The Media – Page 42 – Shall Not Be Questioned

20/20 Segment – How Would You Do?

Here’s the segment 20/20 ran on the shooting incident:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MX3QtumSuE[/youtube]

Raise you hand if you carry a retention holster concealed at 1:00?Â No takers?Â But even with a good holster, from an active shooter point of view, that lecture hall is a death trap.

Guns aren’t magic devices that allow you to prevail against another armed person 100% of the time. Even a well trained police officer would have a difficult time drawing from concealment and firing in this situation, without taking a hit himself.Â I don’t feel too confident I would do all that much better than these kids.Â It’s a small, intimate lecture hall, some concealment but no good cover, and no way to easily move.Â 20/20s implication is that because there are some situations where a gun isn’t going to do you any good that there are no situations where a gun will do you any good.Â Let’s look back at the event that 20/20 exploited for this piece of journalistic garbage:

About halfway through class we heard the noises. Someone said something like, “It’s probably just construction.” The noises didn’t stop. The teacher stiffened up and said “That’s not what I think it is, is it?” That’s when I remember going into panic. I pointed at the teacher and said, “put that desk in front of the door, now.” She did it, and then said “someone call 911.” Colin to my right stood up and called 911.

At that point, the door was nudged open aggressively, and I saw a gun emerge into view. It was surreal. Following the gun was a man. He was Asian and had a lot of ammunition and gun gear on â€” like a big utility belt or something for ammo. That was the only glimpse I got. I quickly dove under a desk â€” that was the desk I chose to die under. He then began methodically and calmly shooting people down. It sounded rhythmic â€” like he took his time in between each shot and kept up the pace, moving from person to person. After every shot I thought, “OK, the next one is me.” Shot after shot went off and I never felt anything. I played dead and tried to look as lifeless as possible. Sometimes after a shot, I would hear a quick moan, or a slow one, or a grunt, or a quiet, reserved yell from one of the girls.

Let me ask you this, if you were in this situation, would you rather have a gun, or would you rather imagine yourself too stupid to use one, like 20/20 says you are?Â Would you rather be under a desk waiting to die?Â Would you feel safe with a cell phone in your hand, as 20/20 recommends, rather than a Glock?

I can’t help anyone who says they would rather be a sheep waiting for the slaughter, though I have no doubt some would, but I suspect most sensible people can see 20/20s assertion for the bullshit that is, and would see the utility of a gun in this situation.

UPDATE: Brillianter has more.

And Now It’s 60 Minutes

I just watched 60 minutes short segment on the Great Obama Gun Rush.Â It’s pretty clear to me at this point that the media is doing everything it possibly can to bring gun control back into the public spotlight, and create a favorable environment for the Democratic Congress to pass it.Â Gun Geek Rants has a pretty good run down of the show.

It featured Philip Van Cleave, President of Virginia Citizens Defense Leauge.Â I thought he handled himself well, for it being a hostile interview.Â The only problems I saw with his performance was nit picky stuff like using “guns” in the context of “These politicians are good for guns” rather than “These politicians are good on Second Amendment Rights.”Â We should be careful to remind people that this issue isn’t about guns, it’s about freedom.Â It’s about the Bill of Rights.Â These are things that everyone generally agrees it’s important to preserve.

UPDATE: Michael Bane notes that Newsweek is in on the gun control game too.

Talk About Sensationalism

Apparently now our police mudering loser is a terrorist, according to the Beaver County Times.Â Victims of a far right terrorist philosophy.

We can debate gun control and we can bemoan the economic, social and family conditions that went into creating someone like Poplawski.

But we also need to take a good hard look at the danger that the far right poses to our domestic tranquility.

Except for brief outbreaks of left-wing violence, most recently in the late 1960s and early 1970s, political violence in the United States has been the almost exclusive domain of the right.

Oh really?Â This is news to me.Â I guess anyone who disagrees with the media’s leftist agenda is a preacher of hate and violence.

The PSH is Knee Deep Today

As one might have guessed, with the shootings over the weekend, the media is in full on Pants Shitting Hysterics mode.Â Â We start with our local paper, who I thought were going to be out of money by now.

ARE YOU HAPPY today, NRA? Your message appears to be getting through.

Today, three Pittsburgh police officers are dead, their families bereft, their city and state in shock. While responding to a domestic dispute Saturday, the three were shot and killed by a man wearing body armor and using an AK-47.

Bitter and I are going to celebrate when the Inquirer and the Daily News finally finish circling the bowl, and flush down the sewer of history forever.Â Hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate soon.Â Â Oh, but it gets better:

Some progressive websites are blaming [the killer’s] actions, in part, on right-wing commentators who are stirring up gun owners.

