NPR Offers Biased Take on Virginia Gun Laws

How does National Public Radio see the new lifted restrictions on firearm sales in Virginia? Basically the way they report on it, it will only open the flood gates to criminals. The story offered this introduction to an interview between host Robert Siegel and newspaper reporter Bill Sizemore:

Twenty years ago, Virginia had a not-so-flattering reputation as a haven for illegal gun runners. Traffickers would buy batches of guns legally in the state, and sell them on the black market. With the Virginia guns turning up at crime scenes up and down the Eastern seaboard, the state legislature decided it was time to act — a law was passed to limit gun purchases to one a month. But gun rights activists have fought to overturn it, and on Monday, the Virginia Senate approved legislation to repeal it.

Is a “reputation” really what this is about? This type of reporting doesn’t offer all the facts, including that gun sales are up and crime is down. But that would get in the way of this reporting.

But the interview also included an interesting exchange:

SIEGEL: Now, Virginia is a state where there’s a great deal of gun ownership and I assume the Republican legislators and the governor figure the public opinion is on their side with these moves.

SIZEMORE: I think they do. Virginia certainly is a big gun-owning state, particularly in the more rural areas where hunting is a, you know, longstanding tradition. You know, in the more urban areas where crime has been a problem, I think you find more support for gun control, but at the moment, the gun enthusiasts certainly seem to have the upper hand.

Let’s review: Siegel makes it clear that it is “public opinion,” but Sizemore by responds by trying to suggest that there is support for gun control, yet “gun enthusiasts” have the “upper hand.” Isn’t this a naïve way to look at it this issue? Clearly the support for gun control isn’t strong enough, but once again the anti-gun types try to pass this off as if it is the voice of a few radicals.

At least the host notes there is “public opinion,” but too bad the media can’t see it that way.

Even Left-Leaning Daily Beast Sees “Bloomberg’s Gun-Control Ad Is the Wrong Move for Obama”

Apparently the left-leaning news site The Daily Beast didn’t like that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to make gun control a real issue in this country. This isn’t because writer Adam Winkler or anyone at The Daily Beast actually believes in the Second Amendment, but they know that “Bloomberg’s Gun-Control Ad Is the Wrong Move for Obama.” Winkler writes:

President Obama focusing on gun control this year would only stimulate gun-related interest groups, like the National Rifle Association, and encourage them to spend even more money to turn out the vote for Republican candidates. Of course the gun lobby is going to oppose Obama’s reelection no matter what.

Winkler then tries to defend Obama on the record:

The NRA and its allies, however, have a credibility problem on this issue. Ever since Obama won the Democratic Party nomination in 2008, the NRA has been ominously warning gun owners about what the organization calls Obama’s “10 Point Plan to ‘Change’ the Second Amendment.” The NRA promised that Obama would “ban [the] use of firearms for home self-defense,” “pass federal laws eliminating your right-to-carry,” and “close down 90 percent of the gun shops in America.” None of these things has happened.

What Winkler does say is that President Obama did have a White House summit that called for “reasonable gun control,” which to us is actually an unreasonable call. Additionally, Obama did tell Sarah Brady he was in fact working on gun control but “under the radar.” These are points that The Daily Beast either forgot, or didn’t want brought up.

Finally after giving various weak arguments on the points, this article closes with:

Gun violence is a serious issue that deserves our leaders’ attention. Yet given the obvious downside risk of promoting gun control in an election year, gun-control advocates should hope that, when it comes to guns, Obama just keeps his mouth shut.

So what we are seeing is that someone believes there is a real problem – one we think is dramatically overstated – and yet says he hopes his guy “just keeps his mouth shut.” Democracy at work indeed!

Josh Horwitz Huffs and Puffs About NSSF Firearms Sales

Last month when the firearms sales were released, showing not just strong sales but record sales, many anti-gun types tried to blame repeat buyers and suggested that the numbers weren’t that big a deal. But then a funny thing happened, the media picked up on the story and at the same time the crime figures are down.

But being the ever vigilant anti-gun zealot, Josh Horwitz, Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, cried foul this week, writing a blog post for the Huffington Post, titled, “When It Comes to Data on Firearm Sales, Gun Lobby Still Shooting Blanks.” His rant basically tries to suggest on the one hand that gun sales could included used firearms – to which our reply would be “so what.”

He takes aim at the point that firearm sales data is conducted via background checks and seems annoyed that data isn’t available on sales. Of course we’d like to point out that there are only two publicly traded companies and private companies aren’t required to release sales figures. So what is his point?

First he thinks that the reporting should be done because other industries do it:

Virtually every other industry in America offers the media actual data on sales. Click here to see industry data on pharmaceuticals, motorcycles, and ever-popular Mac products, for example. So why do the NRA and NSSF continue to block access to this information?

