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Archive for 2012
December 27, 2012
UH OH: D.C. police: Illegal for David Gregory to show empty gun magazine on TV.
An ATF official tells POLITICO that the information the D.C. Police official provided to the ATF, which the ATF then provided to “Meet The Press,” was inaccurate.
The D.C. Police official cited in the TMZ report incorrectly told the ATF that it would not be illegal for Gregory to show an empty gun magazine on Meet The Press.
As D.C. Police Officer Metcalf told POLITICO earlier today, it was illegal.
The ATF official, who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity, said the bureau regretted that the misunderstanding had created these issues.
See, the gun laws are so confusing even the gun bureaucrats can’t get them right. Maybe Gregory can argue that as a defense. . . .
BYRON YORK: Journalists rush to take sides in gun debate. Well, actually they don’t take “sides.” They just take one side.
Should journalists be advocates for tougher gun control measures? It’s a question worth asking as more and more reporters, commentators, and TV anchors are openly promoting stringent gun policies in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.
It’s not just the ranters on the left, like MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who recently called National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre “the lobbyist for mass murderers.” O’Donnell is a controversialist who says things like that all the time. So is CNN’s Piers Morgan, who told the Gun Owners of America chief Larry Pratt, “You are an unbelievably stupid man” and “You shame your country.”
More notable are the ostensibly straight-news journalists who have come down on the side of stronger gun control. For example, when a Republican congressman, Georgia’s Jack Kingston, argued on MSNBC recently that tough gun control laws haven’t prevented mass shootings in some European countries, the network’s anchor, Thomas Roberts, responded, “So, we need to just be complacent in the fact that we can send our children to school to be assassinated?”
Earlier, while reporting from Connecticut, a CNN anchor, Don Lemon, burst into an impromptu appeal for action. “We need to get guns and bullets and automatic weapons off the streets,” Lemon said. “They should only be available to police officers and to hunt al-Qaeda and the Taliban and not hunt elementary school children.”
Also on CNN, anchor Soledad O’Brien sought a promise from Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott to take action on guns. When Scott declined, a clearly frustrated O’Brien said she hoped the gun conversation would become “meaningful” before she was forced to “cover another tragedy.” A few days before, when a conservative academic told O’Brien he believes having more guns among law-abiding citizens would reduce crime, she responded, “I just have to say, your position completely boggles me, honestly.”
It’s not just television. Twitter conversations among print journalists commonly include passionate denunciations of Second Amendment defenders, especially the NRA.
Don’t be surprised, journalists, if many Americans view you as the enemy as a result. Don’t blame them. You’ve taken sides. When you act as agents for the apparat, don’t be shocked when people think of you as apparatchiks.
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS: 9 Flattops At Norfolk.
UPDATE: Brian Dunn remembers Pearl Harbor. “The world’s largest target-rich environment, eh? . . . Remember, they’re called ‘surprise’ attacks because we don’t expect them.” I wonder how well-defended those ports are?
LIVE FREE OR DIE. LITERALLY. “The impact of economic freedom on average life expectancy is the most striking aspect of the data shown in the above Table.”
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Sharp criticism after New York newspaper publishes names of local gun owners. “The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain information on registered handgun owners in the area. Many owners and other critics are outraged that criminals now know where the guns are – and aren’t.”
These people don’t see themselves as journalists. They see themselves as political and cultural warriors. But, you know, sauce for the goose and all that.
FRANK J. FLEMING: Math Is Coming. “Math is remorseless, and it will eventually balance its numbers, not caring who is hurt in the process.”
UPDATE: Reader D.J. Schreffler writes: “Math is one of the Gods of the Copybook Headings, it appears.” Mathematics is the language of nature. So, yeah.
A NEW PRACTICE AREA FOR LAWYERS: California man sues Ford on C-MAX Hybrid EPA mileage claim. “Richard Pitkin of Roseville, CA., has filed suit in the federal court for the Eastern District of California against Ford Motor Co. after buying a Ford C-Max Hybrid and discovering the vehicle does not achieve 47 mpg fuel economy in all driving conditions. He is represented by McCuneWright, LLP, a Redlands, CA-based law firm that has been actively involved in litigation againt automakers, including Toyota and Lexus in cases of alleged unintended sudden acceleration, and General Motors, Ford and Hyundai for misleading advertising based on EPA fuel economy figures.”
