Navy SEAL insignia (courtesy military-insignia.us)

We recently highlighted two stories claiming that concealed carry is a dangerous delusion: thenation.com‘s Tactical Experts Destroy the NRA’s Heroic Gunslinger Fantasy and rawstory.com‘s Combat veterans shoot down NRA ‘fantasy world’ of ‘good guys with guns’. Both stories rely on the opinion of one Stephen Benson, who claimed to be a Navy SEAL. Nope. Over on Facebook, a man named Don Shipley published a post revealing that Mr. Benson is guilty of stolen valor . . .

If the name you provided is spelled correctly, I do NOT find a listing in the SEAL Database (SEAL Teams, Underwater Demolition Teams and predecessor units from 1943 to the Present Day) for anyone named STEPHEN BENSON. I have also examined possible alternate spellings, and names with similar pronunciations without finding any that appear to be applicable.

rawstory.com didn’t withdraw the article. They edited out Benson’s comments – which formed the basis of the entire piece – and published this semi-retraction:

[Editor’s note: A prior version of this story identified Stephen Benson as a former Navy Seal with opinions about the current state of gun violence in America. We are currently re-researching this aspect of the story and have, for the time being, removed his comments.]

thenation.com did the exact same thing:

EDITOR’S NOTE: The original story identified a source as a combat veteran and former Navy SEAL. A records search has since revealed that he significantly exaggerated his military record. His comments have been removed from the article, and the headline has been changed. We apologize to our readers.

Both news orgs should have known better; they only heard what they wanted to hear. They should remove the posts and offer a full apology to their readers. Shame on all of them. [h/t RM]

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96 COMMENTS

    • That is the right one depending on the year you are talking about. It’s just silver. Originally officers wore gold tridents and enlisted silver. That of course was 30 years ago when it was changed to all gold. Anyway it’s the right trident regardless.

    • Come on folks… He was NOT talking about the correct color/finish of the trident…

      He was speaking to DIFFERENT tridents altogether…

      Some folks call the one this cat carries as a “pitchfork”… but it is more accurately termed a trident.

  3. Sadly, there is no such thing as responsible, professional journalism anymore. So-called “journalists” as nothing more than irresponsible Liberals who will do and say anything to further their own personal agendas. They do not fact check unless they disagree with the facts, and their “stories” are not true reporting (Who, What, When, Where, How) they are nothing more than editorial pieces.

    • “Liberals who will do and say anything to further their own personal agendas”

      More like personal paychecks. Today’s young adults wouldn’t know an “agenda” nor how to further it.

      • You’re painting young adults with a pretty broad stroke there. Some of us actually are veterans. Seems like a lot of the present day, ill formed youth are of the university variety.

        • I wouldn’t call a veteran a “young adult.” I just call them adults, regardless of how old or young they may be.

        • Because nothing screams “intelligent ammosexual” quite like a vet that hasn’t got the smarts to get through college.

      • Hey mk and ralf i can spel it. I kno it becuz when I go 2 the bar with my yung adult freinds the barmade sez “wut u drinken” I sez “a gin, duh” so I remimber the speling perfict. Aginduh. Plus im a naterul speler. An yung adult hav Google 2

    • You are correct Mikial. This is a propaganda piece. An example of why facts, truth and discussion are a waste of time with many of the anti’s. Even the mainstream media is starting to recognize some of these articles and statements as propaganda yet still support confiscating guns. I think the most effective pro-gun fact is that USOC ruled that police are not responsible to protect the lives of individual citizens (Castle Rock v. Gonzales). This fact pales emotional arguments and opinion pieces. Anti’s will do about anything to avoid discussing this fact. Support the NRA and 2A Foundation.

  4. What? Anti gun lefties lied about something to advance their agenda? Nah, couldn’t be, they would never do that!

    I always start out assuming that any anti gun story is either based on a complete lie or full of hysterical raving from people who are mentally deficient. No point in engaging in debate with either type.

