Is it really too much to ask that reporters covering gun legislation have even a basic understanding of what it would do or how current law works? How can basic mistakes still get published at major publications on a regular basis?? This is embarrassing. https://t.co/bqVnpk7xO0 pic.twitter.com/Akim5K8AJr
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) August 27, 2019
Unlike so many of his colleagues in Big Media, the Washington Free Beacon’s Stephen Gutowski knows a thing or two about firearms and the laws and regulations that surround them. Which is why you can almost hear his palm meet his face after reading this article from the fact-deprived wizards at Politico.
You have to try pretty hard to pack that much misinformation into a single sentence, but Politico’s Burgess Everett was up to the task. Pretty impressive.
They do it on purpose. They know that most people don’t know so they can say things like that and get no pushback from their loyal lefty readers.
^
This,
I believe they do know exactly what they’re publishing but they bank on the ill-informed believing everything they read.
Ill-informed or willfully ignorant?
No, they’re simply ignorant. I once read an article in Rolling Stone magazine (a publication that leans heavily left, and is donated to my employer) discussing the evils of “sniper rifles” that any hunter can use against innocent citizens, and the single photograph accompanying the piece was of a pump shotgun.
There’s a saying that one should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
Having watched the legacy media’s behavior over the last few years, I’ve decided it’s not either/or. They’re both incompetent AND malicious. (For Rolling Stone, that goes double.)
”
Is it really too much to ask that reporters covering gun legislation have even a basic understanding of what it would do or how current law works? How can basic mistakes still get published at major publications on a regular basis?? This is embarrassing.” It isn’t just coverage of “gun” laws- it’s nearly everything. Very few “reporters” do any actual research on their own, they merely parrot what someone else, or the various news services tell them to. In the real world, digging for facts can be dangerous. These people are no more than actors reading script.
They know that most Demoncrat Party voters don’t have a clue. The people who do know these things vote Republican anyway so they don’t matter.
Any Democratic voter who does not own guns–or for that matter anyone who does not own guns (and about half that do) are oblivious to the intricacies of the gun laws either federally or in their state. It is therefore safe to assume that the majority of urban dwellers are clueless and will believe any news source they trust. I mean, how many years have we been hearing about the “gun show loophole” and the implication that all guns sold at gun shows are sold without a background check?
Come on boys, ‘fess up!
Anyone, including felons and terrorists, can’t go to gun shows and buy guns for cash.
We all know how it works, just stand outside waiting for someone to pull up and take a gun or two out of his trunk and head for the entry door. “Hey buddy what you got, what do you want for it? “
All sales at gun shows do not occur on the books from an FFL dealer. How many times have you been standing at a table with a fellow walks up with a gun and offers it for sale to the dealer? When the dealer says no he’s not interested, how many times have you or some other window shopper said “hey let me see what you got I might be interested” and he ends up buying it?
Sure, they’ll be a bunch of people on the forum here who will claim that they ask for valid state issued photo ID when they buy or sell a gun, we all know that’s BS.
Same for private sales via newspaper ad, bulletin board or Internet.
Zeus knows how many times stolen firearms have been bought and sold unknowingly and how many times felons and terrorist have bought guns for cash from unwitting individuals.
Hey y’all, you got to show photo ID when you vote, why not when you buy a gun?I mean, all you right wingers insist on photo ID for voting, what’s the difference between exercising another civic right, owning a gun?
One could speculate that there are many individuals out there who are the subject of DV peas or felons or opiate addicts who just can’t buy a gun legally and are agitating to prevent UBC so they can continue to walk around armed.
Illegal sales of all sorts of things happen 24/7. How does making it illegaler work in any way to thwart it?
Sorry, can’t sell you that cocaine without a background check.
Gonna have a background check before selling you this little girl I’ve been hauling around the country.
Are we just pretending the black market doesn’t exist? That taboo, illegal and dangerous items and services are not advertised for sale a mouse click away?
UBC’s won’t do anything except hassle legit people. All the spree killers passed their background checks and the black market doesn’t run background checks so what’s the point?
Unless the point is to discourage seeking mental health help, to create a log or registry of more transactions (still not ALL, black market remember?), to appease whining idiots who don’t understand how the world works or for simple political point grabbing?
None of these reasons are worth the expense or time.
Miner, at least you are able to recognize two things that the vast majority of liberals don’t understand.
1, that the rules for gun shows are no different than any other space. Dealer transfers require a background check, private transfers do not.
2, that it is already illegal for a felon to buy a gun regardless of the type of transfer and they are willing to break the law anyway.
They can but they don’t, because gun shows are full of cops and criminals don’t like that.
Nothing about a gun show makes it special, and there is no loophole. FFLs at a gun show must do the same paperwork and checks as at their store. People not operating a firearms business (buying guns with the intent to sell them for a profit) can’t do those checks and aren’t required to do the ATF paperwork. It doesn’t matter if they meet the buyer by being in a large room on a certain day, outside that large room, posting on the internet (if buyer is citizen of same state), posting a classified ad, putting a card on a bulletin board, or talking to someone at a range. Some jurisdictions outlaw private party transfers, and an ordinary citizen must pay an FFL to run the checks and log the transfer. If private citizens are trying to profit from gun sales (such as buying a collection and selling pieces individually) , whether using gun shows or any of the ad methods mentioned, they are violating existing law and can be prosecuted.
