the-new-york-times1

There’s a common tactic among the gun control crowd as to how they handle their social media. They either completely disable all comments on the content they create (like YouTube videos) or they heavily censor the comments, only allowing those that agree with their agenda (like on Facebook). It’s the mother of all contradictions — they constantly claim to want to have a “conversation” about guns, but then stifle all pro-gun arguments to keep their “guns are evil” echo chamber as sterile as possible. It seems they are so concerned that their followers might actually think for themselves and (gasp!) come to a different conclusion that they spend an inordinate amount of time policing their websites and squashing any possible dissent from the civilian disarmament party line. The New York Times is, naturally, following suit, publishing only the positive Letters to the Editor they’ve received about their front page call to confiscate firearms from Americans . . .

You can read the selected letters here if you want, but you probably already know what they say. “You don’t go far enough.” “You’re so brave.” It’s a self-congratulatory echo chamber in which The Times, speaking the truth no one else dares to utter, the plucky hero in the face of the fearsome firearms cabal. Any dissent is badthink, bordering on thoughtcrime and is therefore rejected. Toe the party line or be silenced. There’s no room for criticism or debate in the place that holds all the news that’s fit to print.

That mentality, more than anything, is terrorizing.

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41 COMMENTS

  1. Does everyone understand that Obama has been pushing the gun control meme to divert the conversation from his foreign policy failures? I understand that this is a gun blog but we too should acknowledge this.

    • Does everyone understand that Obama has been pushing the gun control meme to divert the conversation from his foreign policy failures?

      Fixed.

      He has been a complete failure in just about every one of his stated goals. He is, however, a freaking rock star when it comes to accomplishing his unstated goals…

      • I would have to say his Healthcare debacle alone has cost the lives and livelihoods of far more Americans than terrorists ever will. With the degradation of the healthcare provided, to undisclosed lockouts and refusals to treat, skyrocketing premiums, and endless loops of bureaucracy for treatment and insurance, the term “healthcare” strikes fear into the hearts of Americans all across the land. According to Hillary it’s working, though, so maybe millions of people are wrong.

      • Obama told us that he wanted to “fundamentally change America”, and we received a hint of what he meant when we learned about the communists and anti-American radicals that he had been mentored by. Obama wants to dismantle America, and rebuild it as a Progressive, Communist state. He has been very successful at moving America in that direction, and if we allow Hillary Clinton to be our next President, she will finish the transformation completely.

        Obama has NOT been a failure. He has been very successful at doing what he wants to do.

  3. Either they published only positively responses or no one pro gun even bothered to write their *paper* . I didn’t.

  4. Here in NJ the Star Ledger does the exact same thing at NJ.com.

    Liberal propaganda is the same pretty much everywhere.

    • Ironically, the reason it didn’t burn down is because the staff personally held off the mob with Gatling guns!

    • Is that why it says that (“toe the line”) in the article now? I was going to thank Nick for using it correctly…

  9. The farther they diverge from reality, and the more they refuse to recognize reality, the harder the fall when it becomes unavoidable.

    I also take their willful blinders as an indication of how desperate they and the gun control lobby in general have become. Their best tactic yet is yammering for “gun safety” instead of “gun control”, and when you have to rebrand your product to hide your intent, you are in pretty sad shape.

  10. Nick,

    The NYT does the very same with reader comments on its gun-related stories. I’ve been excluded from commenting on articles in the “beacon of free press” for over a year now. It’s the equivalent of a four-year old sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting “nah nah nah!” Pathetic!

    Keep the faith and keep up the good work.

  11. FWIW, I did find some pro-gun stuff (including a Times pick!) by sorting comments by most recent. Perhaps most of these will end up being pruned. Certainly, the stuff that’s highlighted is a uniform portfolio of bias-confirming attaboys.

    Anyway, here’s the one Times pick that caught my attention:

    “In the past American gun owners had better firearms than the US Army.
    When the army had smooth bore muskets the civilians had super accurate rifles.
    When the army had muzzle loading rifles, the civilians had breech loading cartridge rifles.
    When the Army had single shot breech loading cartridge rifles, civilians had rapid firing lever action rifles, slide rifles, bolt action rifles.

    When the army had bolt action rifles the civilians were already using semi-auto and experimenting with full auto rifles.
    When the Army adopted a semi-auto rifle civilians had already been using them for forty years.
    Only when the army adopted the M-14, a semi and full auto rifle did the civilians fall behind.
    So, civilians have been using semi auto rifles for one hundred and twenty years and NOW they are a problem?” — Rodrigo

    • “When the army had smooth bore muskets the civilians had super accurate rifles.”

      To be fair the early rifles were very slow to load, and the armies of the day felt that rapid fire outweighed long-range accuracy (given the quality of the recruits that made up most European armies at the time, there’s quite a bit of justification for that). The Brits later copied the Americans and units of skirmishers using rifles were fielded to good effect against Napoleon.

