Category: The Media

Armed Canadian offers the media some lessons in the definition of the word “loophole”

Why the hell does everything have to be a loophole? The Media in New York is all over this St. John’s University .50 caliber muzzle loader story:

It’s a replica of an antique firearm and federal and state gun laws do not apply to antique-type guns. It can be purchased without any background check.

The gunman’s attorney says it was perfectly legal.

“You can go to any gun store in New York, Upstate New York, wherever you want and purchase it,” Rosemarie Rotondo, Hiraman’s attorney, said.

As it should be!

A former agent for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms says for state and federal law not to consider this rifle a firearm is crazy.

“It is totally outrageous to have this type of firearm considered to be an illegal type of firearm, especially under federal and state law,” said former ATF agent Domincik Polifrone.

What? Is it just me or did that statement make absolutely no sense, and the reporter just interpreted to say what he wanted it to say?

Hat tip: Dave Hardy

John Timoney seems to think the federal assault weapons ban actually accomplished something:

Miami Police Chief John Timoney said the 2004 expiration of the federal ban on assault weapons has triggered an “arms race” in his city.

A pity there’s never been one study that showed that.  Presumably there’s been more bayonetings and fewer flash blinded shooters in Miami, but I doubt Timoney could confirm that.

“The whole thing is a friggin’ disgrace,” said Timoney, a longtime advocate of tighter gun control who has authorized patrol officers to carry high-powered, semiautomatic assault rifles like the one used Thursday to kill Miami-Dade County police Sgt. Jose Somohano.

What he won’t tell you is that police should have had access to AR-15s in their patrol cars all along, and that his department was negligent in this regard.  It’s my opinion that all patrol cars need some type of center fire self-loading rifle.  The AR-15 is as good a choice as any.  That’s not a guarantee though.  Pistols are carried because they are convenient, and work most of the time, not because they are great fight stoppers.

Twenty percent of the homicides in Miami this year have been committed with assault weapons. The number was 18 percent in 2006, up from just 4 percent in 2004, The Herald reported.

Someone who lives in Florida needs to file a request to find out how it was determined the homicide involved an “assault weapon”. Want my guess? They are counting any pistols with a magazine capacity greater than 10 as a high-powered assault weapon. We know from FBI statistics that all long gun use doesn’t even account for 2% of gun use in crime, so something is very fishy here.  Get to work Florida gunnies! You can bet the press won’t bother to do their jobs.

From a gun buy back in Georgia:

“Now what you have here is a sawed-off, 12-gauge shotgun,” he said, snapping the weapon’s foldable stock into place. “A very good street sweeper. You can conceal this gun and take out a room full of people with one shot.”

Follow the link and see the picture. Does it look sawed off to you? Me neither.  I thought it was what was on the table, but it looks like he is holding some type of zip gun in his hand.  Either way, sawed off shotguns don’t spread their pattern quite wide enough to take out an entire room with one shot.

I’m glad to see Jeff Soyer calling out this worthless AP article too. It’s very similar to the stories the media was pushing leading up to the 1994 federal assault weapons ban. No doubt that the media would love to see another one. Even the lies are the same:

“In the early ’80s to ’90s, it was more common to have a handgun in your waistband and the bigger the caliber, the more powerful you were,” Baixauli said. “Now it’s escalated to the assault weapons.”

Gee, that’s what they said about the ’70s and ’80s, when they were trying to pass assault weapons bans in the ’90s.

Another issue potentially at play is the 2004 expiration of the federal assault weapons ban, 10 years after its passage. The legislation outlawed 19 types of guns, including the semiautomatic AK-47.

Funny, I bought my semiautomatic AK-47 during the ban.

The guns are readily available on streets, [ATF agent Carlos] Baixauli said, or can be ordered by mail for under $200.

I would hope ATF agents would be aware that it is unlawful for someone to mail order a firearm. Only federal firearms licensees are permitted to ship firearms through common carriers. Ordinary citizens may do it only in very limited circumstances, such as sending a gun in for warranty service.   Does the ATF not teach federal gun laws to their agents?  I’m betting they do, but a new assault weapons ban would be a very good thing for the ATF.  It would mean more agents and resources getting involved in enforcing it.   I guess it’s OK to lie, if it’s for a good cause, isn’t it?

Shootings involving assault weapons were among the reasons U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta set up an anti-gang task force of federal, state and local law enforcement officials this year. He assigned 15 federal prosecutors, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ben Greenberg, to the effort.

“These bullets are very powerful: they go through walls, they go through cars, and if you just spray the general vicinity you’re going to get innocent bystanders,” Acosta said. “A shooting that might have been an injury previously is now a death.”

Here we go with the spraying again.  How exactly does a semi-automatic firearm “spray” bullets?   Any center fire rifle cartridge shares these properties.  The press just eats this stuff up.  No tough questions, no research, no bothering to seek out alternate opinions, or verifying anything they’ve been told.  And they wonder why newspaper circulation is way down.

Via Jeff, this article has a glaring inaccuracy:

Cho allegedly answered no, but the panel wasn’t allowed to see the forms he filled out, which were destroyed within 30 days anyway, both restrictions courtesy of National Rifle Association lobbying. His psychiatric hospital history was not in the database, anyway, so Cho got away with it. And these checks aren’t mandatory in the first place.

I’m not sure why the panel wouldn’t have had access to the 4473, but 4473 is required to be kept for twenty years by the dealer in his records.   I’m going to guess, though I will admit that I don’t know for sure, that ATF can come in and make a copy of 4473, and probably subpoena the original.   Plus the background check is absolutely mandatory if you’re buying a firearm at retail.

But why research, when you just spew.

Countertop caught the WaPo in a pretty big doozey.

Uncle takes care of it.  Go have a read.