Related: Firm that filed C-Max MPG suit against Ford has Democratic ties. “Richard D. McCune of the Redlands, CA-based McCuneWright LLP law firm representing a California man in a suit against Ford for allegedly fraudulently advertising its C-Max Hybrid is a deep-pockets contributor to Democratic presidential and congressional candidates and campaign committees.”
IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, fear and loathing of the Free State Movement. Plus, a push for “unwelcoming” legislation.
UPDATE: Reader Kristo Miettinen emails:
Your recent link to “Fear and loathing of the Free State movement” brings to the fore a belief that I have held for some time, namely that annoying nanny-state legislation is not intended to promote safety, or health, or any other such objective sort of well-being, rather it is intended to select desirable neighbors (and for Dem politicians, to select a reliable blue electorate).
Thus gun restrictions drive gun owners (and those who sympathize) to move from blue states to red; restrictions on soda serving sizes drive fast-food consumers out of cities whose power class would prefer to associate with more refined palates, etc.
My personal anti-favorite (neologism needed – brother can you spare a term?) is New York’s selective retirement tax exemption, where pensions are tax-free if they were earned working for government (state, local, or federal) but taxed if they were earned in the private sector. Retired schoolteachers are welcome to stay and vote in their sunset years, but
retired engineers are welcome to pack up and leave as soon as their economically productive years are at a close.It is no accident that as blue states lose population to general internal migration, they also get bluer. It is deliberate demographic tinkering, designed to select for the right sort (i.e. the left sort) of people.
Interesting thesis. By this token, people in red states who don’t want to be flooded by blue-voting refugees from places like Illinois or California should be adopting laws — open carry of firearms, say — that will tend to scare those people away.
DAVID DAVENPORT: Ignore The Pundits, Conservatism Doesn’t Need An Extreme Makeover.
DEMOCRATS APPOINT WHITE MALE TO FILL SENATE SEAT long held by a minority.
ACROSS THE UNITED STATES: “Echo Housing Bubbles.”
UNEXPECTEDLY: U.S. retailers scramble after lackluster holiday sales. “The 2012 holiday season may have been the worst for retailers since the 2008 financial crisis, with sales growth far below expectations, forcing many to offer massive post-Christmas discounts in hopes of shedding excess inventory.”
December 26, 2012
LOVE WILL FIND A WAY: John Edwards & Rielle Hunter Are Apparently Having Lots of Loud Makeup Sex.
JOHN HINDERAKER: Our History, And Theirs. “Beyond the tiresome (race, class, gender, zzz…) and the false (big business causes racism), an obvious feature of the new social studies standards is the banishment of any sense of the heroic in American history.”
IF DAVID GREGORY WERE NOT DAVID GREGORY, he’d already be in jail.
FORWARD! Fathers disappear from households across America; Big increase in single mothers. “In every state, the portion of families where children have two parents, rather than one, has dropped significantly over the past decade. Even as the country added 160,000 families with children, the number of two-parent households decreased by 1.2 million. Fifteen million U.S. children, or 1 in 3, live without a father, and nearly 5 million live without a mother. In 1960, just 11 percent of American children lived in homes without fathers.”
UPDATE: A reader emails:
Regarding your link to the Washington Times article about disappearing fathers: Note how the language has changed. We used to have words like “widow,” “divorcee,” and “unwed mother,” in descending order of opprobrium. Assuming a woman still has children at home, “single mother” has now replaced all three terms.
The most interesting aspect of this language shift: “single mother” is the new “widow.” Like the widow of a generation ago, the single mother is assumed to be a) virtuous (we don’t ask how she got to be a single mother), b) needy (so Jenny McCarthy can identify with her fellow single mothers who are poor and unknown), and c) totally alone (we rarely ask where’s the dad).
Language follows culture, and this example shows it.
Interesting. Of course, without all those single mothers our demographic collapse would probably be worse. . . .
SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW: Retroactive ATF Approval for David Gregory’s gun-law violation?
Plus from the comments: “What I want to know, is how many citizens have been jailed in DC for violating this law? And is their skin color darker than David Gregory’s?” Well, it would pretty much have to be. . . .
But regardless, those people won’t have Howard Kurtz defending them.
UPDATE: Reader Stephen Johnson emails: “ATF approval simply makes no sense. The ATF has no jurisdiction over DC gun laws. And if, in fact, NBC news called the ATF to ask ‘permission’ this just reinforces how stupid they are about gun laws and jurisdiction. This story smells…. bad.” Hmm. If D.C. were a state I’d be sure this was correct. But since it’s a federal enclave I’m not sure.
“CHILDISH FANTASY:” Gun Control And The Victim.