It’s time America came to its senses again on gun control. Seven officers of the law being mowed down in two weeks is too many. Any is too many. But if you listen to the NRA, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Could [this lunatic who shall not be named] have killed these Pittsburgh police without all his sophisticated weaponry? Heck no!

One again, these guns nuts are clearly paranoid and delusional in thinking anyone is coming for their guns, so lets go take their guns.Â Do these people even read what they write?Â But it gets even better:

President Barack Obama’s administration seeks to reinstate the automatic weapons ban. It should be allowed to do so. Markey opposes reinstatement. (“Markey fights weapons ban,” March 21). She claims the prior ban was ineffective and the Second Amendment bars the ban. Markey is doubly wrong. First, the prior ban dried up the supply of automatic weapons and cut their use in crime by two-thirds.

Granted, that one is just a Letter to the Editor, but most of what’s in here is just made up crap.

Post-Gazette Promoting a Double Standard

The Pittsburg Post-Gazette can’t seem to resist:

The person accused of the crimes, [redacted], appears to be another archetype loser who was all about rights but not responsibilities and whose mind had been poisoned by drinking deep of irrational anti-government conspiracies and gospels of hate.

His mind was poisoned, you see.Â He can’t be made to take any responsibility for his own actions.Â Someone else planted the seed of murder in his head, even though staunch gun rights supporters think murdering police officers is wrong, and won’t shed a tear for this guy when the state sticks a needle in his arm.

But I suppose I could buy the Post-Gazette’s assertion that it’s an “irrational anti-government conspiracy”, you know, about taking our firearms, if it weren’t for later in the article:

But there will be time enough to consider how lunatic it is that an AK-47 assault rifle can find its way into the hands of a seething fool, to weigh the culpability of politicians who resist sensible limits on guns and to take to task the radio talk show hosts who foment evil by banging drums of hatred.

Are they so blind that they don’t see the contradiction in what they just pointed out?Â You argue it’s an irrational conspiracy, and then go argue exactly the position that cause us to speak out in favor of our Second Amendment rights.

If the Post is going to argue that we, the gun rights community, are responsible for feeding the delusions of maniacs when we decry gun control, they also have to accept their responsibility by feeding the same delusions when they exploit a tragedy to make public proclamations in favor of it.Â If any of us are responsible, we’re both responsible.Â To argue otherwise is to say we are not free to advocate for our position, while the Post-Gazette is free to advocate for theirs.Â That’s not what free speech is about.

Quote of the Day

From Mona Charen:

Once again the cable news programs are going wall to wall covering the latest mass shooting. All other programming is on hold. I’ve said this before. When the news shows do this they are guaranteeing the next atrocity. A twisted desire for fame and attention drives some of this.

And no sooner did she write this, and we had another guy go ape shit.

Gun Sales Up in Binghamton

When I saw this headline over at ABC News, I groaned, thinking they were trying to imply the tragedy is because gun sales have been up so high.Â But I think, overall, it’s actually a pretty balanced article, in the sense they highlight that we already do have an awful lot of gun control laws.Â New York State especially.

It’s too Good to be True

Apparently the Philadelphia newspapers, both of whom take whatever chance they can get to smear gun owners and lawful gun ownership, will be out of money by July.Â It seems Chapter 11 didn’t help any.Â Whoever gave them DIP financing is going to take a bath.Â This could make it harder for other papers to get DIP funding to file for a Chapter 11.

Who will save Bryan Miller’s agenda now?

UPDATE: Looks like the DIP financing is still being negotiated, and that they may, in fact, run out of money in as little as a few weeks.

Cat and Dogs Living Together

The local, normally rabidly anti-gun news station, did a story on a local gun dealer and gun sales, and didn’t smear him, or the shooting community.Â It’s always a risk when dealers talk to the media, but he seems to have hit on all the right points.Â I’ve transferred a few guns through this guy.Â He’s a retired Philly cop.

Experts in What?

Apparently “Experts” are saying what Europe clearly needs is tighter gun laws:

“The general trend is clearly towards stronger gun laws,” said Alun Howard, a policy director at the London-based International Action Network on Small Arms, part of a global network of organizations fighting the proliferation of small arms.

Oh, those experts.Â They wouldn’t have a bias or anything, and pretty clearly they can point to many many studies that show gun control redeuces crime, right?

Gisela Kallenbach, a German Green Party deputy who steered the bloc’s upcoming legislation through the European Parliament, said some EU member states have been “very progressive” in restricting the availability of gun laws while others “still have something to do.”

Ah, yes, the watermelon experts.Â Green on the outside, red on the inside.Â Do we have a criminologist in the house?Â Nope.