CSM Finally Responds to Fast and Furious
The Christian Science Monitor has long been a mainstream media outlet that has looked to pass the blame for Mexico’s woes on American gun owners. Finally this week CSM asked an interesting question, “After ouster of ATF head, where does Fast and Furious probe go now?”
That is a good question, and the story noted that there is still a lot of fingers left to point:
“The acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Kenneth Melson took the fall for the ill-conceived Fast and Furious gun tracing program on Tuesday. But his departure is far from a clean break between the Obama administration and an operation that allowed over 2,000 guns to “walk” from US gunshops into the hands of Mexican cartels.”
It is an interesting turnaround for an outlet that has tried to suggest the blame lies on gun shops and so-called “lax gun laws” in the United States. Could it be that the media is finally coming around?
Christian Science Monitor on Reasonable Gun Laws
The Christian Science Monitor gave kudos to Jim and Sarah Brady, and while we feel for them, as we agree no one should have to have suffered as both Jim and Sarah have suffered these past 30 years, the paper offered some misguided – and misleading – thoughts on gun control.
The paper notes:
“Reasonable steps to reduce gun violence will never be taken if Democrats, Republicans, and the president don’t stand up to the NRA. They can steel themselves with this knowledge: Even though polls show the country split on the broad subject of gun control, when you ask Americans to consider individual restrictive measures, they support them.”
Once again this is a total misread of the NRA. It is again somehow essentially made out to be a nefarious organization that has sinister motives and power that comes out of the ether. Again, the NRA is powerful, because it is vocal and it is just merely stating what the people want and demand.
But CSM adds:
“87 percent approve of criminal background checks for all gun purchases, even those at gun shows – which are not currently covered by federal law, but which should be. This was the finding of a 2008 poll done for a bipartisan coalition of mayors who support more restrictions on guns. Another large majority, 82 percent, support limiting the sale of military-style assault weapons, according to a 2007 University of Chicago poll. A 2011 poll for the bipartisan mayors group shows that 58 percent approve of a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines (so does former Vice President Dick Cheney, by the way).”
What isn’t stated here, and usually is never said by gun control zealots, is that this “background check for all gun purchases” would make it impossible for a father to give a gun to a son, for a friend to sell a buddy a gun. It would create a national database of EVERY gun purchased.
Finally the paper notes:
“Every year, about 30,000 people in the United States are killed by gun violence. That’s too many. Reasonable steps can be taken to bring that number down; to prevent criminals and others who shouldn’t have guns from getting them; to keep military-style assault weapons off the streets.”
Again, this is misleading. How many of those people were criminals killing criminals? How many of those criminals would ever bother with the background checks? Instead, they’d still get guns from the black market and possibly put law-abiding citizens at risks.
How many of those 30,000 people were criminals shot by police? How many of those 30,000 people were criminals shot while trying to rob or harm someone? Notice those figures aren’t supplied.
And we wonder… why a “military-style” firearm is a problem. It is not a “military” gun, and just looks like one. What’s next, banning military style boots as they are intimidating?
CSM Reports FBI Says Gun Sales Up, Crime Down
The Christian Science Monitor has been a news organization we’ve watched closely this year, as it normally has an anti-firearms bias. But it is still a news organization so we’re pleased to see that it reported that crime is down, even if gun sales are up. Of course CSM couldn’t help but look to see if this was a fluke:
“FBI’s latest crime report, for the first half of 2009, shows America is a less violent place even though ownership of guns has surged. Deterrent effect may have a role, but others see no correlation.”
Now it will be interesting to see if the rest of the mainstream media picks up on this story.
