More lies from the washington post

[Alexcabbie]

I suppose this will come as no great shock to anyone, but today the Washington Post published the first in a series of articles about all the "crime guns" traced to dealers in various locations. This particular day they were picking on Maryland gun dealers. (Virginia gets the business tomorrow).

I'm aware that most of us could probably take the words "Washinton Post Gun Series" and pretty much know what the series says without reading one word. Indeed, it's the same tired old argle-bargle mixed in with stories of ppeople shooting other people with guns that were sold legally at some point (duh).

However, I took a look at the graphs they used. Lo and behold, while the tone of the article would lead one to think that all these "crime traces" were from homicides and assaults; in fact the vast majority of "crime guns" were seized in conjunction with drug zrrests (Which could be some poor schmo who had a legal firearm in his closet and a half-smoked marihuana cigarette in an ashtray); OR they were "crime guns" seized in a case of "unlawful gun possession", usually in the District of Columbia.

That the Washington Post is biased is no surprise. Just how biased they are can be amply illustrated by the fact that, about a month before the 2000 Presidential election they ran an item alleging to explain the function of the Electoral College in the "Kid's Post" pages. The Post told the kiddies that the purpose of the ElectorAl College was to be a buffer in case the voters made a "bad choice" (If that is the case, they sure effed up two years ago).

But when Dubya was declared the winner, who wound up kvetching about the "antiquated" Electoral College? You guessed it.

Well, the Post seems to be leading off a full-court anti-2A press. When the Democrat Party loses their hienies in just more than a week, they will be reallly angry. Here it comes, folks. Be Prepared.

 

[MKEgal]

Let's try to keep politics out of the discussion, & work on facts.

No other manufacturer or retailer of property is held accountable for what customers who buy their property do with it once it leaves the store. IIRC, cars kill something like 61 times the number of people that guns do, yet nobody is going after Ford or local dealers and howling to regulate cars more.


Be sure to vote in their poll:
http://views.washingtonpost.com/pos...tores-responsible-for-crime.html?hpid=topnews
As of 21:50 on 24OCT, it's running 55% saying no, gun stores are not accountable for crimes committed with the guns they sell.

From the comments, most people seem fairly reasonable, understanding that it's criminals who commit crimes, not their tools.

 

[SAvage410]

Just sent this off to the Post

Let's see if it gets published:

I just read your first article concerning the Hidden Life of Guns. If I may be so bold as to summarize:

1) Certain gun stores have higher incidences of so-called "crime guns" that are traced back to them.
2) The number one store mentioned, Realco, has been subject to numerous inspections over the years, every one of which revealed that Realco has scrupulously complied with the law, and that most "crime guns" traced back to the store have therefor been the result of illegal "straw purchases", of which Realco had no knowledge when the original purchase was made.
3)The guns are traced back when a person who is legally barred from having a weapon is in fact found to be in possession of such a weapon.

So basically you've spent the last year putting together an investigative series demonstrating that Realco operates in an area where the local citizenry goes out of its way to circumvent or outright subvert the law. You are then shocked and amazed that people willing to break the law to purchase a weapon that they are legally barred from owning further break the law by using the weapon to murder, maim, or intimidate (which, I believe are also illegal).

Good work folks!

 

[since9]

Let's try to keep politics out of the discussion...

...in a section that's titled "News and Political Alerts?"

You're not serious... Are you?

From the comments, most people seem fairly reasonable, understanding that it's criminals who commit crimes, not their tools.

I think it would be a lot higher than it's current 56% if the paper were more widely read by conservatives. It's a predominently liberal paper, so the poll is actually quite telling.

Savage410 - nice letter!

 

[Alexcabbie]

What really got my goat is that although the article emphasized murder and mayhem, a "crime gun" is defined by them as any gun seized incident to a crime. Of the almost two thousand "gun crimes" listed, only - what, 89? - were homicides. There were hundreds of "assaults" - of which many were doubtless committed with some other instrument and in which the firearm was just present at the scene (such as a domestic assault). In the drug cases there is no doubt whatsoever that the firearm was only peripherially involved, except maybe if someone was smoking pot out of a shotgun barrel ala Vietnam.

Almost half the total incidents were unlawful possession arrests, in which no violence at all was involved. In fact, in the "drug" cases, the firearm was probably siezed as being "unlawfully possessed", and the incident was counted in both categories.

This "Post investigation" is not an effort to expose the truth, but rather a naked attempt to prop up a lie (duh).

Here's a fact - the only real fact - that can be taken from that article:

100+ gun stores surveyed/investigated

89 gun murders

Number of murder weapons sold per store? less than one.

And certainly the percent of murder weapons vs. the total sales for the period looked into would put the percentage of sales at less than one percent.