  5. I still remember that time some “journalist” got tricked into writing about Elliot “supreme gentleman” Rodger’s addiction to the dangerous drug Creatine. Seems like these people will believe anything as long as it’ll make a half decent story.

  6. Don Shipley will get you, I can’t belive idiots still try to pass themselves off as Seals with people like him actively searching. I love watching him bust imposters!

    • That’s what I don’t get either. Of all the groups to impersonate, why would any person want to incur the wrath of one or more SEALs? There aren’t that many SEALs, they have a tight community, they’re very intelligent and they’re going to spot anyone who is a phony with speed and ease.

      SEAL impostors might as well put a “I want my ass kicked!” sign on their backs.

  7. Well, since it is now chic to be a combat military impersonator, I am having a tough time imagining what my military record should be. I did have friends who were in the 101 Airborne and Cavalry units did fight in the A Shau, Ia Drang, and Parrot’s Beak in Vietnam.
    I did have some friends who were Marines in Quang Tri Province.
    My Dad was in the bogus 25th Armored Division and did see combat in Luzon. I had a couple of Uncles who were combat pilots in the USAAF. Grandpa was in Artillery in WWI, but sometimes did fight in the trenches as a forward observer.
    Maybe I could claim I was a Vietnam Vet. People do mistake me for one. I really did not miss the Vietnam war by very much and did graduate when Frequent Wind happened.

  9. That’s what these news and information agencies get for publishing every blow-hard ranting from everyone who sucks air to every worthless opinions written by their agenda choked staff.

  10. Its something like 1 in 5 people that tell you theyre vets are actually telling you the truth, the other 4 are lying. Its a low risk lie and hordes of people are psychologically predisposed to tell you about their fantasy lives if they feel like they can get away with it.

    • My fantasy life supreme overlord of the world and everyone who denies the right to self defense enters the thunderdome. Collect a years taxes and retired.

      Otherwise work IT and be a active in the defense of the 2A and by proxy all other rights protected by the constitution

    • Nice thing about working in the DOD is that you have to produce a 214 to prove your a vet when hired.

    • hordes of people are psychologically predisposed to tell you about their fantasy lives.
      I think I will be a Jedi Knight and use the Farce.

      • Back in reality world, I became a Foundry, Industrial, Tooling, and Quality Engineer. I did try to become an Officer in the military, but the recruiters were not wowed with my eyesight.

    • Veteran status is on my Texas driver’s license. I had to bring in my DD 214 to them before they would add it.

    • Back when the nation was sane and people didn’t mouth mindless phrases like “thank you for your service” and give freebies to people because they worked for the government, nobody pretended to be vets.

      Blame this phenomenon on the Pentagon PR machine and the hordes of gullible idiots who believed their lies.

      • I know right? Too bad we just can’t go back to the good old days when strangers had the balls to shout “baby killer” and had no problem with spitting on servicemembers in uniform.

        • You say that like it’s wrong for people to criticize the government for launching unjust wars, and the people who willfully murder for politicians in said unjust wars.

          Sieg heil, American style. 🙂

        • trannysoreass. Got it wrong again. Still. Always. Dumb troll animal.

          At least come up with something originol.

          Me. “Sure is nice weather today.”

          Tranny. “Yada, blather, dumb, yada, murderer, whoop, whoop, whoop.”

          You’re becoming a boring troll. Bad troll.

          I wonder if you’ll use “irony” at least once in your reply to this comment.

        • But you responded to me first, friend.

          It is rather amusing that you see glorification and unquestioning praise of government killers as a sign of the times. Hermann Goring would agree with you:

          “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

        • Wrong yet again, tranny. I responded to yellow devil. And you seem to know a lot of qoutes from Hitler’s inner circle. Real admiror of the “good old days” aren’t you.

          Well, since I don’t want to get covered in troll I’ll say goodbye now.

        • It’s hardly my fault that you revel in your ignorance of history, the purpose of studying the past being key for a better understanding of the present.

          Naturally a dumb military animal like yourself is unaware of the historical parallels between this nations’s recent trend of military worship with past militaristic nationalism.

