The Gun Control Song Remains the Same

 

NRA's SICK JIHADJournalists talking about guns is like listening to drunk people sing karaoke. Most reporters believe that when they talk guns, they’re being entertaining, passionate, and presenting a moving performance that will bring their audience to tears. The people in their group at the bar are just as drunk as they are, so they’re laughing and clapping along as they sing. But everyone else in the place just hears a loud, rambling, incoherent, cringe-worthy performance that doesn’t make any sense at all.

Three examples:

1. Gresh Kuntzman (my computer auto-corrected his first name to “Greasy,” which I find amusing)  of the New York Daily News claimed that firing an AR-15 gave him “temporary PTSD.”

The recoil bruised my shoulder, which can happen if you don’t know what you’re doing. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary form of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.

I own an AR-15 (or two…), and my 10-year-old son loves to shoot them because of their light weight and mild recoil compared to other rifles. Mr. Kuntzman’s inability to deal with even the gentle effects of the AR-15 has spawned a battalion of mockers who gave him the full measure of derision he so richly deserves.

2. Slate’s Mark David Stern (who cautioned Democrats not to go too far when limiting civil rights in the name of gun control) threw caution to the wind, attempting to create a direct link between the manufacturer of the rifle used in Orlando and the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

So Sig had to sit out the war, unable to sell weapons to Nazis despite its best efforts.

Sauer, Sig Sauer’s other parent, suffered no such misfortune. A German company based in the Rhine, Sauer did robust business with the Third Reich, supplying nearly 295,000 Sauer 38H guns to equip the military, police, and Nazi party officials.

If we want to talk about technology that has its roots in Nazi Germany, let us begin with the car so beloved by ’60s counter-culture, the Volkswagen Beetle, which started out as Hitler’s “People’s Car” for the socialist masses.

I look forward to Mr. Stern’s future articles on how Mitsubishi cars were inspired by the “Zero” fighter or how the technology behind ThyssenKrupp’s elevators was originally used to make artillery pieces for the Western Front. OK, I’m not really looking forward to that, but seeing how snark is the “in thing” these days, I thought I’d add that in.

3. Moving on from the ridiculous to the even-more ridiculous, sportscaster Jason La Canfora has announced that from now on, he is living in his own little world and the real meaning and definition of words will have no effect on how he uses them.

This doesn’t surprise me much, as it’s a continuation of the misuse of words like “tolerance” and “diversity” by liberals. You would think that a sportscaster, of all people, would know that when you can’t talk intelligently about the game, we don’t take your opinions seriously.

Fortunately for us, there is a glimmer of hope in the bleak darkness of ignorance when it comes to journalists and guns. The Guardian, of all places, has been doing a great job of neutral, clear-sighted reporting of the issues around firearms, and I commend them on their efforts. They took the time to listen to what we gun owners believe (Disclaimer: I know some of the people interviewed in that report.), and The Guardian had the courage to question Democrat orthodoxy about what works in reducing violence in American life and what doesn’t. If the goal of the Democrats is to reduce deaths in this country, they’ll take the suggestions raised by The Guardian to heart. However, if their goal is to make cheap political points to fire up their base and deliver the vote, they’ll ignore those suggestions.

I know which way I’m betting.

Maybe one day we’ll have a journalistic class who understands the issues they feel qualified to write about, but today is not that day. For now, we have to put up with their off-key screeching and wildly inappropriate words, and hope someone who knows what they’re doing will take the microphone away from them.

Published in Culture, Domestic Policy, Entertainment, General, Guns, Politics
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There are 14 comments.

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  1. Funeral Guy Inactive
    Funeral Guy
    @FuneralGuy

    Leftists and their lockstep marching on gun control is a prime example of “virtue signaling” (or its former name “moral preening”).  During the Clinton gun ban I was trying to correct a friend on a couple of her statements that were just plain wrong.  She suddenly started screaming at me, “I hate guns!!  I don’t want to know anything about guns!”  It was one of the first lessons I learned about arguing with Leftists.  Just walk away and don’t waste your time.

    • #1
  2. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    Coverage of gun control vs. gun rights played a big part in my conversion from political independent to staunch conservative.  I was a resident of South Carolina during its debates over concealed carry and “shall issue” permits.  I even attended committee hearings at the state capitol.

    The relevant part here is that every local newpaper and TV news outfit simply wouldn’t report honestly on the topic, and my own research showed that their reports were outrageous lies.  I remember downloading and reading a PDF of John Lott’s 1994 peer reviewed research on violent crime by county versus concealed carry permit holders by county.  And thinking to myself “How can this not be in the news headlines?”  Which prompted a more pointed personal review of journalist’s standards for facts on a variety of topics.  I canceled home delivery of the Myrtle Beach’s “The Sun News” that year.  Haven’t trusted newspapers or journalists in general since.

