Misleading Patch.com Headline Suggests “Gun Control” Effective
Read this headline:
Efforts to Control Firearms Aim to Help Overall Safety
This headline makes it sound like “gun control is working.” But this story in Patch.com offers this dek (that’s what editors call the secondary headline) noting that this issue is really “illegal firearms” so where does the “gun control” part come in?
According to the LA County Sheriff’s Department, the Century Station’s efforts to stop illegal firearm possession are helping to reduce overall violent crimes in the area.
The story itself is far from being about guns, but rather crime. However, here is yet another example of a media story that blames crime on guns.
KnoxNews Suggests Illegal Online Gun Sales Thriving
With an opening like this the reader is already convinced:
The gun buyer was eager to make a purchase, and the online seller was willing to help him out, even if it meant breaking the law.
This type of biased introduction, in this case from KnoxNews, makes it seem like this is common and yet, the story also implies it is easy to stop. KnoxNews further quotes Mark Glaze, director of “advocacy group” Mayor Against Illegal Guns, noting:
“There is [sic] a significant percentage of sellers who are willing to put guns in the hands of people who aren’t allowed to have them. That should be a problem for the people of Tennessee. It’s a public safety problem for mayors across the country.”
The article notes that licensed sellers need to perform background checks and suggests this is a loophole of sorts that allows guns to flow into the hands of criminals. The problem is that it is illegal to sell guns through the mail unless the buyer and seller have Federal Firearms Licenses anyway. In other words, the law is being broken but creating news that require background checks doesn’t solve the fact that if the buyer/seller are willing to break the law today why would a law requiring a background check on ALL sales make any difference?
This point is never stated or addressed in this article.
AP Offers Biased Take on Gillbrand Bill
This week the Associated Press, via The Long Island Press, noted that U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is looking to close the so-called “gun show loophole.” The story presents a variety of dubious, misleading and even contradictory facts including:
-90 percent of firearms used in New York City gun crimes come from out of state
-Most of the guns are illegal
-Closing the “gun show loophole” would “keep operators responsible”
Now here are some points the article doesn’t note. New York City has extremely strict gun laws, and apparently these only deter law-abiding citizens from being armed, especially if criminals are going out state. But the article implies that 90 percent of crime guns come from out of state, which may or may not be true, as it is probably difficult to track many of these guns in the first place.
But let’s consider that New York State doesn’t have any significant gun industry, so wouldn’t all crime guns be from somewhere else? See how easy it is to skew the facts?
And now let’s review the second fact listed above, “most of the guns are illegal,” so what does that have to do with gun shows, where the vast majority are illegal. This sort of reporting implies that gun shows are akin to black market arms fairs, which they are not.
As for the loophole, here are two more points. One, what is to stop illegal dealers from selling guns off the books beyond gun shows? Nothing, which is how most criminals get their guns anyway. In other words, criminals aren’t going to gun shows. Closing private sales – and make no mistake that this is what it is really about – would only further punish the law-abiding.
FairWarning Fails to Offer Fair Version of Story
This week FairWarning picked up on The New York Times piece that noted that felons can regain their second amendment rights. Here is how FairWarning sees it:
But an investigation by The New York Times found that, every year, states restore gun rights for thousands of felons, often with little or no legal review.
The story than noted the one extreme example of how a convicted felon used a gun to shoot a man after the latter had sex with the former’s girlfriend (while it still isn’t clear if it was rape). This was an extreme example and about the only one the media continues to cite.
This coverage fails to note that criminals – those who remain violent and intend to continue with a life of crime likely just get illegal guns. Why would they need to bother getting their second amendment rights restored?
Finally, what isn’t noted are those others who remain law-abiding after paying their debt to society, so we ask how is FairWarning’s coverage fair?
Who Guards the Guards: Illegal guns case said to target Sacramento sheriff’s deputies
The Sacramento Bee on Friday reported “Illegal guns case said to target Sacramento sheriff’s deputies, others” and noted:
“In a highly secret operation, federal agents in Sacramento executed search warrants Thursday as part of an investigation of illegal gun sales that targets law enforcement officials, The Bee has learned.”
According to the story at least targets in the investigation, which includes sheriff’s deputies. The article adds:
“Police officers can obtain some weapons that are not available to the public, experts say, and typically must provide a gun dealer with proper paperwork, such as a letter from their chief or sheriff.”