          Try reading a book sometime, it’s better than reminiscing about your Vietnam murder spree.

        • *SIGH* Tranny. Way to prove your nazi roots. “dumb military animal”. Page right out of hitlers playbook. Demonise your enemy so it’s easier to kill them. And you really want to kill people. Have you already got a school or mall or theater picked out?

          I do read. Did it long before I saw a computer. Makes spotting the real you so much easier.

          Dark Triad of Personalities. Sociopathic Sadist. Is that a pair of polished jack boots in your closet?

  11. Chief Shipley’s channel is one of my favorites on YT, I enjoy listening to him thoroughly embarrass & destroy fake SEALs. Now if only there was someone like him doing the same with fake Rangers/Delta/Green Berets…..

    • When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Green Beret. We all thought they were cool. You had The Ballad of the Green Berets song and the movie Green Berets.

    • Apparently even women can pass the ranger school, so I doubt there is much incentive to lie about that anymore.

      • But they still can’t pass Marine Infantry Officer school–so I guess your run-of-the-mill Marine platoon leader is tougher than your present-day Army Ranger? My former Army lieutenant son wasn’t too impressed with that conclusion when I offered it to him, but I think it’s kind of inescapable.

      • Ranger School is one thing, but Women are still not allowed in the Ranger Units. I also believe to get into there, you have to go through additional assessments to be accepted (I forgot what it’s called, but it’s a little bit different for enlisted and officers).

        Unfortunately, the Army is much more political then the Marines, so no surprise that women were pushed through Ranger School in such a fashion to guarantee at least one would pass. I doubt this will be duplicated in the Green Berets however, the teams have to be much more integrated and peer reviews are constantly in place during the assessment and training phases.

        • > I doubt this will be duplicated in the Green Berets however

          They’ll follow orders from their political masters to integrate women just like all the other dumb military animals.

  13. I had the extreme pleasure of busting a guy for claiming he was a former SeAL.
    He didn’t think we would actually get a copy of his DD-214.

  14. A guy with no real extensive gun handling training, and no real history of active violence, decides to pick up a gun, goes into a GFZ and becomes an unstoppable killing machine.

    Another guy decides to carry a gun, with no real extensive gun handling training and without an extensive violent history, to protect against said mass murderer, and they are just a delusional, Dildo compensating, wanna be Rambo that will be completely ineffectual and just make the situation “worse”.

    Just trying to comprehend how someone can hold two such thoughts in the same brain at the same time makes my head hurt.

    • You’ll also hear them say things like:

      “What do you need that military-style assault weapon for?? Nobody should own these death machines; they might band together and overthrow the government!”

      … But they’ll also say:

      “If you think your little AR-15 is going to protect you against the police and National Guard, you’re insane! You don’t stand a chance against government forces with that little pea shooter!”

    • That’s a really good point. Also note how they argue that ordinary citizens are unable to hit the target in such situations, yet then they claim that “No one needs more than ten rounds.” They also make the bogus claim about defensive gun uses only involving when a criminal is shot.

    • The armed citizen does make a difference. They draw fire away from others and most if not all recent spree killers tend to commit suicide as soon as they are meet with armed resistance. Could the concealed carrying citizen not have enough time to act? Absolutely! Then again they might have time to react…..I think most people who are in a situation where a nut job is shooting and killing people from room to room would rather have someone carrying a concealed gun then not. I can’t see how it would make the situation worse…..

    • Just trying to comprehend how someone can hold two such thoughts in the same brain at the same time makes my head hurt.

      Oh yeah? Well then, try to work through this puzzler:

      A crazy white scvmbag shoots nine black people in a church and the left goes nuts, blaming a whole region of the country, a race, a flag, a war and history.

      A crazy black scvmbag shoots nine white people in a school and the left goes nuts, blaming the NRA.

  17. These two left wing news sites did the samething Dan Rather did. There’re hatred blinded them to the facts about the people they were writing about.

