Gun control advocates use false comparisons of unrelated numbers to argue for civilian disarmament. Here’s a good example, drawn from a recent article about the SHOT Show published in Britain’s far-left newspaper the Guardian. Reporters Rupert Neate and Mae Ryanin — ejected from SHOT after they’d entered without authorization — begin with Sex, guns and ammo: inside the world’s largest gun industry trade fair with off-the-cuff remark from an economics professor . ..
“People are buying guns as part of the American dream of freedom and liberty,” said Brauer, who is based at the Hull College of Business at Augusta University. “And also, the hope and the dream of being able to use guns in self-defence.”
The reporters would have their readers believe that Americans’ gun buying habits indicate a desire to kill. As TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia pointed out underneath our Quote of the Day, the desire to be able to prevent a tragedy does not translate to the desire to participate in a tragedy. People buy fire extinguishers to prevent their house from burning down. That doesn’t mean that they want to put out a fire in their house.
Neat and Ryanin continue their obstinate obfuscation:
People very rarely get to live out that dream, with FBI data showing that gun owners are 78 times more likely to kill themselves than they are to carry out a “justifiable homicide”, which the agency describes as “the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen”.
Studies by criminologists indicate that the FBI Uniform Crime Reports only include about 20 percent of justifiable homicides. Equally, Neat and Ryanin ignore the tens of thousands of defensive gun uses — per year — which don’t result in a perpetrator assuming room temperature.
Neat and Ryanin then compare that select, small slice of justifiable homicides caught by the Uniform Crime Reports to an unrelated number: suicides. The underlying, unstated assumption is that guns cause suicides. Suicides are an individual choice that doesn’t depend on others’ actions; they are not caused by guns. If guns are less available, many effective substitute methods are available to individuals who wish to end their life.
The reporters could have as easily compared the number of fatal accidents involving firearms (about 500 a year) with defensive gun uses, thus making the case for the utility of firearms in preventing crime and for self-defense. Their choice indicates their agenda.
“Framing” a news article to advocate for a political agenda is not journalism. It’s agitprop. The NSSF was right to ban the mainstream media from the SHOT Show floor. They were right to eject these trespassing “reporters,” determined as they were to use the American firearms industry as their whipping boy. The Truth About Guns thanks the NSSF for SHOT all-area access. We did our best to earn our credentials by living up to our name.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Agreed on all points, but I’m not really sure what the headline has to do with the premise of the post. They were right to eject trespassers because they were trespassing; the views held by the trespassers are irrelevant.
If what you really mean is that NSSF was right not to credential Guardian reporters because of their views, then that makes much more sense – and I would agree wholeheartedly.
Your way doesn’t earn enough clicks.
Someone’s gotta pay for his trophy guns and knives!
He’s right I clicked and read because forge headline
Agreed, Chip. If TTAG wants clickbait I guess I’ll have to unlike their page. I HATE false advertising.
How were they able to trespass so easily, but Colion Noir had to lean on industry contacts to get in?
Yeah, amazing how THAT works, isn’t it?
More proof that liberals don’t follow rules they try to set for everyone else.
I blame the academy.
/sarc (poor sense of humor, sorry)
What’s this about Colion Noir having to lean on industry contacts to get in?
Because he wasn’t wearing a hat and so nobody recognized him.
He tried to get in and they basically told him, “it’s not open to the public, you’re not on the list, this is a private event for industry professionals only.” Never mind the fact that short of Wayne, he’s one of the most recognizable faces of the NRA right now. A few hours later, the SHOT folks finally got wind that they’d failed to recognize him and told him to come pick up his credentials at the media room. He was a good sport about it, but it was definitely one of those “do you know who I am?!” moments that never should have happened.
Then, bad on the NRA for not procuring a pass for him.
I’d imagine he was given the impression the NRA had. I’m more willing to attribute the whole thing to a clerical oversight than anything else. He’s really not the kind of guy to troll his own industry.
Didn’t follow much from SHOT so I’m in the dark. Is there a source for this info on Noir?
Not sure why he would be banned or get pus back from attending. If anything, “Mike the gun guy Weisener” (if spelled correctly) should be banned for being an agitator not a supporter.
