Buckeye Firearms Foundation: Anti-Gun Joyce Foundation Buys ‘News’ Stories Pushing Gun Control
From the Buckeye Firearms Foundation:
The Code of Ethics for the Society of Professional Journalists states that “Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know,” and specifies that:
Journalists should:
- Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
- Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
- Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
A series of articles written by Theodore Decker and published last week in The Columbus Dispatch ignores these principles, taking advocacy journalism to a level even the founders of the SPJ probably couldn’t imagine when they adopted their first code of ethics in 1926. Read more
90% Number Disappears from News Stories
Just a few months ago a quick review of news stories about the Mexican drug cartels would quote the false statistic that 90% of the firearms used by these gangs come from the United States. State Department documents cracked by WikiLeaks show that the government has long known that the 90% number is a lie. And yet Secretary of State Clinton has quoted this misinformation in speeches. Even the President has propagated this mistruth.
Not only has the false statistic disappeared, the entire Mexican drug war has gone the way of the dinosaur. Could it be that the scandalous AFT Project Gunwalker, an operation that allowed illegal sales north of the boarder, is keeping the story from the public conscience?
The leaked State Department documents, along with Project Gunwalker paint a picture of an administration that is either exceptionally devious or totally clueless. The devious model shows an executive branch that is manipulating and hiding information to make the United States an equal partner in evil when it comes to Mexican drug smuggling. The mainstream media, which has gone from a covert to an overt supporter of President Obama, would naturally want to kill this view.
The alternative view is almost as damning: the administration, from the very top positions, doesn’t have control over the bureaucracy. If the President is to be believed, middle management created and implemented Project Gunwalker without the knowledge of the Attorney General or the Secretary of State. And yet the blowback from Gunwalker has international implications that have strained U.S./Mexican relations. This alternative doesn’t fit the view that President Obama is a hands-on, hard working genius who carefully mulls over all contingencies with the precision of a logic professor.
There isn’t any middle ground so to protect their candidate; the news media is saying nothing. The President’s default position appears to be blame America first. Thousands of Mexican citizens have been killed during that government’s war on the drug gangs and by repeating the 90% number we lose good-will with the Mexican people. It’s no wonder that some hate the gringos. Allowing a few thousand weapons to be smuggled into Mexico through Project Gunwalker is scandalous enough.
The founders believed that a free press was necessary so that the citizen can be well informed about what the government is doing. By joining a conspiracy of silence, our media is hiding some of the President’s warts. But these are warts that need to be revealed. Why would President Obama change the way he conducts himself if his mistakes remain hidden in open site? In all likeliness he will run in 2012 and right now he is the frontrunner. It is better for everyone if his mistakes become part of public discourse so he can make positive changes.
WikiLeaks Reveals Source of Military Weapons for Mexican Cartels: 90% Come from Outside the United States
The U.S. public has been told again and again that 90% of the weapons the Mexican drug cartels buy come from legal sales in the United States. But according to U.S. diplomatic cables disseminated by Wikileaks, military weapons are being smuggled along the Mexican/Guatemala border. Besides assault rifles, smuggled weapons include hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets.
Secretary of State Clinton, along with the President himself, are among government officials who have deceived the American public. Obama, who claimed he was going to have the most open administration in modern times, has been keeping this secret. What’s worse is that the same administration has propagated the 90% lie.
The lie starts in 2008 when the Mexican government confiscated 30,000 firearms from drug cartels. Out of this, they selected 7,200 (or 24%) to send to the U.S. for tracing. Of the 7,200, the ATF was able to trace 4,000. Out of the 4,000, 3,480 (87%) were traced to the United States. If either government was honest, the origin of all 30,000 firearms would be reported in the news. 90% of Cartel weapons come from outside the United States.
President Obama promised that he didn’t want to take away our firearms so why the deception? In Mexico whenever there is a government problem, the United States is the default scapegoat. Tens of thousands of Mexican civilians have been killed in the war against the drug cartels. Instead of admitting that there is a smuggling problem on Mexico’s southern border, the American’s to the north are to blame.