Those who say, “only the police should have guns” should think hard about that statement given this latest case of police selling illegal guns. We also would like to point out this occurred in California, a state with very strict gun laws. How are those working out, we ask, if the police are doing the selling?
US Marine “Smuggled Guns” Into UK
This week comes word from multiple sources, including the BBC, that former U.S. Marine Steven Greenoe had been involved with smuggling guns into the U.K. Now the media will probably play up the fact that the guns were bought in America:
“A gun used in a fatal shooting in the U.K. was smuggled into the country on a commercial flight by a former US Marine, a court has heard. Shropshire-born Steven Greenoe, 37, bought weapons from American gun shops and hid the parts in his luggage, Liverpool Crown Court was told.”
However, we’ll counter and note that this just shows that even in lands where there is strict gun control illegal guns will still filter in. This is contrary to the notion that all “illegal guns” start out life as “legal guns,” an argument used time and time again by gun-control zealots. The fact that gun parts could be smuggled on commercial airliners shows that guns could likely travel the world.
In other words, gun control won’t work. Too many millions – yes millions, and likely tens if not hundreds of millions – of cheap firearms from the Cold War are still floating around the world in distant warzones. For gun control to ever work, and for the record we’re against it in any form, you’d first have to get rid of all those guns. In other words it is impossible.
NY Times: Bloody Weekend Shows Intractable Gun Problem
New York City is one of the most restrictive places in the nation to own a gun – at least for the law abiding citizen. Criminals can obtain gun easily as was seen this past holiday weekend. The New York Times notes:
“By Monday’s close, 13 people had been killed and 67 injured in 52 shootings since early Friday. The toll stunned veteran police officers, leading some to wonder if violent crime, which has declined across the city for many years, was rising significantly.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has repeatedly suggested: “This is a national problem, requiring national leadership.”
But we are going to counter and suggest that this is actually not a national problem, as much as it is a problem of New York City’s rising crime and trying to push the blame elsewhere.
The New York Times articles notes efforts to curb the violence through programs such as gun buybacks, but never really notes that the truth is that many citizens are unarmed while criminals simply ignore the laws. However, the paper also notes that “it remains difficult to discern what effect his administration’s gun control efforts have had.”
The paper even manages to throw in some bias, as if to give Bloomberg a bone for the “good” effort he has tried to make:
“…politics and developments in constitutional law have hampered Mr. Bloomberg’s efforts to lobby for new gun laws. Three years ago, the Supreme Court recognized for the first time that keeping a handgun at home is a fundamental constitutional right, prompting a wave of gun-rights litigation that has placed New York and other cities on the defensive.”
What this article doesn’t note is that other cities with strict gun control, notably Chicago and Washington, have seen huge spikes in crime. This suggests that the control of guns isn’t the issue. It is the control of criminals that needs to be addressed, but the media fails to see it this way.
British Police Seize Guns in London
Time and time and time again the American mainstream media tries to suggest that the British have less gun crime because of extremely strict gun laws. This seems to be the case, at least until it isn’t. So there is no surprise that the American media, which has covered the recent riots in the UK, is now silent on an interesting fact – namely that there was gun violence in those recent riots.
The Daily Star noted this weekend:
“GUNS were seized from a looting suspect’s house yesterday as it emerged police were shot at during the riots.”
So why isn’t fact this get reported in the American media? The fact that any guns are involved shows a flaw in the gun control stance in the UK. Consider that if one bad guy can get a gun, then that is more than a law abiding citizen might have, and one more than most police officers carry. This is a breakdown in the system, and clearly it could get worse.
Who Guards the Guards: Guns, ID Badge Stolen From Off-Duty Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Car
Numerous outlets, including The Los Angeles Times are reporting that an ID badge as well as two guns were stolen from an off-duty Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy’s car. The guns were reportedly “probably loaded.”
So in the State of California where it is hard to legally buy a gun, there are now two more illegal guns on the streets. The irony is that law-abiding citizens must pass background checks, whereas criminals just know to go straight to the best source around.
Tijuana Mayor Arrests Over Guns
While much of the news this past weekend was related to Al Qaeda and the fallout from the calls for Muslim-Americans to buy guns and commit acts of terror, there was another news tidbit worth noting.
Former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon has been arrested on suspicion of illegal weapons. Imagine that… didn’t the Showtime series Weeds have a corrupt Tijuana mayor?
With Rhon be accused of having 88 unlicensed weapons we can’t help but say this is life imitating art.