It was all over his Facebook feed for starters.
Source is right here: https://twitter.com/MrColionNoir/status/689585831699349505
The process for getting media credentials is easy to follow. He’s a smart guy, I don’t know why he wouldn’t have applied.
Oh, he didn’t follow the process in the hopes that he’d create an incident he could write about.
Backup hope, without being identified as “press” he can go trolling for more extreme / less media-savvy folks so he can entrap them into saying something stupid … and create an incident he could write about.
Not getting credentials is step 2 in the plan. Step 1 is determine a resource, like a trade show, that’ll possibly produce fodder for the article you want to write. Step 3 is writing up the incident you provoked. Step 2, therefore…
“Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity,” or however Hanlon’s razor goes. Trolling is not his M.O. I’m more inclined to think the NRA told him he’d have his credentials taken care of, he showed up assuming they were, and clerical oversight didn’t get it taken care of.
They had press passes, they were actually ejected. They’re were stripped of their badges and wouldn’t leave, security had to escort them out.
Kudos for tossing that jackwagon out.
They certainly should have tossed them. Trespass is a thing. Hell, they’d’ve tossed me and I’m completely on the 2A side. Not in the industry, no SHOT for you.
And no they shouldn’t invite them to begin with, just like #BlackLivesMatter folks wouldn’t invite triple K a$$hats to their convention. Because you know they are only there to be Richards.
Amusing how they had to get their “liberal revolutionary” credentials by sneaking into an event. Nobody tell them previous “liberal revolutionaries” carried firearms…
Huh, I thought that SHOT is open to the public.
Media, manufacturer, or FFL dealer. No public at SHOT.
This rant hiding as an “article” has nothing to do with the title. How about some actual reporting? How did they get in? Who caught them? What happened when they were ejected?
here, here.
I too was hoping for more background information to this story.
“Why the NSSF Was Right to Eject Trespassing Guardian Journalists from SHOT Show”
Do you see the word “how” anywhere in the title?
What rant are you referring to, Bob?
Author Dean Weingarten provided links which provided the necessary context to the points he was making about the Guardian ‘reporters’ :
1. who were ejected after breaking the rules, by refusing to be escorted,
2. then wrote a misleading article afterwards, “framing” their “news” with bad information, and
3. citing one goof ball in a leather cowboy hat as representing all gun owners.
As Dean summarized-
“Framing” a news article to advocate for a political agenda is not journalism. It’s agitprop.
READ for comprehension, remember?
This false journalism by Dean and TTAG is no better than what he condemns. He says nothing about why or if their credentials for a media pass were denied. Like it or not, the Guardian (and WaPo and NYT) is a legitimate newspaper and any reporter with an assignment should receive a badge. Once you have a badge, there is never an “escort” at trade shows. And trade show owners never get to edit articles by journalists, no matter what the industry or wether they dislike the article. Appears this was handled badly by NSSF but we’ll never know because TTAG won’t give us the truth about the gun show.
Truth
“any reporter with an assignment should receive a badge.”
Really? Which liberal journalism school taught you that?
Working for a “news” organization (legitimate or not) is not an all-access pass to any event, anywhere. Somebody paid big bucks to rent a huge exhibit hall. They get to call the shots.
“And trade show owners never get to edit articles by journalists, no matter what the industry or wether they dislike the article”
Huh?
So the NSSF seized the Guardian’s reporters’ notes and records right there at the trade show edited them and then had the Guardian publish them? Why do you keep reading events into this article that never happened?
Agree 100%. I’ve noticed an increase in this type of “Article” in TTAG.
What’s with the Brits? Can’t they mind their own business? We got rid of them in the 1780’s, they didn’t get the message. They came back in 1812. Then we had to help them get rid of a European Tyrant and an Asian war machine in the 20th Century. And they still think we need their advice on how to run our country. Ancestral fantasy I guess. They miss the monarchy telling them what to do and figure it’s their duty to carry on in it’s absence. Hey, the sun now and has set on the empire. Using the line from Clint Eastwood’s movie, Heartbreak Ridge, “Don’t go away mad, just go away!”
