“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable!” “Speak truth to power.” Those are allegedly a couple of the credos of the modern journalist. So imagine our surprise when we heard that the ink-stained stay-at-home wretches at The New York Times want to venture into the unknown and talk to some of the 10 million or so people who have bought their first gun in the last couple of years.
From their perspective on the west side, why any sane individual would choose to buy a firearm is downright puzzling. We can just imagine the story on Gun Nation they’re cooking up.
Anyway, if you’re one of the first-timers who have joined over 100 million of their friends and neighbors as firearm owners, the NYT wants to hear from you. You might want to give them an eye- or an earful.
A record number of more than 20 million guns were sold in the United States in 2020, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and sales have remained at high levels since. Many of those guns have been sold to first-time buyers.
If you purchased your first gun in the past few years, we’d like to hear from you on why you bought it.
We may contact you to hear more. We won’t use your name or any identifying information without contacting you. If you’d prefer an even more secure means of communication, you can send your responses (and any records, images or other information) to nytimes.com/tips.
— The New York Times in Have You Recently Purchased Your First Gun?