  19. A lot of that going around…….I get Semper fi from people when I’m wearing my Marines bbcap……I make a point of asking a few friendly questions as to see if we may have crossed paths in Nam or somewhere……The Corps is not very large about the same size as the Coast Guard……amazing when you get into it liars just can’t hold up their end…….I may be an old Jarhead but I have no problem telling them to fuck off…..they scurry away.
    You want the title earn it. If we had that many guys in the service in Nam we would have been standing on each other.

    • I say “Semper Fi” to anyone I see wearing the EGA, even though I was Air Force [but my dad was an old Gyrene: 3rdMD 🙂 ].

  20. I would expect nothing less from liberal left media outlets! Facts and true journalistic integrity are not their strong suit. They prefer emotions and bias reporting.

  21. Just went to The Nation story via the link, didn’t see that “Editor’s Note”. I did see another one, tho–apparently they also originally wrote that the Oregon shooter was stopped when he was tackled by bystanders. If antis didn’t make things up, apparently they wouldn’t have anything to say.

  24. “Re-researching?” Uh…..when did they research? This sounds like a basic fact to check up front. I don’t know about any SEAL database, but if I were a professional journalist, I would.

  25. Why doesn’t anybody ever claim to be a clerk in some rear echelon HQ? I mean who is going to check that out.

  27. What a whore.

    On another note, I’ve been getting the “you are posting too fast” things a lot lately. I’m 67; I assure you I can’t do ANYTHING “too fast”.

  30. With all the “wannabes” claiming to be Seals I guess it now is a division-size organization. Wait till these clowns start swelling the ranks of Delta Force.

  33. Well at least this Fellow made himself Knife fodder for the Extremist wanting too meet Allah, I hope this Wanta bee has the means necessary to defend home and hearth!
    Article also shows Media types or so called News reporter’s too be incompetent, self serving Liars and propagandists! Treasonous and Seditious would be better words!
    People in the now generation are not smart enough in being able to discern truth from fiction as their requirement for technology makes them dependent on some else s doing their thinking for them, and letting them think it was their own brilliant Idea, Basically Polly want a cracker!

  34. Soulless, lying cheaters attracting soulless, lying cheaters. What a shock that people whose sole goal in life is to deprive others of their basic rights would resort to lying and fraud.

  35. Reading through the articles, it was pretty easy to see that they were trying to use a handful of military people to claim that the *entire* military (or at least the top elite) was obviously of the same opinion. I would assume that statistics would say the opposite. Does anyone know of any statistics on military opinions on concealed carry?

  36. You would think by now that anyone who pretends to be a member of any elite SpecOps unit should realize they are going to be found out. It is not an “if” but a “when”.

    These groups are very small and close-knit. If the discovery isn’t by formal membership lists, it can be by a “What is the color of the boat house roof at Hereford?” question.

    (The reference is from the movie Ronin, and Hereford is the home of the British SAS.)

    With what the members go through to join and remain active, you can see why they don’t like pretenders. Especially when the pretenders use their alleged membership for either career progression for personal grandstanding.

    • >Especially when the pretenders use their alleged membership for either career progression for personal grandstanding.

      Implying that isn’t the norm.

      See: Chris Kyle.

  37. I hope Don and Dianne make a visit to this POS. Don has his own website and he now travels to these phonies homes and workplaces to out them as the pieces of shit they are. On the other hand I am not surprised in the least that the liberal left would lie, because that’s what they do.

  39. “Re-researching”? That would imply that they did some initial research, which clearly they didn’t.

  40. So is “significantly exaggerated” the new euphemism for “flat-out lied”?

    I guess Hillary “significantly exaggerated” her sniper story….

  41. Fact: Every former and current member of an US elite military unit is a prized target for every extremist on this planet.

    Fact: If a person publicly identifies themselves as a former or current member of an US elite military unit, they better know how to defend themselves and be armed.

    Fact: Anyone who publicly identifies themselves as a former or current member of an US elite military unit, and they are willingly unarmed, they are suicidal.

    Fact: Anyone who fraudulently identifies themselves as a former or current member of an US elite military unit is insane.

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