New York Times Editorial Suggests “gun lobby’s wrath”
The New York Times issued a farewell to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords last week, and we have to ask – why? We sort of know the answer, as it allows the Times’ editors a chance to climb on the soap box yet again, let’s keep in mind that Ms. Giffords didn’t represent the people of New York City or even New York State.
The editors of course tried to once again blame the guns and did some with the usual misreporting:
Ringing vows were made immediately after the Tucson rampage to ban the high-volume ammunition clips used by the gunman, to prod states to submit names of the mentally disturbed to the federal watch list for gun sales, and to plug the notorious gun-show loophole that allows anyone to buy high-powered military weapons without a background check. None of those have happened. Democrats, who once had the good sense to pass a ban on assault rifles, no longer fight for its renewal, wary of the gun lobby’s wrath. President Obama gave a stirring speech after the Tucson shootings, but the White House has said and done too little about gun control since then.
Our first point, yes this is an editorial and opinions are opinions. But facts don’t lie – and this editorial has one of the facts wrong. It isn’t an outright lie, but it is done to make a point. Namely the statement: “high-powered military weapons,” which isn’t fair. First, the shooter in Tucson had no such firearm. So what does it have to do with this piece?
But there is also the point of “high-powered military weapons” that suggests that the guns most can actually buy at gun-shows are “military weapons,” which they are not. The guns are civilian versions and there is a huge difference whether the editors at the Times like it or not!
Next, we note “wary of the gun lobby’s wrath.” What does this mean? It almost suggests as if the gun lobby would use said “military weapons” in a reprisal. But that’s not the case. What the gun lobby would do is stir up voters, who would send President Obama and other anti-gun types packing. But isn’t that how lobbyists are supposed to work? Isn’t that their job whether we like it or not? And at the end of the day it isn’t the majority of voters casting their ballot on the issue? Why is this point always lost in these arguments.
The paper adds:
Ms. Giffords, a supporter of gun rights, was sent off with good wishes from lawmakers who could have done something to stem the carnage. “I will recover and will return,” Ms. Gifford vowed in a her resignation letter, which was read by a colleague. Her departure offered a tragic display of how easily a brilliant career in public service was cut short because of the nation’s inadequate gun laws.
Couldn’t it be that the nation’s mental health system is what really failed here? This argument blames the guns, and whether the Times likes it or there are a lot of guns out there, so the laws seem to be fairly adequate when all is said and done. Tragedies happen, but we don’t try to ban everything.
Will cruise ships be banned because of the recent disaster in Italy? Were airplanes banned because of 9/11? Are cars or even alcohol banned because of drunk drivers? It is such an interesting argument to make, but banning the item involved is only done when it includes guns.
NY Times Op-Ed Just More Sour Grapes
So ends another year, and how does The New York Times see it when it comes to firearms? Instead of noting a decline in crime, while a booming business in a bad economy the Times’ editors say it as “Another Year for Weapons.”
That’s right, not guns, not firearms, but WEAPONS! And the paper offered this passage:
The F.B.I. reports that gun dealers submitted the names of almost half-a-million customers in the six days before Christmas, with December on its way to surpassing November, which had a record tally of 1,534,414 names submitted for background checks for criminal convictions and mental health issues. Only a little more than 1 percent of buyers are typically rejected by federally licensed gun dealers. No one knows how many more firearms were purchased through the gun-show loophole that enables black marketeering.
It is fascinating that no mention is made of Fast and Furious, nor of the stockpiles of military hardware left in Libya. No the Times is worried about law abiding citizens buying guns! And then of course has to offer the “gun-show loophole” and tie it to illegal guns – without offering any proof that this is ever the case.
But the Times wasn’t finished. It offered this conclusion:
Instead of cowering before the gun lobby, political leaders in both parties should be treating the annual gun death toll as a serious public health and moral problem. Polls show the public is wiser than many politicians on the gun issue. Protest candlelight vigils organized by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence are being planned nationally for Jan. 8, the anniversary of the Tucson rampage. Nearly 30 cities and towns have signed up, proof that sensible voters are demanding stronger protection from gun violence.
Are the political leaders really cowering behind the gun lobby? The first sentence of the op-ed and the first sentence of the final paragraph don’t add up. Isn’t it legal sales, meaning law-abiding citizens were buying guns? Doesn’t that mean that people – law-abiding citizens that is – want guns?
So what the editors are really saying is the voters, the citizens be damned. The Times editors don’t like guns so no one should have guns!