I was just saying this to the wife early this morning. Why are so many in Europe so concerned about American firearms? We can’t bring them over there and they have their little Gun-free Utopias already, so what are they so afraid of? I can’t remember the last time I saw an article about how crappy we think their countries are. In fact, our media is head over heels in love with Europe. Yet, we see stories from them crapping all over America almost daily.
Perhaps their fascination is really just jealousy?
How soon they forget, huh. If it wern’t for all these icky firearms and standup people who knew how to use them they would be speaking Russian or German now. Maybe next time we should just stay home and let them “work it out” by talking and shuffling papers around. F the EU.
Oh, if only!
And unfortunately, they’re going to pay for that mistake by speaking Arabic in the not too distant future.
Because Europe also has lots of regular, normal folks who would very much like to participate in a little American-style gun culture. So it’s VITAL that their political and media elite demonize American gun culture and non-elite Americans in general, to make sure that their own peasants don’t get any uppity ideas.
Unfortunately for them, the recent influx of rapugees has many Continentals shopping for bang sticks. Even a birding shotgun can do the trick in a pinch, and a few EU states (like Czech) actually allow real armed self-defense.
“Rapugees”. That is now mine.
Feels about right, actually. I’m a Brit who until the handgun ban used to enjoy taking a Glock 21 and a hundred or two rounds of handloads down to the range for an evening of conversation, coffee and half-decent groupings. A kneejerk ban in 1998 did sweet FA for actual crime rates (they were dropping before, they kept dropping after, no change detected), but any moves to loosen it (even our Olympic pistol shooters have to train overseas, FFS) run into the hysterical “Do you want to be like the US where everyone shoots everyone else ten times a day??!?” screams.
It’s not about trying to change US laws (though there are a few diehard lefties who’d love to), it’s about establishing a false dichotomy that any relaxation of the current situation would instantly and inevitably result in US-style firearm death rates.
There’s also some progressive “virtue signalling” there – guns are bad, m’kay, and people who like guns are bad, m’kay, so being vocally offended by firearms and their owners shows you’re a *good* person because you don’t like *bad* things.
(And there’s an element of turnaround – there’s no shortage of US types telling us how we’re all suffering a dozen violent home invasions a day because we don’t have a firearm to hand in every room of every house, facts be damned)
But, key point, it’s the Guardian – “wrong about everything, all the time, since 1821”.
“The reporters would have their readers believe that Americans’ gun buying habits indicate a desire to kill.”
Historically, the primary indication of that hypothesis was American’s buying guns to kill or eject trespassing Brits. Sometime near the end of the 18th Century.
During the 18th Century, people bought guns for a few other targets as well.
The assault media is playing dirty pool. They act with an agenda and do not provide an honest forum with equal access to all sides.
If we treat them fairly and with honor, and they do nothing but lie, obfuscate and mislead we would be stupid to allow them access and facilitate their activities.
Plus, they have no right to attend this private event.
There isn’t even a question here. Throw them out.
Um, considering the cost for admission, which they likely didn’t pay, why were they not arrested for theft?
Trade shows are free for working media.
They’re really lucky talking all that left the bullshit that they didn’t get their asses handed to him on a platter. That just goes to show you How The people of the gun are rational And follow the rules. I can’t stand that newspaper and the reporters from it Didn’t we have a giant war with these people about 200 and some years ago And kick their ass out of our country already once, Do they need to be told again? Screw the UK!
No need to explain-you sneak in a “closed” show you get kicked out. I’m not worrying over Mr. Noir. He’s a grownup and should know what to do…
There’s a throwin out the trash 1776 joke in there somewhere. Somebody help me out here.
Once again, the Guardian does a grave disservice to its readers, and lives up to its reputation for lefty agitprop. Best to simply group it with NYT, WAPO, MSNBC, CNN, and consider anything coming out of there “suspect” until the writer is carefully vetted, by checking their background, professional reputation, and past writings- that gives both a sense of tone, and dedication to traditional j-school ethics to simply report the facts.
Eugene Volokh and crew,
and Jennifer Rubin at WAPO are useful and trusted journolists.
That’s not really fair to the WaPo and CNN – they are just soft-left Dem schills. The Guardian is much worse – they make Sanders look like Ted Cruz.
