Not by a long shot – pun intended. The story doesn’t even do actual reporting, but turns to left-leaning Think Progress, which reported:

Conservatives have twisted school massacres at Columbine and Virginia Tech to argue that there need to be more guns in schools to fight back against armed attacks. Last year more than a dozenstate legislatures took up bills that would allow guns on college campuses — and some even considered lifting their gun bans at K-12 public schools. Florida suspended discussion of their controversial bill after the emotional testimony of a father whose daughter was killed at Florida State University when another student accidentally discharged a rifle.

In other words, no this is misleading, twisting and actually the worst example of “journalism” that we’ve seen in a while.

The author also makes a bold statement:

Almost 10,000 people are killed by someone with a gun every year in America. Given the loosening of gun laws by the GOP, these numbers will escalate.

First, that number is actually a tad high. Likewise, the statement by the author that “these numbers will escalate,” is based on opinion not fact. There is no source to this, and the truth is that gun ownership is on the rise and the murder rates – along with crime overall – have fallen. The opposite is happening, but this doesn’t seem to mater.

And this story, which offers the guise of news, ends with a truly disgusting closing statement:

Oh, and a word to journalists: CAn [sic] we please stop calling it “gun rights”? Guns don’t have rights, people do. Let’s just be honest and call it “attempts to expand deadly weapons usage.”

Sorry, but we are journalists and we find this sort of statement to be obnoxious, inaccurate and distasteful. People do have rights, and according to the Second Amendment that includes the Right to Bear Arms!

They offered this snide headline, “Felons regaining run rights,” which isn’t quite accurate. This would suggest that any convicted felon could get gun rights back, and the blog post, which mostly just cites NY Times copy, starts out with this line:

More to thank the National Rifle Association for:

So rather than offer real commentary on the issue, this is what passes for “reporting” these days.

What is missing is the fact that criminals could easily obtain illegal guns and skip the whole process, and likely do! This point is never mentioned, nor as we noted previously is it ever mentioned that the vast majority of those do get their rights back never cause a problem.

Of course the media doesn’t want to report that part of the story.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3YhByy_fNY

“The economic problems and the government firearm scandal are two sides of the same coin,” says gun rights expert John M. Snyder.

Snyder is the Gun Dean, according to Human Events.

“That coin,” continued Snyder “is the belief in the efficacy of big government. To a large degree, the economic difficulties facing the country have resulted from the attempt of big government to manage the economy, in effect to stop the economy from functioning as it properly should.

“The gun scandal perpetrated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of the United States Department of Justice through Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious results from belief in the ability of government programs and government operators to bring about good results from illegal behavior. The result of government involvement in illegal cross-border firearm purchases has been the use of firearms in felonious activity in Mexico and the United States, including murder, even the murder of American law enforcement agents.”

Snyder said that, “Big government is the antithesis of common sense as well as of individual freedom. It’s got to be taken down. The American people will have a good chance to begin taking it down in 15 months with elections for President, the United States Senate, and the United States House of Representatives.”

About John Snyder:
Named the Gun Dean by Human Events, “the senior rights activist in Washington” by Shotgun News, a “champion of the right to self-defense” by The Washington Times, and “dean of gun lobbyists” by The Washington Post and The New York Times, John M. Snyder has spent 45 years as a proponent of the individual Second Amendment civil right to keep and bear arms as a National Rifle Association editor, public affairs director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, treasurer of the Second Amendment Foundation, and founder of www.GunRightsPolicies.org.

A former Jesuit seminarian, Snyder is founder/manager of Telum Associates, LL.C., founder/chairman of the St. Gabriel Possenti Society, Inc., a director of Council for America, and serves on the boards of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and the American Federation of Police & Concerned Citizens. He is also the author of the book Gun Saint. Visit: www.GunRightsPolicies.org

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-xmJ6qUnIc

“The right to keep and bear arms is as clear and concise as any amendment to the Constitution, yet the liberal media attacks it constantly. It is wrong to restrict the press, but right to restrict the right to bear arms. There is no logic to this argument and it is totally unconstitutional, yet the media assault is relentless. Not only does the media hypocrisy aggressively promote gun restrictions on law abiding American citizens, it gives sensationalistic coverage to every crime committed with a gun. High school and office shootings, armed attacks on police and all gun crimes are treated as if every American citizen who owns a gun is likely to commit one of these horrific acts. The truth is that all of us have the right to own a gun to protect ourselves from these ‘crazies’ who commit these crimes.”

Unfortunately the media doesn’t see it this way. They don’t see that freedom to own guns is equal to freedom of press, and they do look for those sensational stories because if “it bleeds it leads,” remains the way newsrooms work.

“The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership—and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers—the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight.”

It is also worth noting that the article is adapted from Adam Winkler’s forthcoming book, Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, to be published by W. W. Norton in September. It could be one worth reading.

We checked to see if the original version had the same biased title. It did not. It was worse:

“Tragedies have little sway on nation’s gun laws”

What this author and those who helped craft this title seem not to understand is that violent people will always find a way to commit violent crimes.

However, the Houston Chronicle version, did make clear one point typically missing in mainstream media coverage. It notes:

“The National Rifle Association continues to exercise clout across the political landscape. Founded in 1871 to improve marksmanship, the NRA’s political juggernaut today is built upon nearly 4 million members who stand ready to respond to the organization’s mantra, ‘vote freedom first.’”

Finally, someone explains that the NRA has a strong membership with a voting agenda. Of course we think there are those who would question whether this stance is justified. But those calling for gun control don’t really care about freedom.

What makes Avlon’s commentary interesting is that it tries to paint President Ronald Reagan as being for gun control. And somehow Republicans and the NRA have lost their way. Nonsense. Kudos to Newsbusters for catching this story.

“It’s been nearly nine weeks since that tragic shooting in Tucson, and you may be wondering whether there’s been any gun legislation proposed in the aftermath.”

Let’s consider a couple of points. First, in New York City gun legislation is pretty much already on the books. The high-capacity magazines she rallies against are already banned in the city, and as we’ve long reported unless you are rich and famous forget about getting a Glock or any other handgun easily. It is an expensive and time consuming process to “legally” obtain a firearm.

Second Collins isn’t really concerned with reasonable gun legislation either, as she writes:

“The gun lobby will never be happy, unless the health care law specifically requires every American to have a pistol on his or her person at all times.”

Thus her editorial isn’t about reasonable gun laws, it is a rant about why House Republicans are trying to overturn Obamacare and she’s using guns an excuse.

So what this really says is that like many New Yorkers she doesn’t really get the “real” America west of the Hudson River. But yet, she also doesn’t address how to solve the problem of illegal guns in the city. Perhaps she really believes, much like the city’s misguided mayor, that taking away guns from law-abiding citizens in other states will somehow solve New York’s problems.