And that statement “polls show the public is wiser than many politicians on the gun issue” needs to be clarified. What polls exactly? What about the Gallup poll from October that showed that more people are opposed to gun control.
Finally, the gun lobby isn’t pushing for mass shootings as the final passage implies. Yes, cities can have mass vigils and should. But these vigils don’t mean these communities want to be rid of guns, to throw out the Second Amendment. Of course it is hard to understand what the editors think, but in their tall towers in Manhattan do they really know anything about what is going on west of the Hudson River?
NY Times Calls “Gunfight” Uneven
While many in the liberal media have praised Adam Winkler’s book The New York Times was less kind, offering this opening to its review:
“In ‘Gunfight,’ his provocative, highly uneven new book about the fight over gun control, the constitutional law professor Adam Winkler writes that ‘gun rights and gun control are not only compatible; they have lived together since the birth of America.’ He argues that ‘despite the controversy over the meaning of the Second Amendment, Americans have always had the right to keep and bear arms as a matter of state constitutional law. Today, nearly every state has such a provision in its own constitution, clearly protecting an individual right unattached to militia service.’”
The review adds:
“Such passages provide the reader with some illuminating historical perspective and try to project a balanced kind of reasonableness on the part of the author. But Mr. Winkler, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles, tries too hard in these pages to present himself as one of the few rational voices in a debate he says is dominated by hard-liners and hotheads on both sides. He suggests the debate over guns today is dominated by ‘strident groups: one set on getting rid of the guns; the other determined to stop guns from being restricted in even modest ways’ and that both sides are vociferous and loathe to compromise.”
While we think this review is still too kind for Winkler’s book, it is interesting to see that not everyone in the media is buying his argument.
That’s the NY Times We Know and Loath
As The New York Times has begun to cover Fast and Furious and noted the growing scandal, we thought maybe the Old Gray Lady was coming around on the issue of guns. But last week offered an editorial titled, “Pandering to the Gun Lobby.”
We don’t question editorials, but would be curious why it is even necessary when the passage begins, “How low can the Florida Legislature go in pandering to the gun lobby?” The rest of the editorial isn’t about any national issue, or any that affects New York City or even New York State in the least.
Instead and once again, this shows that New York editors think they know America when they can’t see past the Hudson River.
NY Times: “Listing Gun Owners Might Help Criminals”
Wasn’t yesterday June 1, and not April 1? We ask because when you see an op-ed piece in The New York Times titled “Listing Gun Owners Might Help Criminals,” and it offers reasons why Illinois shouldn’t consider publicizing lists of registered gun owners you have to wonder if the next sentence is going to end with “April Fools.”
But in fact, Casey B. Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, did author this piece and gave many reasons why the published list of gun owners might not be such a good thing. In fact, many of the arguments are what we at FirearmsTruth have been saying for months.
The op-ed notes that criminals could use such lists to rob those without guns, or even target those who own guns to steal the firearms. Finally someone else is seeing logic in why gun lists should remain private.
NSSF Responds to New York Times Editorial Promoting Banning Lead Ammunition
From the National Shooting Sports Foundation:
NSSF responds to today’s New York Times editorial attacking traditional ammunition. http://tiny.cc/nxs9x
The New York Times
Letters to the Editor
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018To the Editor:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) correctly rejected a petition by anti-hunting groups to ban the use of all traditional ammunition manufactured with lead components based on a statute passed by congress over 35 years ago (“Another Misguided Idea From the Gun Lobby,” May 17, 2011). As even one of the petitioners has acknowledged, the proposed ban would have applied to all ammunition, not just hunting ammunition, thereby affecting not only sportsmen, but the military, law enforcement and all responsible gun owners. Bipartisan legislation, sponsored by the co-chairs of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, which is the largest caucus in congress, seeks to further clarify the existing exemption of ammunition from EPA jurisdiction and to exempt sport-fishing tackle. Over 35 of the nation’s largest conservation groups support this commonsense legislation.
The science of wildlife management is based on managing populations, not on preventing isolated instances of harm to individual animals. If wildlife management were to be based on preventing harm to individual animals then presumably hunting would be banned. Hunting, however, is a critical management tool, and the excise taxes paid on the sale of the ammunition you demonize is the primary funding source for wildlife and habitat conservation in the United States. Absent sound scientific evidence of a population impact caused by the use of traditional ammunition, there is no justification for further restricting or banning its use.