Miner49er:
I did not realize that criminals were desirous for long barreled rifles and shotguns. Most private sellers I see at gun shows mostly have these and few handguns that are what criminals really desire.
Not to mention that there is security outside as well as inside the show. While it might theoretically possible for a criminal to purchase a gun at a gun show, the odds of doing so and not getting caught are pretty slim.
” Come on boys, ‘fess up!
Anyone, including felons and terrorists, can’t go to gun shows and buy guns for cash.
We all know how it works, just stand outside waiting for someone to pull up and take a gun or two out of his trunk and head for the entry door. “Hey buddy what you got, what do you want for it? “ ”
Well, I’m assuming you can say this because you’ve been to gun shows and either done it or have seen it done.
I go to gun shows all the time. I’ve only seen someone bring a gun to sell once (not including the vendors, of course). Saw him walking around with a Mosin-Nagant slung over his shoulder. Saw him leave with a Mosin-Nagant slung over his shoulder. Didn’t see anyone approach him. Didn’t see him approach anybody.
So, either he sold it in the parking lot, or he took it back home. I’m guessing he took it home.
Continue to deny the reality of cash transactions in the parking lot, newspaper ads, bulletin boards and online cash sales.
“I did not realize that criminals were desirous for long barreled rifles and shotguns.“
Really? Fascinating.
Laws against exceeding the speed limit are not absolutely effective but we recognize that we need these laws.
UBC for private sales is reasonable and would have a negative impact on the average Joe selling his gun to just anybody with the cash.
That’s OK, Stonewall on everything from bump stocks to UBC’s, appear totally unreasonable to the rest of America and see how that works out for our rights.
POTG need to police themselves and notify LEO and other authorities when they become aware of extremists with firearms. But instead, POTG continue to ratchet up the violent rhetoric, ‘come and take them’! That does not play well in Peoria.
Selling firearms to felons is already illegal. It’s also already illegal for them to even touch firearms. The UBC can’t work without a registration. No, thanks. But we know that gun shows are not where criminals get their guns. This has nothing to do with efforts to lower crime.
As for reasonable “compromise”, we all know where it got us. That slippery slope seems to end with a sheer drop of “Hell yes, we will take your AR15 and your AK47!” Funny how you dirty leftists always find another piece of our constitutionally protected human right that needs to be curtailed after we give you the infringement you asked for the last time. For the children, of course.
At risk of being considered unreasonable, let me say this – Not one inch further! And I want my cake back! Oh, and death to communism and its prequel, socialism!
I think they just cluelessly regurgitate the talking points they are fed by the various anti-gun groups. It requires far less effort, and most of the lefties in the media and otherwise are as intellectually lazy as it is possible to get and still draw a paycheck.
The drive.by media lives by a simple rule: nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average American.
Right on target, Ralph. Long time no see.
I live in PA and sent the Senator an email asking if he knew what the current law actually is. He thinks that if you order a gun online they send directly to your house and that dealers do not run background checks at gun shows. I mentioned that I once purchased a gun at a show from someone who was not an FFL. He wouldn’t sell to me without a dealer friend running the check. I also asked why I heard no discussion about increasing sentences for certain crimes such as felon in possession and “straw man” purchases including the purchaser being charged with whatever crime the recipient commits, those sentences to be consecutive. And demanding that all such crimes be prosecuted with no plea bargaining and no parole for those kinds of violations. If you’re going to screw with our rights and the Constitution you should really pay for it.
If you repeat a lie enough times (especially on the internet) it becomes fact for most people. After hearing it over & over, any question about its accuracy disappears. Few things prove this truth as well as the mythical “gun show loophole”.
I sort of figure it has to be a mix.
Some are lying. They must be. They’ve been doing this too long to not know.
OTOH, Chris Wallace. He goes to cover the GOP convention in Cleveland and after it’s over he admits, on air, that he was shocked that people in Ohio can openly carry a gun.
But then he obviously actually attempted to understand his own surprise. He then says that it’s a “shock” to people like him but that this is because due to his job he’s been in D.C. for 20+ years. He’s just not used to seeing anyone other than cops carrying a firearm and since guns aren’t really his bag, he never really thought about it. He goes on to say that this is a function of where he lives, in a bubble, and that this might be a lesson for all the news folk, and by extension politicians, who live in D.C. and NYC, that those two cities are quite different from many other parts of the country (ya, think?). He came to the conclusion that Ohio is different from D.C. and that this is good.
Mr. Wallace has a point. When you live in a bubble/echo chamber it can be easy to forget what goes on outside your little world. It’s hard to not get caught up in the things you do every day, think that those arguments you see repeatedly are the ones that matter etc. Perspective is easy to lose at that point.