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Especially manufactured, cooked, and delibrately skewed and misrepresented statistics.

.

 

[swinokur]

I find it amusing that none of the straw buyers in this article were prosecuted. Huh? They are complicit along with the perps. The Post didn't bother to ask why either.

Blaming the dealer is like the antis blaming the gun for these crimes. How about the CRIMINALS getting blamed? Liberals won't do that.

Nothing new here. Anyone with half a brain can see right through this. But liberals don't even have half a brain.

They should outlaw spoons because they cause obesity

 

[Alexcabbie]

Today the Post threw in the "Saturday Night Special" canard, especially going after the HiPoint series of pistols, insinuating that only a sleazy sale-hungry shop owner would stock such a cheap weapon.

A BATFE Agent did make one valid point: If there is a large number of guns sold at one shop in particular which end up at crime scenes within days or weeks, then yes, there is some funny business going on. But there are means of cconducting an investigation in order to (1) figure out if the dealer himself is knowingly involved in shennannigans; and if he is cleared (2) obtaining his co-operation in setting up surveillances and stings of suspected straw purchasers. The ABC does something similar when alcoholic beverage containers are traced back to a certain store time after time when they are found in the hands of minors (Yes, you can ID a particular store via the lot and case numbers stamped onto the containers or (in the case of liquor) the serial number on the tax stamp that seals the bottle)

The real reason criminals use these shops are that they are convenient. Close them, and the next-closest 40 shops will wind up making these sales. Nobody is going to drive five miles to spend the same amount for the same thing he can get with a ten-block walk. Maybe the Post strategy is to close concentric rings of gun stores until there are none left.

Shop owners should IMO make the place at least LOOK like some of their best customers are cops. Put some ads for police equipment in the windows, offer LE discounts, flank the "OPEN" sign with red and blue flashers, :exclaim::idea: even offer a work station/break room for the cops, the better to have it known that Five-O could come waltzing in at any time. And if Officer Dibble comes in and sees Top Cat in there.... The local cops know the local troublemakers.

If the local mooks know there's a good chance the cops will spot them buying, or one of their associates buing for them, they will go to another gun store. It won't keep them from obtaining a gun, but it will end the fiction that that store in particular is the source of murder weapons and the insinuation that putting it out of business will save lives.

 

[since9]

Gotta love the Washington Putz. Not much change since it's cleverly disquized daze in the 1980s back when I was in college.

 

[ixtow]

It's only natural that guns that can be 'traced' are traced to the USA, because we're the only ones who keep useful, traceable records in the first place.

Herp a Derp....

 

[Alexcabbie]

As far as the Mexican drug cartels go, it is patently obvious that the simple expedient of legalizing the production, sale, posession and consumption of marijuana (or "marihuana" as certain archaic crininal codes would have it) would put a major dent in the cartels' buisiness model.

One thing the USA still has it over every other nation on earth is agriculture. A recent Washington Post article revealed that the domestic producers of "medical" (ho ho ho) pot in California are currently cultivating strains with THC content surpassing the legendary "Thai Stick" benchmark of my late 20s.

Marijuana is to the narcotraficantes what gasoline is to an automotive repair shop - a way to pay the overhead. We can grow the best, strongest and most desirable marijuana on the freaking planet. The stuff could be marketed and taxed as cigarettes, pipe filler, or baking spice to be used in pot roast, pot pies, and pot cheese peyote popovers. Old Uncle Sugar could get sweet again on that revenue. And the narco-hoods could be left trying to explain to their peons why there isn't enough revenue to pay them. But nooooooooo....

No, make it all about guns. Some liberal reading this is going to ask what will happen when American gun owners can legally ingest cannabis. The answer is: NOTHING. Any responsible gun owner knows better than to handle a firearm when impaired. A jerk who would use pot and handle a firearm under the influence would do the same no matter the intoxicant. Yelling "fire" in a crowded venue may indeed result in injury, but nobody in his right mind would advocate sewing everyone's mouth shut to prevent that exigiency. Yet the "progressive" response to everything bad has always been "tax and ban".

The recent elections give hope that finally the People have awakened. Expect a concerted effort to distract them and lull them back to sleep.

 

[PT111]

Let's try to keep politics out of the discussion, & work on facts.

No other manufacturer or retailer of property is held accountable for what customers who buy their property do with it once it leaves the store. IIRC, cars kill something like 61 times the number of people that guns do, yet nobody is going after Ford or local dealers and howling to regulate cars more.


Be sure to vote in their poll:
http://views.washingtonpost.com/pos...tores-responsible-for-crime.html?hpid=topnews
As of 21:50 on 24OCT, it's running 55% saying no, gun stores are not accountable for crimes committed with the guns they sell.

