What's Up With The Way We Cover Gun Stories?
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
A tragic event occurred in Fort Wayne last Monday night.
That city recorded its 34th slaying so far this year.
But this one was different.
A couple guys came to the door of a home on the southeast side.
The homeowner's wife and daughter were in the living room. The wife answered the door.
She didn't recognize the men and told them to leave. They didn't.
They forced their way into the home. Police said the homeowner told the men to leave.
They refused.
The homeowner pickup up a gun and fired at least three shots.
One of the intruders died. The other, wounded in the hip, survived. No word so far on whether the intruders were armed, but police reports say that alcohol may have been a factor.
So far, the homeowner hasn't been charged. That's OK by me.
In fact, I would have liked to see that story on the AP wire. But it didn't make the wire.
Stories like that just don't seem to get the same attention as the typical murder story.
If the story makes guns look bad, you hear about it. If the gun is a positive factor in the story, you don't.
Studies show that people defend themselves with guns up to 2 million times per year. In the vast majority of those confrontations, no shots are fired. Just the presence of a gun is enough to defuse the situation.
It would seem you would hear about those cases a little more often in the news.
If a gun takes a life, it's news. Why isn't it news when a gun saves a life?
I-676 Rejected
Voters in the state of Washington soundly rejected the Handgun Safety Act.
Ostensibly, the legislation would have required trigger locks for the sale and transport of handguns and licensing of all the handgun owners in the state.
Proponents of the bill liked to talk about child safety, but the bill was pure gun control, through and through.
The bill had 26 sections and ran to about 10 81/2-by-11 pages.
It included lots of provisions like this one concerning "handgun safety licenses."
"The department of licensing shall make available to law enforcement and corrections agencies, in an on-line format, all information received under this section."
Proponents and opponents waged a massive media war over the issue. It raged on all summer, culminating in Tuesday's statewide referendum.
Funny thing was, a month or so ago, every poll and every news report was predicting a gun control landslide. A mid-September poll indicated that I-676 was favored by a 60 percent to 30 percent margin.
But on election day this past Tuesday, the results were wildly different.
Washington voters rejected the measure statewide by a more than 2-to-1 margin. In some rural counties, the margin was as wide as 9-to-1.
Now, I wouldn't consider the state of Washington exactly a conservative mecca.
And King County, where Seattle is located, is quite the opposite.
But the measure failed even there. In fact, it failed in every county in the state.
A story in the Seattle Times notes that, "It was a campaign thrown into the national spotlight as both sides trotted out national figures and civic leaders to lead their cause. While supporters turned to Bill Gates and Seattle's liberal establishment for donations and to Sarah and Jim Brady for moral support, opponents brought in NRA leaders and Charlton Heston to help map out strategy and motivate gun owners across the state."
Now to me, this is pretty big news. But not to the national media outlets. The story got very little national play.
How much play do you suppose the story would have received if the initiative passed?
I guarantee it would have been hailed on all the networks as a major victory for gun control proponents.
As it is, most of us never even heard of it.
Kudos To Time Roemer
Always ready to give credit where credit is due, I must say I was quite favorably impressed with a letter that Tim Roemer wrote to a local constituent.
The constituent asked Roemer to support "The Citizens' Self-Defense Act."
Said Tim Roemer:
"I acknowledge your concerns that citizens frequently must use firearms to defend themselves. Every year, more than 2,400,000 people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals - or more than 6,500 people a day. This means that, each year, firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. In fact, of the 2,400,000 self-defense cases, more than 192,000 are women defending themselves against sexual abuse."
He continues:
"According to the department of justice, of the 2,400,000 times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, 92 percent merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8 percent of the time does a citizen kill or wound his or her attacker. Unfortunately, it is evident that many law-abiding citizens, seeking only to provide for their families' defense, are routinely prosecuted for brandishing or using a firearm in self-defense."
Roemer then notes:
"... H.R. 27 was introduced to protect the right of individuals to obtain firearms for security and to use firearms in defense of self, family or home. I support the intent of this legislation and will continue to support Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens to legally possess firearms."
Roemer's right on target.
Gee, I hope Handgun Control Inc. doesn't get ahold of that letter.
'Ellen' Slips
On Oct. 11, I wrote that I didn't think the sitcom "Ellen" was funny anymore since its star Ellen DeGeneres, became the poster child for lesbianism. "I'm taking bets on when the show drops out of the top 20," I wrote. At the time, the show was rated 14. In its pre-lesbian days, "Ellen" made it into the top 10. I checked the Nielsen ratings this week. "Ellen" was rated 39th. [[In-content Ad]]
A tragic event occurred in Fort Wayne last Monday night.