This might be true, but again Apple is a public company, as are many companies making those other products. The firearms industry is full of privately held companies.

But let’s challenge back to Horwitz on one issue – he says the media is offered this data. Well, why isn’t the media held accountable when it offers mistakes in reporting about firearms? The media routinely notes “High Powered Assault Weapons,” which of course there is no such thing.

But back to Horwitz, he doesn’t let it go there. No, he suggests something sinister is at work:

Because the industry has something ugly to hide…. If the NSSF did make sales figures public, it would then be possible to compare gun sales data to aggregate data on crime gun traces and identify with specificity the volume of firearms being diverted to criminals and traffickers in the illegal market. Researchers could also divine which firearm manufacturers are failing to use effective safeguards to stop the illegal diversion of their products.

It’s no secret that the gun industry knows that their distributors and retailers supply thousands of guns each year to criminals.

So basically Horwitz, who no doubt has realized that gun sales are strong because the American public wants to buy the guns, is now trying to criminalize these from another direction. He claims “it is no secret” that the gun industry supplies “thousands of guns each year to criminals,” and yet offers little proof to back up this claim. Of course if you can’t convince the American people who seem to want guns, and are becoming single issue voters who can sway elections, then the next step is to make the guns illegal instead. Clearly that is the goal Horwitz has in mind.

New York Daily News Gives Bloomberg Platform to Rant

While the story this week in The New York Daily News wasn’t entirely biased, it did basically just parrot New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It offered this passage:

“Federal laws say you can’t get a gun if you have a drug problem, psychiatric problem, criminal record or [are a\] minor, and yet Congress doesn’t give monies to make sure that we can have a background check,” Bloomberg said on “Meet the Press.”

Criminals seeking guns can take advantage of “too many loopholes,” the mayor said.

“The background database isn’t up to date, private sector sales of guns is something like 40%, and they don’t do background checks,” he said.

The problem with this argument is that it basically blames the loopholes and not the criminals. It also tries to suggest that those 40 percent are 100 percent of the illegal gun problem, and there is no evidence this is the case. Once again it seems clear that Bloomberg isn’t just part of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, he’s a mayor against all guns.

National Review Calls out Bloomberg

We’re pleased that FirearmsTruth.com isn’t the only one to call out New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for issuing what is essentially a mixed message in his call for safer gun laws. As the National Review noted this week, Bloomberg’s issue is as much about the mental-health database as it is a gun issue – too bad that Bloomberg doesn’t address this and leave the gun issue to someone who understands it.

However, the National Review seems to be giving in on the issue a bit. The article notes:

Improving the mental-health database is an unambiguously good idea, and requiring background checks for private sales is at least debatable — a fair number of crime guns seem to come from private sources, and it’s not unreasonable to ask someone who wants to transfer a gun to drive to a licensed dealer first.

We just have to ask where does this line end? Is it unreasonable when a stranger buys a gun from you? This almost makes sense as you don’t know the person, but it becomes a gray area when it could be selling or trading guns to your friend. Is the background check still necessary? And what about when Dad decides to give a family gun to his son? Is the background check still necessary? “Happy birthday son, now let’s go to the gun shop so you can pay to receive your gift.”

And this is where the notion of “reasonable gun control” that so many anti-gun types call for becomes a bit unreasonable, especially as street thugs and criminals NEVER bother with background checks and permits.

AngolaPress Reports: “Bloomberg reloads in push for gun control”

The international media has noted something that the mainstream media in the United States either fails to grasp OR wants to conceal from the American public. The gun lobby’s power is voters. Consider this bit from this weekend’s AngolaPress story focusing on Mayor Bloomberg’s recent push with his Mayors Against Illegal Guns ad that was scheduled to run during the Super Bowl:

Candidates for local and national office in the U.S. have faced sharp backlashes for advocating restraints on gun ownership, such as assault weapons or guns on campus. Such pushes draw fire from the well-funded National Rifle Association (NRA) and its allies. For many defenders of the Constitution’s Second Amendment – the right to bear arms – guns are the single issue on which they vote.

Read that final sentence. Doesn’t this clearly explain that the power of the NRA is convincing voters? “Guns are the single issue on which they vote.” Now the anti-gun crowd might not like this fact, and the media may even try to hide this truth, but this is the actual power of the NRA – that it speaks to those who are single issue voters.

The article adds:

Democrats, who are more likely than Republicans to favor some restrictions on gun ownership, made a conscious decision to stay away from the gun issue in the 2010 midterm congressional elections. The aim: protect the so-called Blue Dog conservative Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, who didn’t toe the party line on gun control. Most were defeated anyway.