The proper agencies to protect wildlife are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the 50 state fish and game agencies. To illustrate this point, the Fish and Wildlife Service, not the E.P.A., barred the use of lead shot for waterfowl hunting many years ago.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study does not, as you claim, show a health risk to hunters who consume game harvested with traditional ammunition. Quite the opposite is true, as demonstrated by the study showing that the average hunter had blood lead levels less than half that of the average American – including those walking the streets of Manhattan. There has never been a documented case of lead poisoning, let alone elevated lead levels, caused by consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition. Once again, the arguments posed in your editorial are agenda-based science and don’t hold up to factual scrutiny.
Alternative ammunition made with substantially more expensive metals comprises just 5 percent of the ammunition market in the United States. Banning traditional ammunition, based on emotion rather than science, will result in skyrocketing prices for ammunition.
Indeed, by needlessly banning traditional ammunition, price sensitive hunters and target shooters as well as fishermen will be priced out of their sport, and funding for wildlife and habitat conservation will dry up.
Sincerely,
Lawrence G. Keane
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
National Shooting Sports Foundation
About NSSF
The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 6,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers. For more information, log on to www.nssf.org.
New York Times Shows Lack of Understanding of America Again
In a New York Times editorial titled “School of Glock,” columnist Gail Collins writes the following passage, and it shows how out of touch New York City’s journalists can be with the rest of the country:
“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.
NY Times: “A Struggle to Disarm People Without Gun Rights”
The New York Times this weekend offered an interesting story that looks at those who legally bought guns, yet should not have been able to do so because of mental health issues. The article notes this issue, while discussing people such as Ray Perez, who legally bought a gun that he later used to kill his mother:
“Tens of thousands of gun owners, like Mr. Perez, bought their weapons legally but under the law should no longer have them because of subsequent mental health or criminal issues.”
The article does offer a good look at this problem, but what is missing is from this report is that while tens of thousands may have fallen into this category – and we think that number is probably high – there really aren’t that many events, such as the one in Tucson that warrant this level of concern. What is lacking is any note that millions of law abiding gun owners are causing no problem. Of course that’s not newsworthy.
John Lott on FoxNews.com Calls out NY Times Error
What a surprise, an error in the Old Gray Lady – that would be what The New York Times is often known as – but that’s the deal. Our friend John Lott actually complied a number of mistakes, errors and carefully worded lapses that cover or conceal the truth.
We recommend this one, as he points out several glaring issues: “Another Mistake in The New York Times”
New York Times: Regulate Guns Like Toys
This week The New York Times offered an op-ed piece that suggested that guns should be regulated like toys. Seriously? We don’t recall there being a 1934 Federal Toy Act, or the Toy Control Act of 1968, and yet Nicholas D. Kristof suggests:
“To protect the public, we regulate cars and toys, medicines and mutual funds. So, simply as a public health matter, shouldn’t we take steps to reduce the toll from our domestic arms industry?”
Kristof offers some ways that this can be done, and we’ll respond one at a time:
“Limit gun purchases to one per month per person, to reduce gun trafficking. And just as the government has cracked down on retailers who sell cigarettes to minors, get tough on gun dealers who sell to traffickers.”
How does one per month really matter? The truth is that very few people buy more than one gun a month anyway. And there are those times when stores run specials, offer deals, etc. There are also times when someone might sell a collection or when a relative has passed away. Does this mean that as a collector I couldn’t buy my friends collection of antique pistols because of some waiting period?
“Push for more gun safes, and make serial numbers harder to erase.”
OK, good advice. Tell the criminals they need gun safes. Likewise, stolen and black market gun owners don’t care about serial numbers.
“Improve background checks and follow Canada in requiring a 28-day waiting period to buy a handgun. And ban oversize magazines, such as the 33-bullet magazine allegedly used in Tucson. If the shooter had had to reload after firing 10 bullets, he might have been tackled earlier. And invest in new technologies such as ‘smart guns,’ which can be fired only when near a separate wristband or after a fingerprint scan.”
The magazine wasn’t 33-bullets. Maybe reporters should do better fact checking. Likewise, what if the shooter decided that one gun wasn’t enough. What if he brought several guns instead? We can play that silly game all day.
As for the smart guns, that doesn’t do anything to the millions of guns in private hands – unless of course someone suggests those be turned in and destroyed? Likewise, who is going to pay for this “investment” in new technologies? Consumers don’t want it, and therefore the makers won’t pay for it.
The waiting period sounds good, but criminals don’t wait. And in the case of the shooter in Tucson, he bought the gun months ago anyway, so the point is somewhat moot.
In other words, there is safety in guns. The problem is calling on these measures only hurts the law abiding, not the criminal.
