Little-Acorn
12-13-2007, 12:55 PM
As predictably as a sunset, the New York Times has announced that responsibility for the recent shootings in Omaha and Colorado was to be laid at the feet, not of the nutcases who pulled the trigger, but of George W. Bush.
And they also blamed inanimate objects, of course - the guns themselves.
No mention of any complicity by the gunmen. (How weird is that?) No mention that where the victims had been forciby disarmed first, a dozen or more of them got shot with nothing they could do to stop the rampage. And the NYT carefully avoids including the fact that, where armed private citizens WERE allowed to carry their own weapons, the murderer was stopped by those private citizens after killing two, instead of being free to keep reloading the huge amount of ammo he brought and killing dozens or more... long before police could get there.
And this from the "newspaper of record"? They're setting records, all right... but not records of accuracy or relevance. Instead, duplicity and disingenuousness come to mind.
The good news is, the NYT's readers are also setting records - by cancelling their subscriptions and newsstand-buying habits in droves, a trend they have been accelerating for years now, as more honest news outlets have correspondingly grown over an equal period.
Sounds like a net win to me.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/opinion/12wed3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Barely touched on in the coverage of the two latest gun rampages is how the disturbed shooters could so easily obtain assault rifles — weapons designed for waging war. In separate random massacres, eight people were slain at an Omaha shopping mall last Wednesday and four were more shot dead Sunday at two Colorado churches. The Omaha killer took his stepfather’s rapid-fire rifle from a closet to pick off Christmas shoppers. In Colorado, the gunman, leaving behind an Internet screed referenced to the 1999 Columbine massacre, was equipped with two assault rifles, three handguns and 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
How could this happen? That’s the great American cliché attached to these ever-mounting tragedies. We all know the answer. Guns are ubiquitous in this country, and the gun lobby is so powerful that this year’s toll of 30,000 gun deaths makes barely a political ripple.
Until recently, the nation did have a law designed to protect the public from assault rifles and other high-tech infantry weapons. In 1994, enough politicians felt the public’s fear to respond with a 10-year ban on assault-weapons that was not perfect but dented the free-marketeering of Rambo mayhem. Most Americans rejected the gun lobby’s absurd claim that assault rifles are “sporting” weapons. But when it came up for renewal in 2004, President Bush and Congress caved to the gun lobby and allowed the law to lapse.
And they also blamed inanimate objects, of course - the guns themselves.
No mention of any complicity by the gunmen. (How weird is that?) No mention that where the victims had been forciby disarmed first, a dozen or more of them got shot with nothing they could do to stop the rampage. And the NYT carefully avoids including the fact that, where armed private citizens WERE allowed to carry their own weapons, the murderer was stopped by those private citizens after killing two, instead of being free to keep reloading the huge amount of ammo he brought and killing dozens or more... long before police could get there.
And this from the "newspaper of record"? They're setting records, all right... but not records of accuracy or relevance. Instead, duplicity and disingenuousness come to mind.
The good news is, the NYT's readers are also setting records - by cancelling their subscriptions and newsstand-buying habits in droves, a trend they have been accelerating for years now, as more honest news outlets have correspondingly grown over an equal period.
Sounds like a net win to me.
--------------------------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/opinion/12wed3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Barely touched on in the coverage of the two latest gun rampages is how the disturbed shooters could so easily obtain assault rifles — weapons designed for waging war. In separate random massacres, eight people were slain at an Omaha shopping mall last Wednesday and four were more shot dead Sunday at two Colorado churches. The Omaha killer took his stepfather’s rapid-fire rifle from a closet to pick off Christmas shoppers. In Colorado, the gunman, leaving behind an Internet screed referenced to the 1999 Columbine massacre, was equipped with two assault rifles, three handguns and 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
How could this happen? That’s the great American cliché attached to these ever-mounting tragedies. We all know the answer. Guns are ubiquitous in this country, and the gun lobby is so powerful that this year’s toll of 30,000 gun deaths makes barely a political ripple.
Until recently, the nation did have a law designed to protect the public from assault rifles and other high-tech infantry weapons. In 1994, enough politicians felt the public’s fear to respond with a 10-year ban on assault-weapons that was not perfect but dented the free-marketeering of Rambo mayhem. Most Americans rejected the gun lobby’s absurd claim that assault rifles are “sporting” weapons. But when it came up for renewal in 2004, President Bush and Congress caved to the gun lobby and allowed the law to lapse.