Sky Woodward (courtesy blogs.ou.edu)

Oklahoma University grad Sky Woodward [above] was not well-pleased with a Baltimore Sun’s editorial on the subject of gun control. Ms. Woodward hit the laptop to produce the best-written, most blistering attack on anti-gun agitprop I’ve ever read (including my own). Props to the Sun for publishing her letter to the editor. Brickbats for not linking Ms. Woodward’s rebuttal to their editorial (I’ve added it) and the paper’s unshakeable faith in the righteousness of civilian disarmament. Here’s the letter:

After reading “Badly targeted gun gripes,” the editorial published in the Sept. 10 edition of The Baltimore Sun, any reasonably objective person would be left asking the following question: Is this an editorial from the editorial board of The Sun? It appears to be. It purports to be. But is it, really? If it is, then The Sun ought to reconsider the distinction between “editorial” and “polemic” (to say nothing of the distinction between “editorial” and “rant”). You should be embarrassed for publishing something this unprofessional. Glib, smug, sanctimonious and unsupported commentary like this is probably the single biggest factor in the decline of the prestige and relevance of the print press in general and The Sun in particular. As with any issue, there are always points to be made on both sides. The Sun simultaneously fails to make these points while reinforcing its reputation as a shrill mouthpiece for Maryland state government propaganda . . .

A point-by-point refutation of your editorial would be an exercise in futility, given the absurdity and manifest condescension of many of your statements. You demonstrate a total absence of professionalism throughout the editorial, beginning with your very first sentence, characterizing the debate over Maryland’s undisputed delays in processing background checks for prospective purchasers as “crying.” You go from there to label Marylanders who want to exercise their constitutional right to purchase and possess firearms as paranoid in an obvious attempt to relegate gun owners and would-be purchasers to the fringe of society, even though the number of applications alone is clear evidence that such a characterization is as intellectually dishonest as it is transparently dismissive.

Finally, you say that average gun owners “probably aren’t all that worked up by the backlog….” “Probably?” If the average gun owner or would-be gun owner is relying upon The Sun for information about the security breach inherent in the state’s decision to allow employees outside of the Maryland State Police to help process background checks, he or she would remain woefully uninformed and thus unlikely to have feelings, strong or otherwise. I read The Sun as a daily subscriber — print and electronic — yet the only news coverage of this issue was buried deep in an article Saturday evening covering “a small group” rallying in Baltimore to call on Congress to reduce gun violence.

Had The Sun actually investigated the story, it might have learned that the personal information of handgun applicants scattered around to various government agencies for input included their home addresses, drivers license numbers and Social Security numbers. Instead, the editorial board of The Sun feels so strongly about this issue that it pushes its opinion that gun owners would be paranoid to care about state functionaries tossing such deeply personal identifiers around like Frisbees rather than fairly cover that news event and let the public decide for themselves. Shameful.

If The Sun ever is willing to publish an editorial bereft of this unprofessional sarcasm that dealt with the actual issues at stake with respect to the backlog of unprocessed background checks, the Maryland State Police’s ineffectual efforts over the past few years to deal with that backlog, and what that portends for the looming October 1 implementation date of the Firearms Safety Act of 2013, perhaps then a dialogue might be fostered and your readers may be rewarded.

Instead, you have published a churlish screed totally devoid of journalistic integrity. The Sun should be held to a higher standard, and Maryland and its citizens deserve a better newspaper, or at least a better effort from the paper they have. You have the audacity to write about hidden agendas. To which one can only reply, really?

Sky Woodward, Towson

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56 COMMENTS

  3. Indeed,a well written response.

    I yet am of the opinion that such anti gun agitprop factories should be left to stew in their own biases.One would have better luck arguing with the sunrise in hopes of convincing the Earth to rotate the other direction then altering any of the disarmament lobby drones in Baltimore, Chicago or LA.

    On that subject-if Ihad the money I’d do it myself,but we pro-Constitutionalists need to establish our own,objective TV network.If the truth of armed civil rights were beamed into the Telescreens of millions all over America,the Anti Gun movement would die a quick and spectacular death.