If the Democratic Party hoped to keep the gun issue off center stage in the 2012 presidential race, MAIG’s campaign makes that unlikely. So does the fact that the NRA and the gun industry’s trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), have announced they will have a combined war chest of $225 million.

Now let’s take another view, if the Democrats have stayed away from this issue isn’t it because they are scared of losing the election? The anti-crowd cries foul and tries to point that the NRA has two much power, forgetting that it is really the single issue voters who are speaking their mind.

How is this different from other issues? It is in that the anti-gun crowd doesn’t want this to be a fair fight.

Daily Beast Offers “Scary” Reporting on Virginia Gun Laws

How does the left-leaning The Daily Beast cover gun laws in Virginia – try under the “Scary” moniker. The piece, which basically quotes reporting by The Washington Post, offers this passage:

However, a Senate committee has killed two other gun-rights proposals that would have prevented colleges from banning firearms on campus—a particularly outrageous proposal given the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech—though a House committee is still considering whether to allow faculty members to carry guns on campus.

How this outrageous exactly? Is that even fair reporting? While the bias is thick already, we’d like to ask what will stop a gunman from ILLEGALLY carrying a gun on a campus? Is it strong language, a sign, or a even a law? Let’s see how those work out.

Does NBC New York Reporter Believe in Checking Facts?

There is a role in the media called a “fact checker” but strangely it seems many firearms related stories in the mainstream media just accept anything said by anti-gun types as a “fact.” Case in point, this week NBC New York offered a story on how this weekend a commercial will run featuring Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston – who happen to be the founders of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Here is what we are talking about:

Bloomberg asserted the (recent) shooting (in New York City) made clear the importance of gun control. He added: “We had too close a brush with death tonight due to illegal guns.”

And the figures prove he’s right. Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne told me that about 85 percent of the gun crimes committed in New York City result from gun purchases made in Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, “states with comparatively lax gun laws.”

First question, where does Paul Browne get his information? And more to the point, how do the figures prove Bloomberg is right? This number is widely cited, but without a source. Second, what numbers of those are legal vs. illegal gun purchases? In other words, are these even legal purchases that take advantage of “lax gun laws” in the first place? This point is never made clear and is often very vague. Not exactly the facts now are they?

But the facts get even more twisted:

John Feinblatt, the Mayor’s chief policy adviser, told me that states with tough gun laws are unlikely to be the source of illegal guns. He noted that, in fighting gun crimes, two measures are vital: having universal background checks for gun sales and putting all such data in the FBI files. In the case of the Virginia Tech massacre, in which 33 people were killed, the gunman, Seung-hui Cho, had a mental history that indicated he was dangerous but , Feinblatt said, that was never passed on to the FBI. Some state laws on gun sales, he added “have loopholes like swiss [sic] cheese.”

Again, this is twisting the message and points. Seung-hui Cho’s ability to get a gun wasn’t because of lax gun laws, but rather a failing in the mental health system. But what “loopholes” are like “Swiss cheese” exactly? Would this be private sales? Even in New York private sales are legal, provided both parties have licenses to own the firearms.

But another point we’d like to make on facts. States with tough gun laws may not be the source of illegal guns, but it is hard to know for sure. Illegal guns aren’t exactly tracked the way commercial sales are tracked, so this is somewhat a vague point. It is clear that guns do change hands in New York and Illinois – as there is gun violence. Clearly an illegal black market operates and no amount of gun bans or gun control is going to destroy this black market. But that’s a fact that really pushes the issue – is it Mayors Against Illegal Guns or just Mayors Against Guns, because the way these guys talk it sounds like the latter.

Gun Rights Policies with John Snyder: Obama Wars Against Religion and Gun Ownership

AP and WaPo See End of “One-Gun-A-Month” as Opening Haven for Gun Runners

Review the Second Amendment of the Constitution and it says nothing along the lines of “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms and Buy Just One Gun A Month,” and yet that law has been on the books in Virginia for a while. Now that it is on the verge of being repealed, The Associated Press via The Washington Post noted this week:

A law Virginia passed a generation ago to end the states’ reputation as a haven for gun runners is on the verge of being repealed.

The story later offered this passage:

The bills to abolish the one-handgun-per-month law would end one of the legacy laws of former Gov. Doug Wilder. The Democratic governor pushed for it after Virginia became a prime supplier of guns used in crimes in major East Coast cities.

What isn’t noted is whether this was ever actually proven to be true, or did the story note that gun crime had not fallen as a result of the one-gun-per-month restriction, which only seemed to effect law-abiding citizens in Virginia –but of course those are facts that get in the way of anti-gun bias in reporting.

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