By Alan Korwin
PHOENIX, AZ –-(Ammoland.com)- The lamestream media told you:
New York Times, Lois Beckett, Sep. 14, 2014 — “In the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference.”
“It turns out that big, scary military rifles don’t kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do. Annually, 5,000 to 6,000 black men are murdered with guns. Black men amount to only 6 percent of the population…”
“Democrats decided to push for a ban of what seemed like the most dangerous guns in America: assault weapons, which were presented by the media as the gun of choice for drug dealers and criminals.” (emphasis added) In truth this was, “a politically defined category of guns — a selection of rifles, shotguns and handguns with ‘military-style’ features — only figured in about 2 percent of gun crimes nationwide…”
After the ban expired, a detailed study by the Justice Dept. found that if it were renewed, “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement…”
“Most Americans do not know that gun homicides have decreased by 49 percent since 1993 as violent crime also fell… 56 percent of Americans wrongly believe that the rate of gun crime was higher than it was 20 years ago…” Americans get their impressions of crime rates from the same place: The New York Times and other “news” outlets.
The Times actually leaked this news once in 2005, in a story by Deborah Sontag that got little attention, seven months after the ban expired: https://www.gunlaws.com/NewYorkTimesAndGuns.htm
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
After two decades of deceit and manipulation of the political scene, The New York Times finally stated what more than half the nation — the armed half, the so-called “conservative” half, the non-left-wing, non-liberal, constitutionally aware half — has known all along (but struggles with, under the imperial cultural mind-bloc).
Assault weapons don’t really exist, the guns singled out that way are not a factor in crime or mortality statistics, efforts to assault them have done nothing more than incite the ignorant and divert desperately needed resources away from crime fighting and toward a pretend enemy that made liberals feel good instead of getting something good done. OMG.
What it shows though is the power of setting the narrative, and that’s done in print on paper, even in these days of the Internet.
And The New York Times and their cronies control it and do it. Despite reality, despite the ludicrous absurdity of their claims about so-called assault weapons that can’t even be defined, they were able to twist the national civil-rights debate about guns into a knot for ten years, and then only fess up ten years later. Two decades lost to mythology — by “the paper of record.” For shame.
The kicker is this: they have pulled off this outrage repeatedly, never fess up, and so keep any serious improvement in the “gun-crime problem” from improving. So the ghettos remain centers of constant death, while police protect the suburbs which are armed to the rafters.
The New York Times and their cronies (democrats and liberals essentially) have started (and abandoned) so many gun-ban-plans because they don’t work. Can you can remember them all?
Learning it won’t work but still wanting to “do something” about “gun violence” or gun crime, or “the gun problem” or guns in the street, or… those terms keep evolving endlessly too, the targets have changed.
Remember the Saturday-Night-Special Myth, because this was going to eliminate the crime problem, as soon as we outlawed those horrifying guns. Except, not. They never fessed up to that nonsense, they just dropped it.
Democrats, liberals and their media allies started and abandoned The Junk-Guns Myth, because that was going to solve what they call the gun problem, except, not. They dropped that, and never fessed up.
Democrats, liberals and their media allies started The Waiting-Period Myth. That came with The Cooling-Off-Period Myth, remember that one? Arm maniacs after five days and then just hope they remain calm for the rest of their lives. Hmmm. Myth is too soft a word.
Democrats, liberals and their media allies started The One-Gun-A-Month Myth but everyone saw that had nothing to do with crime, it only affected shopping. (New Jersey for one still has on the books)
Democrats, liberals and their media allies started The Semiautomatic-Bullet-Spraying Myth, except semiautomatics are what the police consider best for safety.
Democrats, liberals and their media allies started The Hollowpoint-Ammunition Myth, except it’s safer too. Police want it badly enough they got federal law passed to guarantee they can carry it anywhere. (New Jersey, again)
Democrats, liberals and their media allies started The Undetectable-Gun Myth, except there aren’t any.
Democrats, liberals and their media allies started The Gun-Registration Myth, except a list of innocent gun owners has no crime-fighting component, is very expensive, error laden, misallocates resources, and you can’t list the crooks because that would violate the Fifth Amendment. (This myth is still floating, and is among the most dangerous of all the plans).
Democrats, liberals and their media allies started The Universal-Background-Check Myth (as a code word for the registration myth, but everyone’s figured that out). Under this plan, any innocent person who has a gun is guilty if they lack the paperwork. Criminals of course are already guilty if they have guns, that’s unaffected — but that’s how myths work, they make no sense if you look too hard.
Democrats, liberals and their media allies started The 92%-In-Favor-Of-Universal-Federal-Government-Checks Myth, except that’s just a lie.
Democrats, liberals and their media “news” allies promoted The Bloody CCW Myth — 50 times in a row — as each state in America drafted, debated and enacted laws for discreetly carrying firearms. They screamed that if people bear arms in public it would lead to wild-eyed bloodshed in the streets. It was simple paranoid projection from gunless activists and cooperating reporters, just another assault-weapon myth, except, with no fess up at the end.
There you have it. Pretty much all the gun-stopping plans The New York Times and their left-wing cohorts have figured out are mythically based.
Plans that would actually go after criminals are not part of the plan. The plans all go after the guns innocent people own, who haven’t done anything wrong. So of course they run into fierce resistance.
When they stop supporting myths and start dealing with reality they’ll garner a lot more support. The New York Times will be doing what it’s supposed to do as journalists and a newspaper. But confidence is low, as a look at The Ferguson Myths (my next article) clearly shows.
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