ABC7 in Chicago Notes Point Few Others Address
The local media in Chicago obviously has been reporting a lot about the SCOTUS ruling. But ABC 7, WLS-TV, in Chicago offered an interesting point in its coverage:
“Gun rights advocates, who are reviewing the ordinance, say the law does not address the issue of illegal handgun possession.”
So let’s look at this point. The Supreme Court did NOT rule that criminals could possess guns. So criminals that had guns last week will of course have them next week. Even if the ruling had gone the other way, and upheld the ban, the point would have been that criminals would still have had guns. In other words, criminals will have guns despite the law. Isn’t that clear enough?
Chicago Sun Times Offers Biased Take on Chicago Gun Laws
Mayor Richard Daley isn’t taking the SCOTUS ruling well, and apparently neither is Fran Spielman, City Hall Reporter, at The Chicago Sun Times, who writes:
“Chicagoans could still purchase up to a dozen handguns a year — without liability insurance — under a watered-down replacement to the city’s overturned handgun ban, expected to be rushed through today. Concerned that Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling could leave the mistaken impression that it’s open season on guns, Mayor Daley has asked the City Council to meet in special session to approve an ordinance considerably weaker than anticipated.”
Were this an editorial we would have thought it was an opinion that differed from ours, but this is actually a news story. And as such we find this to be a typical example of mainstream media bias, clear and simple. But the bias cuts further later in the piece, noting:
“If there are two qualified adults in a home, 24 handguns — a virtual arsenal — could legally be purchased during the course of a year.”
Our response is what determines an arsenal, virtual or otherwise? Couldn’t 24 handguns be seen as a collection? Do 24 guns, safely protected properly in one’s house, suddenly offer any more of a threat to anyone than a single gun? This actually reeks of socialism to us in some ways – suggesting that there be a level distribution of items.
But worse, the article – and the potential law – suggests that only a single gun could be assembled at a time (per owner). Does we could counter that this isn’t even about 24 guns at all; it is about two guns and enough parts to assemble another 22 guns.
One Gun is Enough in Chicago Says City Lawyer
The Chicago Sun Times offered an interesting one-sided story that offered the city’s take on the recent SCOTUS ruling in McDonald vs. the City of Chicago. The city’s top lawyer, Corporation Counsel Mara Georges was quoted as saying:
“One handgun is sufficient for self-defense. We believe that a limitation on the number of handguns to one-per-person-per-residence would be consistent with Supreme Court.”
This is no joke. Apparently Mayor Richard Daley and his anti-gun cohorts are going to find any gun-ban loophole, any way around the ruling to enforce their would-be police state. We’ll be sure to follow these developments very closely.
Chicago Tribune Editor Fires Back
Not everyone in the mainstream media is apparently upset by the SCOTUS ruling it seems. Steve Chapman from The Chicago Tribune actually wrote an editorial that we can get behind. He sums the situation regarding the ruling better than most:
“Whose judgment about the value of guns to law-abiding citizens do you trust? Ordinary people defending their homes against criminals? Or a public official who is shepherded to work each day by police officers?”
Very well said Steve, very well said.
Huff and Puff Huffs and Puffs About Guns
No surprise that the Huffington Post didn’t care for the SCOTUS ruling, but in writing about the issue Joanne Bamberger asked some flat out stupid questions, clearly missing the point:
“I have to ask — have Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas or Kennedy ever hung out in their Supreme Court neighborhood or other Washington, D.C. inner city neighborhoods after dark? Because if they’ve spent even the least little time doing that, their view of guns might be a little different.” Read more
Voice of America Offers Strange Take on SCOTUS Ruling
This has been a crazy week for reporting on guns following the SCOTUS ruling. But Voice of America has the strangest voice on the matter. It offers some choice quotes from only one side of the issue:
“Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said he expects criminals convicted of gun charges to use Monday’s ruling to challenge their convictions.”
Either we’re reading this wrong, or Voice of America is reporting this wrong, but does this even make sense? What does the ruling about gun ownership have to do with criminals? If someone broke the law, they broke the law.
And Voice of America also had a choice quote from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley:
“I don’t think America should be known for ‘we could kill more people than any other nation.’ We love to kill, we can kill overseas, we export more guns than anybody else, and we buy more guns than anybody else, and ammunition. That should not be known as a great country.”
