So much so that I wrote the following diatribe and just sent it to the letters to the editor section, knowing full well it's way too long and they'll never print it. http://www.statesman.com/news/local/cen ... _frontpage" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
My letter to the editor:Robber had submachine gun
A man robbed a Southeast Austin gas station of an unspecified amount of cash Thursday using a submachine gun, police said. No arrest was made Thursday.
The robbery took place about 6:20 a.m. at the Chevron station at 2317 S. Pleasant Valley Road.
Please note: I realize this letter is way too long to meet your 150-word limit for publication. But perhaps the editors of your paper will read this and take it to heart and stop perpetuating the same lies in print. If you’d like me to re-write this information into an extended letter or “column”or whatever for purposes of printing in your paper, I’d be happy to do so. Or better yet, perhaps one of your reporters could spend the five minutes it just took me to dig up the below information from a few quick Google searches, and add a few more minutes interviewing some “experts” and write an article explaining to your readers the difference between what your paper (and most other media outlets) reports and reality in reference to firearms in this country.
The lead brief in your “Central Texas Digest” crime blotter on page 2 of the Metro section November 19, 2010, is stunning example of laziness, ineptitude, parroting of authority, and likely an example of outright bias by your newspaper toward gun control.
It’s amazing that you managed all of that in a two-paragraph brief. Realizing that you likely cannot see your errors for yourself let me explain. It all boils down to the terms “submachine gun.”
Do any of you even know what a submachine gun is? Do you actually think someone who would stick up a convenience store would have the means to possess such a weapon? Does such critical thinking even cross your minds when you see these terms, or do you just repeat what the Austin Police Department tells you?
Below is an outline of questions that your reporters and editors should be asking any time they see inflammatory terms such as “submachine gun”, “machine gun”, “assault rifle”, “assault weapon”, “AK-47”, “machine gun”, “automatic weapon”, etc. proposed for printing in your newspaper:
- How do the witnesses and/or police know what kind of weapon was used? Was the weapon fired? Or is the description based solely on appearance. The only way for the average person (even many police officers) to differentiate a “machine gun” of any kind from a look-a-like semi-automatic weapon (or even a toy) is if the weapon fires multiple rounds from a single squeeze of the trigger. If more than one bullet does not leave the barrel with one squeeze of the trigger, then by definition the weapon is NOT a “machine gun”, “submachine gun”, “assault rifle” etc.
This information is not difficult to find – simply go to the reporter’s best friend, wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submachine_gun" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
- If you still believe the suspect had a true “machine gun” of some kind, how did the suspect acquire such a weapon in the first place? The current laws on civilian ownership of such weapons – stemming from the Federal gun control acts of 1934, 1968, and 1986 – make ownership by average Americans extremely difficult and expensive. The average cost for a civilian to own a single legally transferable machine gun is more than $15,000. Do you really think a convenience store robber has one of these tightly controlled, limited-supply weapons? And if he has it, would he use it to stick up a quickie mart when a $100 Saturday Night Special would complete the same task just as easily?
For more information about how to obtain such a gun, read the first link that pops up in Google for “buy a machine gun” - http://www.impactguns.com/store/machine ... ities.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Is it not a more distinct possibility that the suspect DID NOT in fact have a “submachine gun”, such as the H&K MP5 shown in the photograph on the above-referenced wikipedia page, but instead had a semi-automatic copy of that gun, perhaps one that only fires the lowly .22LR bullet that most of us fired at YMCA summer camp years ago? Like this GSG-5 rifle for instance http://www.impactguns.com/store/GSG5.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ? Or perhaps the “weapon” used was not even a firearm at all, but instead a very realistic “airsoft” replica toy like this one http://www.airsoftextreme.com/store/ind ... ts_id=3887" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Can you tell the difference between a real “submachine gun” and one of the many other possibilities just from looking at the gun? Me neither.
But to be able to put the terms “submachine gun” in a headline, even on a minor crime brief, draws attention (it certainly drew my attention). And that’s all your newspaper is really trying to do, right? Draw attention? Sell papers? And perhaps while you’re at it, contribute just one more little nugget of misinformation toward the irrational fear that any criminal in this country can get his hands on a machine gun and wreak havoc.
It just isn’t so. And your brief is a bold-faced lie.
You owe your readers a retraction and explanation of why you reported something as fact that you could not have possible known to be true.
Even if your letter to the editor does not get published it still may have a positive influence on what they publish in future stories.
