The Media – Page 39 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Media’s Shallow Understanding

The media has never really understood the militia movement, and once again are just accepting the Southern Poverty Law Center’s generalizations and distortions about it.Â They used to say that the difference between conservatives and liberals were that conservatives thought liberals were stupid, and liberals thought conservatives were evil.Â Now it would seem they think conservatives are terrorists.

I am not any more a fan of the wacky rights as I am of the wacky left, but the media’s lack of interest in understanding the phenomena is striking.

Is This Ethical Journalism?

The New York Times apparently thinks it’s just peachy to go back through public records and dig up shop owners who have had to use deadly force to defend themselves, and ask them how they feel about the event.Â I hate to break it to the New York Times, but most reasonably well adjusted people have a difficult time dealing with having to take another life, even if they are legally and morally justified in doing so.Â I think the right thing to do is to leave people who have had to do that alone.

What’s the lesson supposed to be here anyway?Â That’s it’s better to be a victim?Â None of the people interviewed here have anything to feel guilty about.Â They did not create the circumstance that lead to the loss of life.Â I’m sure in the same situation, I would have a difficult time dealing with it as well, but there’s one thing that’s certain — in order to feel anguish, you have to be alive — and that is the goal of exercising your right of self-defense.Â I think it’s pretty unconscionable for the New York Times to dig up the pasts of these people, and make them relive a horrible moment.

MSNBC Busted

Look how MSNBC snow jobs the guy who showed up with the gun, and try to make it a race issue against Obama.Â This is really really sleazy journalism:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scE-VrpnU9M[/youtube]

I think Tam said it best in regards to this video:

Listen, you broadcast dinosaurs: You don’t control the horizontal or the vertical anymore, got it? We can adjust our sets any time we want to. We have our own cameras these days. The whole world is watching now.

Not Inflammatory at All

Headline in the Madison Capital Times: Concealed Carry Killers.Â That editorial could have been written by Josh Sugarmann.Â I wouldn’t be surprised if it was, actually.

Rahm Cracks the Whip on Media Executives

As the media love begins to cool from a raging boil to a slow simmer, it appears that Rahm Emanuel has gone straight to the top to secure more White House-controlled coverage for President Obama.Â When networks questioned whether to air his last press conference, he dipped into his bag of Chicago tricks and went to executives of parent companies to force compliance in airing the primetime speech.

Facts Please

The Pocono Record congratulates Senator Specter and Senator Casey for opposing the concealed carry measure, apparently not bothering to check whether or not Casey voted for or against it (he voted for it).

Biased Much?

From the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal:

Yes, it is a win, but if you’re sickened by gun violence and the NRA’s over-the-top extremism in the defense of the gun industry and, I suppose, the Second Amendment, it’s not time to relax.

He then goes on to advocate more citizens get involved weakening preemption state wide.Â Keep in mind this is not an editorial, but supposedly a news article about the NRA challenges to Pittsburgh’s Lost & Stolen.

Although a statement like this clearly does not belong in a news article at all, I’m willing to accept when people don’t agree with the NRA.Â But it really pisses me off when they suggest that NRA represents the “gun industry,” because it dismisses the fact that millions of American citizens have a legitimate interest that NRA is looking after.Â The anti-gun folks always want to talk about having a conversation with us about gun violence, but before you can have that conversation, you have to accept we exist.Â As long as they believe NRA is nothing more than fat cats in smoke filled rooms, talking about how we can jack up the profits of the gun business, there’s no room for conversation.Â The only way I can oppose someone who believes that is by opposing everything they do.

UPDATE: Compare that to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, who at least has the decency to put this in an editorial section:

The best way to celebrate this news may be to emphasize the larger point — that Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and a growing number of other communities are standing up for the right to regulate guns according to their own situations and needs. Lawmakers in Harrisburg should take note and pass a state law making such suits by the NRA hopeless.

Preemption is a bedrock issue when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms.Â We will waste no effort in fighting any attempts to weaken it.

USA Today Fundamentally Misunderstands the Issue

Via Another Gun Blog, we have this interesting story from USA Today, where they seem to make the common mistake of thinking that guns are a rural vs. urban issue:

It makes no sense to make cities such as Los Angeles and Boston, which have significant urban crime, to conform to the politics of rural places. Nor is there much sense in forcing urban police officers to make instant decisions on the legitimacy of pieces of paper handed to them by menacing looking people packing heat.

USA Today overlook the fact that of our major cities, most of them are in states that allow law abiding citizens to obtain licenses to carry concealed firearms.Â Let’s take a look at our top 20 cities by population.Â Of the top 5 cities, two of them are in right-to-carry states.Â Of the top 10, a full half are in right-to-carry states.Â Of the top 20, 13 are in right-to-carry states.Â If you look at the safest large cities in America, six of the top ten are located in right-to-carry states, four of those being in gun loving Texas.

So, USA Today, the vast majority of urban areas are already under the circumstances you so lament, and many of them have remarkably low crime rates.Â This is not a rural vs. urban issue.Â It’s a freedom issue.Â And it’s been demonstrated time and again that people are responsible enough to use this freedom wisely.

Hysterics Squared

You don’t get much more hysterical than this:

AS EARLY as this week, Sen. Arlen Specter could set the wheels in motion for a new civil war in this country.

That’s because a subcommittee on crime and drugs that he chairs could move an amendment that will allow pretty much anyone to carry concealed weapons pretty much anywhere they want – even to states that might have prohibited them in the past.

A new civil war, really?Â And they say we’re the crazy ones.Â Also:

his latest outrage from the NRA-controlled Congress is an egregrious trampeling of state’s rights that should not be allowed to stand.

States rights, let me think.Â Weren’t there people who used this as an argument against another civil rights bill?Â I seem to recall.Â Maybe I’m mistaken.

Mike Cox Fires Back at the Free Press

Mike Cox, Attorney General of Michigan:

The Free Press failed to mention that 34 attorneys general signed on to the NRA’s challenge of Chicago’s strict gun ban, including both Democrats and Republicans. This isn’t about politics; it’s about standing up for principle.

It may come as news to the Free Press, but this office files amicus briefs all the time to protect the rights of the state and its citizens. For example, this office has filed amicus briefs in support of the Big Three auto industry and tougher standards to protect the Great Lakes.

[…]

I make no apologies for my support of the Constitution and the Second Amendment.

Good on him for not backing down.