  13. TIme to resurrect the city-state concept. Let ’em secede from the Union, or better yet, kick ’em out. NY, LA, Chiraq, DC; form a coalition city-state that reflects the socialist tendencies they’re trying to push on the rest of the country. That way there’s no hiding the fact they despise the Constitution.

    • Absolute agreement here. Let them secede. Encourage a plebiscite for these and similar cities and selected suburbs of same (Fairfax County, VA, much of Maryland, etc.) Eventually would run from Boston through Fairfax County, VA and along the Pacific coast from Seattle to LA. A few stragglers like Chicago would have to be islands, or else could have their politics turned over to the larger state governments for a massive house cleaning. Let the UN manage the plebiscite. Encourage the dead to vote multiple times. This new CSA (couldn’t resist — Coastal Statelets of America) would have to develop a viable economy, figure out where to get its water, electricity, and natural gas from, and figure out how to deal with the hordes of welfare recipients who would then demand even higher tax burdens from what would be the immediately departing middle class and the few rich guys like Bloomberg left. I have thought about this a lot, lately. The stock, bond, and commodity markets and banks would likely move to Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, and similar places where there is already a robust financial sector; IT companies could move to Austin, Raleigh, and similar places where there is already a robust IT sector; Boeing could relocate to its Kansas location. They could maintain their ports, although I have strong feeling that other cities like Newport News and Charleston would be happy to take over the port functions. There is really nothing else of economic value to strip out of these cities. Therefore they really could save by not needing a defense budget, although the policing budget would skyrocket. Maybe they could become Singapore. But first they would have to clean up their educational systems, drug problems, and crime problems. Good luck.

  16. Not all of the letters were so supportive. I take the liberty of posting one here which calls out the Times on the simple fact that their proposal wouldn’t work as intended even if enacted.

    It’s neither pro- nor anti-gun; but it does cut closer to the heart of the issues. It raises other issues, such as privacy, but in my mind this is a good direction for the debate to move in.

    To the Editor:

    Given that our fundamental constitutional freedoms include the right to bear arms, the available solutions proposed in your editorial, like more regulation and limitations on guns, even if enacted, would generally not stop motivated religious/political terrorists and mentally disturbed people who would potentially use bombs, knives, vehicles and rocks as weapons.

    Real solutions that work, in democratic societies under siege, like Israel, are the more widespread hardening of soft targets, preventive police work, aggressive intelligence and deterrence, and a national culture that readily supports such intrusive measures for the sake of societal security.

    RON WEISS

    St. James, N.Y.

  17. Just another form of media that’s dying. I’d imagine that a few of the TTAG staffers have already sent counterpoints.

  18. The Seattle Times is going out of its way to snag every “guns are bad” story it can to post on its digital homepage. The one that ran, though, with a headline along the lines of “Strict California Gun Laws Did Not Prevent Shooting” was yanked I thought pretty quickly.

  19. Liberals love to control the conversation to make is seem like they are right. After they block out any dissenting voices they say “look, no one disagrees with us” or “the vast majority agree with our stance”. They’re typically of the low-information variety on all topics so whoever tells them something must be right. Recently I came across something on Facebook that made my blood boil: http://41.media.tumblr.com/6f6e318d11be12474668df26aad02c8a/tumblr_nyzrc7SMPQ1tiq657o1_1280.jpg

    I couldn’t believe what I was reading, but considering this new age, where words don’t have to mean what they have meant forever, it started to make sense. “Rights” to them are things they *should* have, the actual definition of “rights” doesn’t matter to them.

  20. The NY Times should be ignored. They published the address of Mr. Joshua, a Ferguson, MO. grand jury witness, and got him executed. They were not held liable for that, so in essence, they got away with murder. But people should realize that most newspapers heavily censor what is printed. They fired all the good reporters and replaced them with hacks who are nothing but liberal sycophants.

  22. I hope someone has started “Letters the NYT wont publish.”

    Here would do, but facebook would be better.

  23. The media in general operates like a sarcastic joke. You only get the punchline if you know the truth of the matter, otherwise you might think it’s a fact.

  26. A) You’re surprised? And…B) How do you know this is rigged? This is NYC. The embodiment of r-select leftyville. Maybe the majority there really does think total gun control is a great thing, and the rest of us will just have to learn to live with the guilt that will come from laughing hysterically when they die begging for their lives in mass shootings instead of at least TRYING to fight back.

  27. No one who is looking for straight news coverage reads this fishwrapper/birdcage liner. It’s a waste of time and why get irritated if you don’t need to.

  28. I commented politely and factually on their editorial. While many pro gun comments were published, mine were not. I assume I was not the only one.

  30. The Australian online media is trying to “maintain the rage” but all they are really doing is copy-and-paste previous articles with occasional domestic violence pages to portray gun owners as domestic abusers and potential murderers.

    Coverage of San Bernardino went quiet when the ethnicity, religion, and motivation of the perpetrators was revealed.

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