    • I’d like to have a drink with her. My wife & I would, of course. My beloved can then tell this estimable lady how she outshoots me to a fare-thee-well every time we go to the range. I am so blessed.

      • My guess was a Husker. Them Nebraskans have a Sooner Schooner on their state signs for all eternity, which is why they left the Big 12 in shame. Have never found out ht the bet between their governors was exactly…

  11. Ms. Woodward, I’m real glad that you’re on our side. Your letter to the editor of the Sun was a formidable salvo.

    • A formidable salvo to the intelligent. A Stealth Bomber flyover to the steaming masses at The Sun. The Neutral Zone surrounding their heads prevents any logic, reason, or idea that contradicts their own mental ineptitude from entering into their stream of (un)consciousness.

  12. What is all the fuss? The Baltimore Sun and all of its minions employees are “real journalists” according to the new journalist Shield Law that Diane Feinstein gleefully discussed and endorsed recently. (TTAG detailed Ms. Feinstein’s rant in the post before this one.)

    Since they are all “real journalists”, I don’t see where Ms. Woodward has any reason to complain.
    /sarcasm

  13. Send this girl a 1911 an ar15 carbine a mossberg 500 a check for 4,000,000$ and a lifetime membership to the NRA… or a nice t shirt and hat. that is the best pro gun piece I’ve read in quite sometime.

  14. Bravo and Kudos to Ms. Woodward. However may I suggest NOT subscribing to any Anti-Gun, Liberal Rag. Don’t give them a penny! The leftist print media is going out of business, slowly but surely because people have been dropping their subscriptions for years and $tarving them of income. I stopped subscribing to my area leftist daily birdcage liners years ago and have watched them “wither on the vine!” I am waiting for the day they padlock their doors…just like “Newsweek”

    • You need to “know thy enemy”; that’s why I sometimes read the Washington Post and other assorted fish wraps, no matter how distasteful.

  19. Forget the airhead supermodels. A REAL babe has a brain and beauty.

    I maintain that a REAL newspaper, responsibly REPORTING the news (this would be the opposite of the NY Times, US Today, Wash Post, etc0 would make a PROFIT. The heck with the internet new. Give me a newspaper. If Limbaugh would just pony up and buy the Times and reform it.

    • “If Limbaugh would just pony up and buy the Times and reform it.”

      He tried to buy the Rams but the Liberal Left’s public criticism doomed that. Now they may move out of St. Louis!
      Print media is so dead this info babe just shot it to put it out of it’s agonizing demise!

      Do us all a favor and save a tree by GOING AWAY!

      Folks, here we are preaching to the 2nd Amendment crowd. Expend your efforts by writing letters to officials and your government representatives and even ,gulp, your local soon to go the way of the dinosaur, local paper.

      OH, and join the NRA!

  24. Suffice it to say, that’s going to leave a mark on somebody’s liberal ego. FTW!
    Such is the way of liberal cowards, hiding behind the anonymity of the editors.

  28. On a second read — and a second look into those hauntingly lovely eyes — I must say that a great strength of Ms. Woodward’s letter is that it is not pro-gun as such.

    It is more basic, more essential. It is a call-out on sloppy journalism and a demand to let the facts speak. As such, it is immune to any emotional counter-argument.

    Since she disassembled their anti-gun editorial and threw away the 89% that was dross, her piece can be construed as pro-gun. However, in the final ana1ysis it is something far more beautiful — unambiguously, incontrovertibly and proof against any criticism, it is pro-truth.

    I doff my hat to thee, Ms. Woodward.

  29. You can’t fight stupidity with logic and fact. They see what they want to see. It’s like logically trying to explain to a mentally deficient dog why chasing cars in the middle of the street is bad.

    Even then, at least a mentally deficient dog will learn once it gets smacked by a car. Leftists aren’t as intelligent.

    Still, great article. Only error I found was calling people in Maryland citizens instead of subjects.

  31. I don’t know if it the absolute best written pro-gun letter…but WOW!! She tears them a new one for liberal piss poor journalism.

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