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Media Slowly Recognizing How Dumb They Sound on Guns
As I said on Twitter last week,
We don’t listen to sportscasters who talk about the 4th period of a hockey game, yet we listen to “journalists” who know nothing about guns.
— Kevin Creighton (@ExurbanKevin) June 13, 2016
And Rachel Larimore of Slate agrees.
That gun writers crow when the media makes mistakes like this indicates how little regard there is for the media from the pro-gun community. There are several ways the media can remedy this situation. For starters, treat guns like any other beat (as the Guardian has done with Lois Beckett). Media outlets tend not to send sports writers to cover the Supreme Court or style writers to cover a murder. Ignorance undermines authority. If you want to report on guns, you need to understand the differences between various weapons and how they are used. Spend time at a shooting range and learn how to fire a gun. Be able to interview an NRA member without scorn or derision.
Words matter. You’d think journalists would understand that simple fact. Most journalists have no experience with guns and don’t know anyone who does have experience. They go on (almost literal) fishing expeditions, hoping that they’ll find someone who’s erudite, knowledgeable and, most importantly, agrees with their preconceived notions of what guns are for and who should own one. I’ve had good luck talking with reporters about guns, but I will admit that my experience is just one of many.
If you want a “conversation” about guns, first learn our language, then we can talk.
Published in Culture, Guns, Politics
Awe come on. Fox has Geraldo covering the military. Snark.
If you think this is bad, what about putting Ol’ Bone Spur in charge of the entire military?
As compared to Hillary Benghazi Clinton?
If the issue is ignorance of the military, I guess I could credit Ol’ Bone Spur’s claim that he knows more than the soldiers do, since he went to military school.
Of course he might have been engaging in the literary device of hyperbole. He did also say that no one has read the Bible more than he has. Heck, I’ve been known to engage in it myself.
Benghazi.
…. and days after I post this, another Slate writer takes up the mantle of TRUTH!!!1! and paints Sig Sauer as Nazis.
The fact that the VW buses the hippies used also had their roots in the Third Reich seems lost on this alleged journalist.
Bone spurs.
Sphincter.
You live up to my expectations.
Whereas Benghazi means nothing to you. I would not have expected that from anybody on this site.
That is just wrong, as well as presumptuous. It is a very big reason that I would never vote for her.
But that doesn’t translate into wanting Donald Trump in the White House.
You claim that Benghazi is a matter of ignorance about how the military works. That’s not so. What you are demonstrating is difficult to square with a presumption of good faith.
If you are willing to do anything besides make rude faces at Trump for an argument, then perhaps you could have engaged on that when I asked you if you thought that Benghazi outweighed Trump’s undemonstrated yet presumed incompetence.
Lensman made a comment about media coverage of guns. You launched on Trump in a non sequitur bat attack. I asked if you thought Benghazi was worse than your hobby-horse bone-spur issue. You refused to acknowledge the issue and went banging on about the same thing.
This is not conversation. This is you refusing to let others have a conversation, and refusing to engage in anything but name calling even when engaged on your chosen topic. Nothing left but the naming of random body parts.
And I’ll get shellacked for pointing this out. You chose to dissemble on Benghazi rather than acknowledge the slimmest of points.
No, wait, I was wrong. Trump has small hands. No way he can be President. Thank you all for persuading me with non sequiturs and hostility. Now I see that in the full light of #NeverTrump, there can be no non-sequitur attacking Trump, because Trump is anti-. Anything anti-anti is valid, and therefore follows.
I now grok the Juche of #NeverTrump. Thank you.
No I didn’t. Read what I wrote.
In answer to Lensman’s claim that reporters are ignorant of military issues, I pointed out that Ol’ Bone Spur is also ignorant. (True or false?) You brought up “As compared to Hillary Benghazi Clinton?”
Since I had been talking about Trump’s ignorance, I did not comment about Benghazi at all. I answered, “If the issue is ignorance of the military, I guess I could credit Ol’ Bone Spur’s claim that he knows more than the soldiers do, since he went to military school.”
You are the one claiming Benghazi is a matter of ignorance. I don’t know how you could impute your own comment to me.
You then claim that “I (i.e., you) asked if you thought Benghazi was worse than your hobby-horse bone-spur issue.” No you didn’t. Your comment consisted of the single word, “Benghazi.” As if to say, “case closed.” Now, as it happens, Benghazi is enough for me to never vote for Hillary Clinton. But it doesn’t close the case for Trump, not when he is a draft dodger. So, I answered in kind, with the phrase “Bone Spurs.” You responded with an insult that is (or ought to be) beneath you, or at least beneath Ricochet.
And you claim I engaged in name-calling. That’s a good one.
Yes, yes, yes! Every word you say is true, and I agree that you argue in good faith. It was wrong of me to rely upon the clear meaning of words.
It’s okay, MWA. You can relax. I have been cured! Nobody but us here now. All of us. The winning team.
Team Hillary.
Shameful.
You;re doing this all wrong. That’s not even a body part. Last time it was “Old Bone-Spur”. How about, um, “suppurating groin wound”?
I went back and read the initial comment. I also got the impression MWtA was referring to the reporters’ ignorance of military matters, and comparing Trump to that.