April 18, 2007
Giving Dumb a Chance
On the off chance that the ABC News staff of "The Blotter" is just ignorant of their subject matter and not nakedly pursuing a political agenda, I sent the following comment to their latest blog entry on the Virginia Tech shooting, in efforts to clear up a previous post that was patently false.
I'm still waiting for a retraction of the completely false story posted to the Blotter, "Lapse of Federal Law Allows Sale of Large Ammo Clips."Ross and Hughes falsely stated that "High capacity ammo clips became widely available for sale when Congress failed to renew a law that banned assault weapons."
The AW Ban provision of the 1994 Crime Bill in no way restricted the sale, purchase, or ownership of magazines of more than ten rounds during the 1994-2004 period, and only restricted the sale of high-capacity magazines manufactured after this date. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of high-capacity magazines were bought and sold during the 1994-2004 time period in retail stores, via catalog sales, or online, and all sales and purchases were completely legal.
Nor were Ross and Hughes correct when they said, "Web sites now advertise overnight UPS delivery of the clips, which carry up to 40 rounds for both semi-automatic rifles, including 9mm pistols, and handguns."
These magazines were always available for legal purchase online (or anywhere else) since the World Wide Web was created. Their false implication that sales only began after 2004 is laughable, and completely false.
The blog entry was not only incorrect, it was deceptive, and showed a basic ignorance of the AW Ban and magazine provisions of the 1994 "Crime Bill."
ABC News and "The Blotter" owe their readership an apology and a retraction for this blatantly incorrect and perhaps purposefully fraudulent blog posting.
The media is allowed to occasionally make mistakes, but responsible journalists admit and correct their mistakes. It only remains to be seen if Brian Ross, The Blotter, and ABC News are responsible journalists.
NOTE: This comment has been cross-posted as part of a blog entry at http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/
I somewhat doubt that Brian Ross and ABC News has the integrity to issue a retraction of their inaccurate and agenda-driven post, but at least I'll be able to show that I made the attempt to have them correct the record.
Update: I fought the dumb, and the dumb won. My comment was deleted by ABC News employees moderating "The Blotter." Obviously, pursuing a political agenda is far more important to ABC News than is actually reporting facts.
Looks like you got deleted.
Posted by: Buddy at April 18, 2007 11:00 AMWell said and pure fact. Of course MSNBC would delete it. Their agenda is not news or facts because liberals own them. Their website and station is a joke. How can people believe the lies they spew? Keep up the good work. Love your blog and articles!
Posted by: Trisha at April 18, 2007 12:45 PMCY,
Someone by the name of "blah" re-posted your comment . It's visible now.
Posted by: CTD at April 18, 2007 01:31 PMI went through the comments and I see your comment posted at 2:05pm April 18. If it was deleted it's back now, as of 4:21pm April 18 Eastern time.
Posted by: Rod at April 18, 2007 03:20 PMRod, you saw the same comment posted to the other thread. You'll also note others complaining that their comments explaining that Ross was wrong had been deleted as well.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at April 18, 2007 03:54 PMIs this something the FCC might be interested in? Maybe we can have their license threatened. Posting lies and deleting comments that exposed them, although on a website instead of the air could be going against the terms of their license.
Posted by: ScottG at April 18, 2007 06:21 PMIf deception were an FCC violation, CBS would be off the air. Good luck, ScottG.
Posted by: w3 at April 18, 2007 07:19 PMAt some point we crazy gut nut mchalliburtonchimpybushitlerrethug...slap,slap...sorry, got off track.
We need to explain to the leftoid idiots that there will never be effective gun control for two reasons. 1. original sin. 2. Machinists.
My dad has little of the first but could make a gun from metal blocks and a few fairly primitive tools. He vas trained as a metalsmith in ze third Reich. He could make an m-16 from the block of a 53 chrysler, some files and a black and decker drill.
Ever see documentaries with Pakistani gunsmiths making ak-47 knockoffs from scratch with a hand forge?
And by 'explain' I meant hit them with bricks until they cry uncle and claim to understand. They will not of course ever really understand.
Posted by: Fred Z at April 18, 2007 09:57 PMConfederate Yankee meet Brian Ross. The Blotter blatantly lied about the Mark Foley story and I called them on it. Happy to see you taking them to task for their outright lying.
Posted by: Wild Bill at April 19, 2007 10:36 AMI hate to break it to you, but anything that was contrary to the point that they were trying to push got deleted. Also, I think that you'll find that ABC News had an agenda going in. On the first night's coverage, they had a piece on high capacity magazines and possessoin of assault rifles which was done by a Mr. Jake Tapper. For those who don't know, Mr. Tapper started his career as an intern and later as an employee of Handgun Control Inc., currently doing business as The Brady Campaign. I posted a complaint with ABC News but as expected, I never recieved a reply from them.
In the end, the gungrabbers aren't interested either in balanced reportage or honest discourse. I did take some comfort however in noting that the pro-gun posts outweighed the antigun posts by roughly four to one.
In a real sense, rather than dealing with the actual problem, which is that police protection in the real world is a fraudulent concept, ABC prefered to help restart the Cold Civil War that we all suffered under from 1988 to 2000. And in any war, including this one, the first casualty will always be the truth.
In the end, I think that in addition to defending the Second Amendment we need to attack far more often, the thinly disguised advocacy which is frequently substituted for the truth, coming from the untruthfully named, Main Stream Media. We aren't going to win this as long as they can lie and not get called on it. The same shock that was delivered when Dan Rather was caught during the Swiftboat Incident needs to be repeated, both early and often.
Posted by: Michael Shirley at April 19, 2007 10:44 AM