But the United States isn’t to blame. Corrupt Mexican officials aren’t stopping the flow of weapons along the country’s southern border. The media and leaders from both countries are trying to make Americans feel guilty for the murders that are going on in Mexico. But 90% of the guilt lies elsewhere.
Why is the Fourth Estate mostly silent on this topic? Where are the investigative reporters from news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and 60 Minutes? If a small (but growing) blog like FirearmsTruth can reveal this government sanctioned scandal, why can’t the major players? Perhaps the mainstream news media has an anti-gun agenda and this story doesn’t fit their template.
Tennessee Parks Safe One Year after Carry Law: Media’s Scare Tactics Proven Wrong
In June of 2009, Tennessee passed a law that allows permit holders the ability to legally go armed in all 53 state parks and 81 state natural areas. Only two gun related incidents have been reported since the law passed, and neither of them resulted in violence. Jim Fyke, the state’s Environment and Conservation Commissioner lobbied against the law but said he is “pleasantly surprised” by the small number of gun incidents. Read more
Everybody Knows That — But Is It True?
Everybody Knows That — But Is It True?
We all have heard for years from the media that you are more likely to be killed by someone you know than by a stranger. The inference this “fact” creates makes self-protection with a firearm futile. The person who knows you will wait to strike when you are away from your gun. But what statistical analysis is this weathered fact based on?
The FBI tallies crime statistics for the Department of Justice. A typical year is presented in the book More Guns Less Crime, by John Lott, Jr. According to the FBI, 18% of murders were done by family members, 40% by criminals who knew their victim and only 13% of murder was done by a stranger to the victim.
The problem is the FBI defines “murderers who know their victims” very broadly. So broadly that it is almost laughable. Rival gang members, drug pushers and their clients, prostitutes and their clients, and cab drivers killed by their customers are all considered to be people who knew each other. If this isn’t bad enough, in 30% of all cases, the relationship between criminal and victim couldn’t be determined. And yet this classification isn’t added to the stranger category.
Media stories love to add a little statistical evidence to their anti-firearms stories. This gives them credibility to their mostly emotionally driven stories. But don’t be fooled. Statistical evidence can be easily manipulated to a biased opinion, and in this case to become something everybody knows.
WALB News Fair in Firearms Sale Story — To a Point
Recent crime in Albany, GA has spurred gun sales to local business owners and employees. When I read the headline from WALB’s site I figured it would be another attack on the dangers of gun ownership. But Georgia isn’t New York.
District Attorney Greg Edwards supports the local population buying handguns for self-protection, as long it is done responsibly. If only the mayors of Chicago and New York were this reasonable the gun rights issue could be settled.
The problem I have with the story comes at the end when the same statistical clap-trap is listed as though authoritative. It starts with a bullet point about FBI statistics that show gun sales between 2008 and 2009 are up 10%. And that four people are killed by firearms every hour. (Is this in just the U.S. or worldwide? Are all those killed victims or does this include dead criminals and suicides?) What the WALB story doesn’t tell the reader that over that same time period the number of per capita murder rate in big cities decreased by 12%. The rest of the nation saw an 8% drop in the murder rate.
Jackie Sizemore, owner of Backwoods Outdoors, gets it right. “Desperate things are happening, and it’s making people nervous. You know it’s made us nervous. We know we are vulnerable. But we’re prepared too,” Sizemore said.
Even Canadian Press Shows Bias
While editorials don’t pretend to be news, these pieces show the motives and motivations behind how the mainstream media feels about the issue of firearms and gun control. And while the United States is typically anti-gun, so too are the editors north of the border. Check out this headline from The Toronto Star by James Travers:
“Travers: Liberals squander big chance”
This “big chance” was to overturn the nation’s highly unpopular long gun registry. The people have spoken, the government has seen the light. But the media calls it’s a defeat. Typical!