Mr. Daley doesn’t speak for all of us obviously. We can respect that all Americans should have a right to decide what makes us a great country, but Daley is flat out wrong when it comes to the facts on the issue. While it is true that the United States is a large exporter of small arms, the United States is not even in the top five of small arms importers (source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). India, Singapore, Malaysia, Greece and South Korea are the world’s largest arms importers at the present time.
Maybe Mr. Daley and Voice of America should do a little more fact checking.
Oz Media Jumps on SCOTUS Ruling
Australia has very strict gun control rules, so no surprise that the reporters down under reacted as they did to the Supreme Court ruling. But this just shows how misunderstood gun laws are in America. The Sydney Morning Herald offered this take:
“The ruling was a blow to the mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, who has long campaigned against the prevalence of guns on Chicago’s streets. The nation’s third-largest city passed its ordinance in 1982, the only blanket ban in the nation, seven years before Mr Daley was elected.”
Interesting to note that the authors took the side of Daley, a typical Chicago loud mouth politico rather than those would actually need guns to defend themselves from the type of scum that Daley can’t (or just won’t) get off the streets of the Windy City.
NBC Chicago Spins Supreme Court Ruling
More media bias on the Supreme Court ruling. NBC Chicago didn’t do much to conceal its particular bias on the ruling:
“Mayor Daley has already planned for the worst.”
The news organization offered only commentary from Daley but nothing in the way of counter point, except to mention Richard Gardiner, the lawyer who represented Dick Heller in the case between Mr. Heller and D.C. over its own Draconian gun ban. The news site further offered this anti-gun bias, which to us borders on editorial:
“If the court reverses the ban, Chicago most likely will create a weapons registry and make that information available to police, firefighters and others who respond to emergencies. Gardiner said the pending lawsuit he filed is fighting a similar registry in D.C.
“The city is also thinking about requiring anyone who purchases a gun to also buy insurance — a step Gardiner said D.C. didn’t take. But, Daley said, ‘It’s common sense.’”
Is it common sense as Daley says? We question this statement, but note that NBC Chicago did not. What D.C. essentially makes law-abiding citizens do is take training courses, spend time on the firing range and spent several hours in a classroom. While this might seem like common sense, we wonder how many criminals bother with the process? Maybe spending some of that energy and resources to keep the streets safe would make more sense. At least that’s how we see it.
Numbers Not Reported by MSM
The mainstream media certainly appears to have an anti-gun bias. How else can you explain the fact that the findings of a Harris Interactive poll aren’t getting much coverage? According to Personal Liberty Digest, the poll was conducted last month and found that only 45 percent of respondents actually want stricter gun control, down from 49 percent in 2008.
For those who like to pay attention to such things, 45 percent is a minority number, as in less than half of those responding favor more gun control. This is in contrast to what politicians and liberals in the media often try to imply when they say, “most Americans want stricter gun laws.” In other words they’re lying because 45 percent doesn’t constitute most.
But here are some other numbers that folks like Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, or Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, probably don’t want you to hear:
“Moreover, slightly more than 30 percent of Americans say they have a gun at home today, for an estimated 42 million households. Furthermore, a staggering 80 percent believe people should have access to rifles or shotguns as well as handguns (74 percent).”
Aren’t politicians supposed to represent what the people want? Apparently to anti-gun zealots that doesn’t seem to matter.
Does Supreme Court Ruling Matter to Anti-Gun Zealots?
“We’re not going to roll over.” Those sound like fighting words, and the truth is that nothing could be further from the truth. The problem we have with those words is that they were uttered by anti-gun fanatic Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, in response to a possible ruling that would overrule Chicago’s ban on owning handguns. The Associated Press sums this pretty well:
“If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Chicago’s handgun ban, the city will likely do what Washington, D.C., did when its own ban was overturned two years ago: Put in place all sorts of restrictions to make it tougher to buy guns and easier for police to know who has them.
“Prospective gun owners in D.C. now are required to take training courses that include spending one hour on a firing range and several hours in a classroom learning about gun safety. They also must pass a 20 question test based on D.C.’s firearm laws.”
To the average person, at least at first glance, this might not seem so bad. But consider that criminals won’t be taking those training courses. The only time they’ll spend firing the guns will likely be on the streets, and they won’t be any classroom. The only question they’ll have to pass is “do you have the money to buy this illegal gun?”
So all we see are efforts to make it hard for law-abiding citizens to obtain what the constitution and the Supreme Court state clearly that they should be entitled to possess. Meanwhile, criminals will continue to break the law and no amount of restrictions will change that fact.