The short answer is that gun-controllers (and progressives in general) are not interested facts. They don’t much care about the social consequences of gun laws for the simple reason that they don’t own guns, think guns are evil, and passionately believe that gun-owners are correspondingly evil. To complicate things even more, gun-control advocates operate in a political realm that is completely symbolic. So long as their values (which are symbolic) are institutionalized in law their interest in the success or failure the laws is not nearly as important to them as is the knowledge that the laws exist and the laws symbolize the legitimacy of their values over the of gun-owners. Simply put, gun-control isn’t really about guns—it’s about symbolism.
If you under the impression that reports are there to report the facts, in this day and age or EVER, you are as clueless as they are. Reporters have a job to do, and the TRUTH has nothing to do with it. They are given an assignment “Get the dirt on [enter what you want here]. three doesn’t need to be any dirt either, they just need to make it up. This creates Controversy their product, it SELLS and the truth doesn’t SELL.
That is the simplicity of it, no more no less.
Newsflash…reporters are given scripts to read to tell the public what to think.
The term “talking-heads” was coined for a reason…. they are seldom anything more than “readers”. If they are photogenic, can read the teleprompter AND keep “eye-contact” with the camera they have a future… as long as they can regurgitate the “Party Line” on demand and don’t get caught “out-of-character”. I would think that after several years of “Good Money” spouting the same crapola almost anyone could brainwash themselves into believing themselves. Self-Delusion is all too common. Almost a National past-time as it were. After all, Al Gore THINKS he invented the internet…. right? Biden THINKS he was part of the Civil Rights movement 10 years AFTER it actually happened…. Pics PROVE he was NOT there. Hillary still THINKS she should be the President, even though most of America KNOWS she should be an inmate, and Obama THINKS he was a great President, when HISTORY shows he was BAD for Business, BAD for Foreign Policy, BAD for our Military, BAD for Health Care, and BAD for American Social Relations across ALL groups, old, young, and every color and ethnicity. Nuff Said>?
“Obama THINKS he was a great President, when HISTORY shows he was BAD for Business,”
Your opinion is… fascinating.
“Under Obama, the S&P 500 grew by 56.4%. The Dow Jones Industrials Average was up 50.6% and the Nasdaq, 92.9%.
The numbers under Trump were 21.4% for the S&P 500, 25.2% for the Dow, and 34.2% for Nasdaq.”
“The first three years of the Obama years is confidence returning to the market and investors emerging out of the bunker mentality of the financial crisis,” said Christopher Mitchell, assistant professor of politics and international relations at Mount Holyoke College.
“In President Trump’s case, his very pro-business attitude unleashed some animal spirits in markets and for business leaders,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com. “But he has also been unpredictable. His decisions on trade have been negative for business sentiment and also for the real economy.”
Tariffs and trade war, anyone?
The left lies on purpose about anything to do with firearms. It was pointed out to the head of the violence policy center that he was incorrectly calling an AR15 an “assault rifle”. He said he knew it wasn’t, but his followers didn’t and he wanted to keep it that way. Years ago, I watched a TV news debate on guns where the anti gun fool said that the number of children that die from guns had doubled every year since 1955. The smart guy on our side pointed out that we would be losing millions of children a year if that were true and called the idiot a liar and he said, “I’m lying for justice.”
So the left lies for their twisted version of ‘justice’.
Well, leftists don’t care about being factually correct, as long as they are morally right. Ask Occasional Cortex.
People still ask me if all my guns are properly registered. They think all guns are in a big database the authorities have on tap. My state doesn’t register guns to the owners, most states don’t either. But the myth prevails that to own a gun is to have it registered as part of the process.
So the same uninformed people hear gun show loophole and think “There go people getting around that registration again”. Same crowd thinks you can buy a machine gun online and have it mailed right to your house with a big bad silencer on the end.
I don’t think any education effort is going to fix this. People trust the news and think journalists are the brightest people in the world so it must all be true.
Hollywood doesn’t help with this either. I can’t count how many movies I saw that included this registration discussion.
I once bought a revolver from a guy who then wanted to go and change the registration of it. It was hard to convince him that there is no such thing in Illinois and that federal register would be illegal.
And last election, as I recall, Manchin was reelected. What’s with voters in West Virginia. The same question could be directed toward Pennsylvania voters, where I reside.
Liberals Lie, Liberal LEFTIST ALWAYS LIE.
I’ve yet to EVER purchase a firearm at a gun show from and “unlicensed dealer,” nor have I ever purchased a firearm at a gun show that did not go through NICS. I don’t know where these “unlicensed dealers” are, but they certainly are not at gun shows.
“Unlicensed dealer” is an oxymoron. Unless you count the shifty guy who sells to gang bangers from the trunk of his car in the alley.
If you want to buy a gun from me, and I don’t know you, you must produce a concealed carry permit so that I know its likely you’re not a felon or criminal.
If they are going to make businesses responsible the list would go on and on like Hammers, Knifes, Chainsaw’s, vehicles of any kind, Alcohol,….and on and on!
It’s most definitely done on purpose. My local “rag” does it almost daily – “high capacity clips”, “military weapons” …. When I/we write letters to the editor correcting the misleading statements we are labeled “right wingers” and/or “extremists”, “gun crowd” ….
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