That city recorded its 34th slaying so far this year.
But this one was different.
A couple guys came to the door of a home on the southeast side.
The homeowner's wife and daughter were in the living room. The wife answered the door.
She didn't recognize the men and told them to leave. They didn't.
They forced their way into the home. Police said the homeowner told the men to leave.
They refused.
The homeowner pickup up a gun and fired at least three shots.
One of the intruders died. The other, wounded in the hip, survived. No word so far on whether the intruders were armed, but police reports say that alcohol may have been a factor.
So far, the homeowner hasn't been charged. That's OK by me.
In fact, I would have liked to see that story on the AP wire. But it didn't make the wire.
Stories like that just don't seem to get the same attention as the typical murder story.
If the story makes guns look bad, you hear about it. If the gun is a positive factor in the story, you don't.
Studies show that people defend themselves with guns up to 2 million times per year. In the vast majority of those confrontations, no shots are fired. Just the presence of a gun is enough to defuse the situation.
It would seem you would hear about those cases a little more often in the news.
If a gun takes a life, it's news. Why isn't it news when a gun saves a life?
I-676 Rejected
Voters in the state of Washington soundly rejected the Handgun Safety Act.
Ostensibly, the legislation would have required trigger locks for the sale and transport of handguns and licensing of all the handgun owners in the state.
Proponents of the bill liked to talk about child safety, but the bill was pure gun control, through and through.
The bill had 26 sections and ran to about 10 81/2-by-11 pages.
It included lots of provisions like this one concerning "handgun safety licenses."
"The department of licensing shall make available to law enforcement and corrections agencies, in an on-line format, all information received under this section."
Proponents and opponents waged a massive media war over the issue. It raged on all summer, culminating in Tuesday's statewide referendum.
Funny thing was, a month or so ago, every poll and every news report was predicting a gun control landslide. A mid-September poll indicated that I-676 was favored by a 60 percent to 30 percent margin.
But on election day this past Tuesday, the results were wildly different.
Washington voters rejected the measure statewide by a more than 2-to-1 margin. In some rural counties, the margin was as wide as 9-to-1.
Now, I wouldn't consider the state of Washington exactly a conservative mecca.
And King County, where Seattle is located, is quite the opposite.
But the measure failed even there. In fact, it failed in every county in the state.
A story in the Seattle Times notes that, "It was a campaign thrown into the national spotlight as both sides trotted out national figures and civic leaders to lead their cause. While supporters turned to Bill Gates and Seattle's liberal establishment for donations and to Sarah and Jim Brady for moral support, opponents brought in NRA leaders and Charlton Heston to help map out strategy and motivate gun owners across the state."
Now to me, this is pretty big news. But not to the national media outlets. The story got very little national play.
How much play do you suppose the story would have received if the initiative passed?
I guarantee it would have been hailed on all the networks as a major victory for gun control proponents.
As it is, most of us never even heard of it.
Kudos To Time Roemer
Always ready to give credit where credit is due, I must say I was quite favorably impressed with a letter that Tim Roemer wrote to a local constituent.
The constituent asked Roemer to support "The Citizens' Self-Defense Act."
Said Tim Roemer:
"I acknowledge your concerns that citizens frequently must use firearms to defend themselves. Every year, more than 2,400,000 people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals - or more than 6,500 people a day. This means that, each year, firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. In fact, of the 2,400,000 self-defense cases, more than 192,000 are women defending themselves against sexual abuse."
He continues:
"According to the department of justice, of the 2,400,000 times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, 92 percent merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8 percent of the time does a citizen kill or wound his or her attacker. Unfortunately, it is evident that many law-abiding citizens, seeking only to provide for their families' defense, are routinely prosecuted for brandishing or using a firearm in self-defense."
Roemer then notes:
"... H.R. 27 was introduced to protect the right of individuals to obtain firearms for security and to use firearms in defense of self, family or home. I support the intent of this legislation and will continue to support Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens to legally possess firearms."
Roemer's right on target.
Gee, I hope Handgun Control Inc. doesn't get ahold of that letter.
'Ellen' Slips
On Oct. 11, I wrote that I didn't think the sitcom "Ellen" was funny anymore since its star Ellen DeGeneres, became the poster child for lesbianism. "I'm taking bets on when the show drops out of the top 20," I wrote. At the time, the show was rated 14. In its pre-lesbian days, "Ellen" made it into the top 10. I checked the Nielsen ratings this week. "Ellen" was rated 39th. [[In-content Ad]]