    • #2
  3. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    This guy makes an attempt at honest talk about guns. He’s wrong at every turn morally, but at least he gets the material facts right.

    • #3
  4. Funeral Guy Inactive
    Funeral Guy
    @FuneralGuy

    How can this guy say he doesn’t believe in the Second Amendment?  It’s written down in the Bill of Rights.  You can say you hate the Second Amendment, or that you wish it could be repealed, or that it doesn’t mean what you think it means.  (Untenable as this position is.)  But he doesn’t believe in it?  It would be like me saying I don’t believe in my car.

    • #4
  5. DocJay Inactive
    DocJay
    @DocJay

    Funeral Guy:How can this guy say he doesn’t believe in the Second Amendment? It’s written down in the Bill of Rights. You can say you hate the Second Amendment, or that you wish it could be repealed, or that it doesn’t mean what you think it means. (Untenable as this position is.) But he doesn’t believe in it? It would be like me saying I don’t believe in my car.

    He may not believe in guns but they believe in him.

    • #5
  6. Quietpi Member
    Quietpi
    @Quietpi

    Very odd article.  He makes many valid points.  But then virtually every argument he uses to support his view on gun control is factually wrong.

    • #6
  7. David Carroll Thatcher
    David Carroll
    @DavidCarroll

    I think the “You Cannot Regulate Guns Unless You Know How To Use One” article is really by a pro gun guy using subversion.  If more folks would learn about guns and go the range, they would begin to understand the sport, the enjoyment, and even the fascination.  The more one knows about them, the more one develops a personal relationship with them, the less scary they become.

    • #7
  8. The Scarecrow Thatcher
    The Scarecrow
    @TheScarecrow

    Andrew Klavan made a great point that we had really get a handle on this out-of-control gun thing before some poor muslim terrorist gets shot by one.

    • #8
  9. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    In the end guns will be regulated to only the government, the elite and their private “security” forces have them. The left will keep whittling away at the rights and the right and the citizenry will keep conceded in just to get some peace.

    • #9
  10. bullitt46 Inactive
    bullitt46
    @bullitt46

    I have literally never read an article in the so-called mainstream media that concerned an issue or event that I had personal knowledge of or experience in that was correct. There’s even a name for the effect: the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect (https://seekerblog.com/2006/01/31/the-murray-gell-mann-amnesia-effect/).

    • #10
  11. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    It’s very strange, but recently I’ve found that the Guardian has been doing better reporting, generally, than just about any other paper. Got to give them credit: They’ve gone from being almost a parody of smug, self-satisfied leftist cant to being a newspaper I read with interest almost every day. That’s a story in itself: What’s happened to the Guardian? I’d be curious to know how they turned that thing around.

    • #11
  12. Songwriter Inactive
    Songwriter
    @user_19450

    bullitt46:I have literally never read an article in the so-called mainstream media that concerned an issue or event that I had personal knowledge of or experience in that was correct. There’s even a name for the effect: the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect (https://seekerblog.com/2006/01/31/the-murray-gell-mann-amnesia-effect/).

    Exactly! In forty years, I have never once read in a newspaper (or seen on TV) a news story that got everything right about the music business. It occurred to me long ago that they probably weren’t just missing the point on the music business alone.

    I take everything I read (or see) in the news with a healthy dose of skepticism.

    • #12
  13. shreck Inactive
    shreck
    @shreck

    I too have found some of the British news sites more informed of American stories than ones here in the states.

    • #13
  14. EHerring Coolidge
    EHerring
    @EHerring

    There is no honesty in the statistics the left uses.  Suicides are included with homicides, gang violence is included with child deaths, a country like Australia claims their ban stopped mass killings (rare in Australia and ignoring Sydney terrorist could have killed 18 hostages), etc.

    Gun homicides in our country have decreased with the increase in semi-automatics.  Australians lost their gun rights but only gained 1 life per 100,000 saved each year since.  They freely gave up their rights over fewer deaths than Chicago sees in a quarter.

    We are more heavily armed than countries that acquiesced to gun bans.  No enemy can invade and conquer us with a military force.  Our pols seemed determined to let the invasion occur peacefully through illegal immigration then disarm us as the invaders take up arms against us at home.  The media abets.

    Forget the Sig’s history…the AR is purely ours, as is the Winchester repeating rifle that won the West.  It carried 13-15 rounds, and the rounds were more powerful than the AR’s.  Why does it matter whether the gun uses a gas tube, a lever, or a rotating cylinder to chamber the next round if each shot requires a trigger pull?  Are the bastards going to ban the Winchester?  Happy shopping http://www.winchesterguns.com/products/rifles/model-1873/model-1873s-in-current-production.html

    • #14
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