors already committed to the programming, it looks like one more step toward breaking down some resistance to shooting programming will happen. This programming block seems well-considered and a represents a significant breakthrough in getting elemental gun issues before the general viewing public. It’s also part of a broad media strategy, something that seems an afterthought for many other programs.
With a serious media strategy, there’s a good chance it can work.
They are calling it the yard-sale loophole. Apparently they are out of the loop on the nomenclature. They don’t call it the yard-sale loophole. Ordinary people have yard sales. Everyone is familiar with what a yard sale is. People might not be sufficiently scared by the prospect of someone selling an old gun at a yard sale.
No, it’s the gun show loophole. Booga! Booga! Many people have never been to a gun show, so it’s easier for them to distort what goes on there, and make it sound like they are organized by the KKK and neo-Nazis groups, and have more criminals at them than the prison yard at exercise time. Gun shows are all manner of shady. Just ask them! Yard sales are something your grandma does. Get with the program CBC!
Headline in the Trentonian reads “Million Mom activist wins Brady gun honor” and I’m thinking the Brady Campaign is giving out guns as awards. Hell, I might have to attend some Brady events if that’s the case!
Apparently we’re the liars, according to the New York Daily News. Apparently they didn’t bother to research current laws. Apparently they aren’t interested in talking about why we’re not prosecuting this kind of stuff under current laws. Not interested in discussing whether Bloomberg’s investigators broke the gun laws buying guns out of state.
There are liars in this issue, but it’s not us. The Daily News has about as much credibility as the Nobel Prize Committee at this point.