From the comments, most people seem fairly reasonable, understanding that it's criminals who commit crimes, not their tools.

Am I reading your example correctly about cars not being regulated for safety????????? Right off hand I can't think of anything on a car anymore that isn't a government controlled safety standard even down to what colors the interior lights can be. And government mandated recalls, the firearm industry is the only one that isn't subject to that. Also do you want to compare the number of lawsuits against the auto industry to that of the firearm industry. The whole reason for the modern design of the accelerator pedal was because women couldn't keep their high heel from getting stuck under the gas pedal. Have you noticed the new design of power window switches? Because someone found that a child could put their knee on the old power window switch and cause the window to raise the window and trap them. Several lawsuits about that involving both dealers and manufactures.

 

[The Donkey]

As far as the Mexican drug cartels go, it is patently obvious that the simple expedient of legalizing the production, sale, posession and consumption of marijuana (or "marihuana" as certain archaic crininal codes would have it) would put a major dent in the cartels' buisiness model.

One thing the USA still has it over every other nation on earth is agriculture. A recent Washington Post article revealed that the domestic producers of "medical" (ho ho ho) pot in California are currently cultivating strains with THC content surpassing the legendary "Thai Stick" benchmark of my late 20s.

Marijuana is to the narcotraficantes what gasoline is to an automotive repair shop - a way to pay the overhead. We can grow the best, strongest and most desirable marijuana on the freaking planet. The stuff could be marketed and taxed as cigarettes, pipe filler, or baking spice to be used in pot roast, pot pies, and pot cheese peyote popovers. Old Uncle Sugar could get sweet again on that revenue. And the narco-hoods could be left trying to explain to their peons why there isn't enough revenue to pay them. But nooooooooo....

No, make it all about guns. Some liberal reading this is going to ask what will happen when American gun owners can legally ingest cannabis. The answer is: NOTHING. Any responsible gun owner knows better than to handle a firearm when impaired. A jerk who would use pot and handle a firearm under the influence would do the same no matter the intoxicant. Yelling "fire" in a crowded venue may indeed result in injury, but nobody in his right mind would advocate sewing everyone's mouth shut to prevent that exigiency. Yet the "progressive" response to everything bad has always been "tax and ban".

The recent elections give hope that finally the People have awakened. Expect a concerted effort to distract them and lull them back to sleep.

+1: A Thai Stick for Alex, except for the gratuitous jab at "progressives", but even that is forgiven because I know he cannot help himself.

Must be the brain damage . . .

 

[Dreamer]

I would like to see a similar "study" about automobiles done by the Post. Imagine if they traced EVERY vehicle which had it's plates run back to it's original dealer. I'd imagine that almost EVERY single vehicle in the DC metro area would, under this definition, be considered a "crime-related car".

If running a trace on an inanimate object automatically qualifies it as "crime-related", even if no crime is suspected or no charges are filed, then I imagine there are few (if ANY) vehicles in the DC metro area that do NOT fall under this definition, because MD and DC are both using automated license-plate reading systems mounted on their cruisers now, which read EVERY plate they see, and run them to see if there are any outstanding tickets, warrants, or violations.

The 4th Amendment has been unceremoniously flushed down the crapper, folks, and in any places, you are AUTOMATICALLY considered to be "guilty of something" until proven innocent...

 

[MKEgal]

No other manufacturer or retailer of property is held accountable for what customers who buy their property do with it once it leaves the store.

Am I reading your example correctly about cars not being regulated for safety?????????

No, I said that car makers or dealers are not held responsible when someone runs down their ex or uses it to get away from a robbery or something like that - when the car is used to commit a crime, similar to how gun stores are being vilified when something they've sold is used in a crime.

 

[OldCurlyWolf]

+1: A Thai Stick for Alex, except for the gratuitous jab at "progressives", but even that is forgiven because I know he cannot help himself.

Must be the brain damage . . .

However gratuitous his jab at progressives may be, the brain damage belongs to the "progressives" as progresivism/liberalism is a well known mental disease.

Shall we call them mentally challenged?

 

[The Donkey]

However gratuitous his jab at progressives may be, the brain damage belongs to the "progressives" as progresivism/liberalism is a well known mental disease.

Shall we call them mentally challenged?

I dispute your diagnosis, doctor.

 

[OldCurlyWolf]

Donkey

You are free to dispute as you wish, however that position is unfounded and unsupportable.

 

[The Donkey]

You are free to dispute as you wish, however that position is unfounded and unsupportable.

Some positions provide stronger support than others:

 

[OldCurlyWolf]

Some positions provide stronger support than others:



View attachment 4676

I know. I have those positions.

 

[The Donkey]

I know. I have those positions.

Like this position?