Guns, Facts And The NY Times

we-want-you-to-support-the-second-amendment_01Several opinion pieces over the last several days indicate another frothing, maniacal period in the fevered minds of the editorial board of the NY Times. After AGWTM, nothing gets their pompous and hypocritical juices flowing like guns. I have no doubt that there are armed guards protecting the Gray Lady’s employees on 43rd street, and their publisher famously possesses a concealed carry permit for New York City. But that doesn’t stop them from pronouncing from their lofty perches that the little people must not possess the means with which to protect themselves. That right should be….must be…reserved for the elites.

But The Times has a problem. Actually, they have two problems. The first of course is that as gun ownership in America has skyrocketed, the murder rate has decreased. And even though we own many more guns per capita than most other countries, many countries have homicide rates that dwarf ours (Click on the graph below for a larger version).

So what do they do? Why, focus on the subset of gun crime called suicide. Of course suicide is not really a violent crime in the conventional and accepted sense, but they love to include those deaths in their statistics. And that is a fascinating flaw in their love of personal freedom. According to the NY Times, I can identify as a woman, have my genitalia chopped off and rebuilt as a sad facsimile of a woman’s, smoke marijuana until my synapses are as wide as the Grand Canyon, decide when to die if I have cancer (and get my doctor to help), but they draw the line at unassisted suicide? This is the newspaper that loves Peter Singer!

But they have a second problem….and that is the integrity of their editorial board. They lie. They obfuscate. They manipulate. In this weekend’s big editorial, they speak of the internet and gun show loophole; something that simply does not exist. And they know it. Yes, I can purchase a weapon on the internet, but it will be shipped to, and I have to pick it up at a federally licensed dealer who will have me fill out the same forms and run me through the same federal system as every other purchase. As for the gun show loophole? I guess there are a few unscrupulous dealers at gun shows who will sell under the table. But if they obey existing law, they will have their customers fill out the same forms and run them through the same system as a normal purchase at a gun shop.

It gets better; they carefully phrase their condemnations of existing law to include what seems to be dealer to dealer transfers of guns. That happens all of the time, because stocking guns is expensive, and one dealer may have what the customer of another dealer wants. Since all dealers are pre-approved by the federal government to buy and sell guns, this is a rhetorical device to make it seem as if there is some huge black market that is pumping millions of guns into the streets of America.

The Brady Law Most needed is an expansion of this law so that dealers and others now buying firearms on the Internet and at gun shows are subjected to background checks. The law has barred 2.5 million risky applicants in the last 20 years from buying guns, but it does not apply to 40 percent of total gun sales. Despite the national anguish over the Newtown shooting, Congress failed to close this huge loophole. Lawmakers, particularly wavering Democrats, must be relentless in pushing for universal background checks, which are favored by 85 percent of the public, including 79 percent of Republicans.

This is like claiming that normal transfers between pharmacies of legal narcotics is part of the problem we supposedly have with abuse of opiates.

Care to see another example of the sleazy, manipulative whores of 43rd St. playing fast and loose with our liberties? This is a newspaper that goes apoplectic with rage when due process is violated. The presumption of innocence is an important concept to them, except when it applies to gun purchases.

Could there be anything less controversial than denying gun purchases to people on the terrorist watch list? Yet Republicans prefer to express concern about “due process” for gun purchasers even as they propose blanket bans on Islamic refugees.

And notice how they conflate the violation of Americans’ rights with some nebulous desire to extend the right to immigrate here to kill us to Muslims.

They even roped in some idiot from Texas (apparently there is at least one Texan who doesn’t own a gun) who was willing to subvert the intent of CCl regulation to prove the obvious point that he, because he is effete and stupid, doesn’t know how to handle a weapon. Apparently the regulations in Texas are minimal (but still too much), and he proved it. Wow. Good job. But It is telling that nowhere in this sophomoric screed does he discuss the concept of responsible exercise of his natural rights. I am sure that he has, somewhere in his freshman English papers,  quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes about crying fire in a crowded theater; which is pretty much what he has claimed he has done.

The Times will never change until some conservative leaning billionaire buys it, fires the editorial staff and most of the reporters, and rebuilds it into an honest news gathering and reporting company. Its reflexive hatred of America is too ingrained in its corporate culture to modify its editorial leaning because of the facts.

 

6 comments to “Guns, Facts And The NY Times”
  1. I say again: disarm the ghettos first. That’s where the vast majority of gun violence takes place, and by whom.

    Speaking from memory, there are ca. 30,000 gun-related homicides per annum, 20,000 of which are suicides (so, not part of the problem we’re concerned about). Of the remaining 10,000 or so, IIRC, about 7,000 are black-on-black murders. Such murders don’t make headlines, because they’re so ubiquitous and frequent, but one statistic is telling: the leading cause of death among black males 15-30 is … murder, by other black males.

    But definitely go after a law-abiding gun-owning dentist in the suburbs.

    The real reason for the left’s fervor for gun control? Gun ownership acts as the ultimate check and balance on their usurpation of power. As it was intended to do.

  2. A fascinating suggestion. Acquiesce to the left’s desire to disarm the public, but start in the congressional district with the most murders per capita, and move on from there. I figure they would get to the first Republican district some time in the next century.

  3. It is tiring when twits like this equate CHL class with gun handling basics class. Stevie Wonder could pass the shooting portion of the TX CHL, but that’s not the primary point of CHL class now is it? The intent is to educate on the laws of concealed carry and to demonstrate that one isn’t a complete buffoon with a weapon.

    These belly aching twits pointing at Cruz and his shotgun handling lecture us on proper safe gun handling techniques yet attend CHL class with no gun handling skills. Who’s the one that needs a lesson in gun safety?

  4. My understanding is that a sale from an individual (private seller), rather than a company, has no requirement for background checks. And that these people are, apparently, selling at gun shows. So there is a “loophole” (a word that is used by people when they don’t like something–like capital gains tax rates–rather than when they DO like it–like mortgage and charitable deductions.

    Assuming that’s the case, we should be referring to the “private sale” loophole, rather than gun show loophole, as this type of transaction can take place at a gun show, in the parking lot of a gun show, at my house, or behind a 7-11, if I find myself in the mood for a Slurpee.

    But “private sale” loophole doesn’t sound nearly as scary as “gun show” loophole, know the politicians and media, as I’m sure half the country views gun shows as a meeting of inbred redneck murderers, even though they’ve never been to one.

  5. No gun show I have ever attended (anecdotal, I know) allowed private sales on the property. Anyone with a table had to have a license, and the parking lots were patrolled.

    I used to have a FFL. I know a little bit about the topic, and most of the stuff I read in the press is total crap.

  6. I don’t doubt that there are some states where all transfers at gun shows must go through an FFL dealer, and I don’t doubt that there are some states and some cases where that’s not the case.

    Either way, the idea of the existence of a gun show loophole seems asinine.

    But it would be very hard for politicians and the media to convince people that something can be done to control guns by putting in place laws requiring Larry to do a background check on Bob before selling him his gun. Especially if both are intent on killing people.

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