To Deans point about clever writing masquerading as news, that via framing and selective quotes to biased sources, becomes effectively “agitprop” – see this article at WAPO about the idjit with AD in movie theater-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/26/man-who-feared-mass-shootings-brings-gun-to-movie-theater-accidentally-shoots-woman/
What we careful news readers CAN do, is point out the facts, in comments- and hope that among the other readers there are some who are independent thinkers looking for facts, who can think for themselves.
Based on Pew Research (trust in the news media falling off the cliff, along with subscriptions, ad revenues and stock prices doing same) and
the general tone of gun news, (more and more reasonable people chiming in for 2A, as represented by polls showing rising support for gun rights) and
the obvious desperation on the Left to spin the news is not working.
The RealityCheck is the FBI background check stats, and NSSF proof of dramatic rise in gun purchases across the board- young, old, women especially-
Bottomline- it shows that Americans can and do think for themselves, and in the exception of urban cores and fashionable salons, very few rely upon “The Elite Who Know Whats Best for the Little People on the Progressive Plantation” (Bloomturd, Soros, Gates, and the various lefty rich who pander to Obama, etc),
and their lapdogs- the “Chattering Class” in DC and NY, to tell them how and what to do.
And judging by the trend in WAPO comments, which can be entertaining all by themselves as the moonbats flap in hysterical frenzy from time to time…
more and more everyday citizens who believe in basic civil rights, including the 2A, are speaking truth to the progtard “power”.
Nothing infuriates the Left than to be called out on the facts. A bit of humor works too.
Its almost not fair, given how easy it is to pop their self-inflated bubble of moral superiority, but someone has to do the work if we are going to preserve newspapers and restore them to their responsibility as the Fourth Estate as a source of objective information, and balance of citizen power against a tyrannical State,
as opposed to the left wing propaganda that it has morphed into, too often.
Guardian writers at the SHOT show? That’s the functional equivalent of Klansmen at a meeting of the Urban League.
Well, this is a good step. Every time they spin, twist, or flat-out lie, make the agitprop the story. If they insist on having nor credibility so forcefully, it’s only kind of us to help promote that.
“Ban main stream media from the show floor” that doesnt really sound like such a good idea, freedom of speech and all that. Who gets to decide who is main stream media and who is not? It’s the bat and ball thing. I guess it’s their bat and their ball. They can pick them up and leave the play ground when ever they want to. The companies that rent the booths pay for the show and I would imagine a/the promoter (NSSF?) makes some money from the booth rentals. I know technically the show is not open to the public but I know also that all I had to do was ask any number of LGS’s and a local industry mfr and I could have gotten credentials. What is the NSSF afraid of?
““Ban main stream media from the show floor” that doesnt really sound like such a good idea, freedom of speech and all that.”
You obviously have no idea what freedom of speech is, or freedom of the press, for that matter.
A press pass to a closed and/or paid event is a privilege. Organizers of such events grant media passes, at their own discretion, because they see a potential benefit from the free publicity.
I agree. I understand these “journalists ” weren’t there to offer sincere coverage of the event, but Anti gun agitprop is easy to mock and tear apart. throwing out the journalists makes it look like Their was something to hide.
Calling them journalists is an insult to journalism. They’re propagandists and therefore have no place there. When real journalists show up by all means let them in.
People buy fire extinguishers to prevent their house from burning down.
I know I try out my fire extinguishers when I burn down my houses.
See, I hope to use my fire extinguishers.
How about you?
Last I heard the SHOT show was not open to the general public anyway.
I think the Gun Media is invited with a pass.
Did not Foghorn “harass” an exhibitor last year (Remngton) – did they pull his credential? If reporters cannot ask exhibitors questions about a lousy product, how will we get the truth about guns?
Ya know, this a little off topic but I’ve noticed that some of the folks in here writing inflammatory replies to these stories have similar vocabularies and writing styles to some that respond to them.
Bi polar? Multi user names???
It’s like watching marty Feldman circulating the crowd when Dr Frankenstein addreses the unruly mob. Calling out remarks to whip the crowd into a frenzy. Hhhhmmmmmmmmmm?
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