Who's Fearmongering Now ??

[Roland of Gilead]

Ol' Jill's at it again.

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/loca...eed_death.html

(NB: merge if necessary, didn't see this anywhere else though.)

[thundrr1]

I sent Jill an email and asked her to please stop spreading the misconception that handguns are being sold at gun shows with no background check. I'm eager to see if she reads it and if she'll reply.

porterj@phillynews.com

George

[PocketProtector]

They will tell any lie, twist any fact, to advance their agenda.

[Jon1911]

I emailed her...but my stance is not exactly clear. I wonder if she'll respond, I didn't exactly ask a question.

I'm not sure why everyone concentrates on gun shows, private citizens can transfer firearms without any formal paperwork in most states in this country. They could do so at a gun show, bingo night, their dining room, or in the church parking lot.

I don't understand the fascination with gun shows.

[wils91]

"Sure, I know: many are legal guns, bought by responsible gun owners who don't kill people, blah blah blah."

i'd sure like to **** punt this bitch...it seems that they know there are alot of repsonsible gun owners but they don't give a crap and they continue to spew more and more crap from their pie holes

damn gun show thing...
the majority of purchases i see going on at gun shows are people buying from dealers who do a background check.

[imperialism2024]

I think I might neg rep the OP for not putting a "duct tape" warning on the thread...

*glues skull back together*



But seriously, regardless of the incredibly inaccurate tidbits passed off as "fact", this column is a turd of journalism. For some reason, those most adamant about restricting gun ownership seem unable to write coherent editorials. They seem to think that their credibility is directly proportional to the number of anti-gun catchphrases they use, and the number of unrelated statistics involving guns that they can list. It's rare that I read an anti-gun piece and think, "Hmpf, that was actually well-written". In fact, the only such instance occurred with a piece that only mildly anti-gun, and the writer seemed to searching for a "compromise" of sorts... don't remember what it was about or who wrote it, though.

[Warpt762x39]

I emailed her. You think I made any kind of point?

Miss Porter,

I recently read your article about the increase in the number of gun owners in this country and was disgusted by your point of view. As a reporter you should be reporting news that is actually backed up by true facts. Not these "claims" that gun ownership is the root of all evil. Even Ghandi was disgusted at the British disarmament of the people of India.

This country has 22,000+ gun laws on the books. If you can't stop crime with 22,000+ chances, then more of the same is not going to help. What we need is more and better trained Law Enforcement Officers and a Judicial system that punishes those who commit a crime and makes them serve their sentence.

What we do not need is more laws infringing on the rights of LAW ABIDING citizens. Criminals are criminals because they chose to ignore the laws already on the books and cause others harm. There are millions of gun owners in this country who have never committed a crime and are peaceable people who want the ability to protect themselves from the scum of the earth who have no respect for the law or the lives of others.

Only when the criminals know that committing a crime is hazardous to them, will they think twice about breaking into someones home, or raping a woman. Studies have shown the criminals do not fear running into a police officer during the commission of a crime. What they DO fear the most is picking a victim who is ready, willing and able to keep from becoming a victim.

Many people like you who were anti gun had their minds changed by a violent attack on either themselves or someone close to them. People like you say that the police are hear to protect us. Tell me how many police officers went into Columbine High School to stop the rampage started by two teenage boys who broke dozens of laws doing what they did? How many police officers were there to stop the gunman in the Virginia Tech Massacre?

The church shooting near Denver was stopped by a CIVILIAN who was carrying a personal firearm for self defense. Had that woman not stepped in when she did, more would have died.

Even with as many crimes committed with guns, they save more lives each year than are taken. In many cases the mear presence of an armed victim has stopped an attacker in their tracks.

Part of the reason more people are becoming gun owners is that our justice system has failed miserably to keep violent criminals off the street and we, myself included, are sick of having to live through the ordeals of being victimized only to have the police show up too late if at all.

You may think that this country has started relying on others for everything from protection to paying our mortgage but guess what? We are tired of it. Millions of people have given up any and all faith in the federal government because it is broken, ineffective and inefficient. More and more people are starting to take responsibility for their own lives. And that includes protecting ourselves from those who the government has failed to punish, learning to take responsiblity for our own bad decisions and learning that the federal government is getting a little too big for its britches.

This country was built on the idea of being self sufficient and over the generations a lot of that has been forgotten. Many times not because we want to be coddled and babied by the government but because of lies and deceit from the government we were convinced to trust. The biggest lie in history would have to be the line "I'm from the government and I am here to help."

I refuse to trust anyone who cannot even take care of their own business. That includes politicians and ignorant, biased journalists such as yourself. Your lies are being seen for what they are, lies. So do not be surprised when your opinion no longer matters.

Sincerely
(Warpt762x39)

[King 5.45]

For what it's worth, I gave Jill a piece of my mind, too:

Darn it, Jill, you disappointed me.

There I was, all charmed and happy that you were being honorably truthful about some serious warping of the truth and hijinks in a case involving firearms, even if you didn't press the cops to know why all of those legal firearms hadn't been returned to their owner. Hell, I was so proud of you that I was practically gushing, and generated this example of verklempt rapture over your honorable admissions:

http://forum.pafoa.org/general-2/482...tml#post609809

Let's be very clear here. A big part of me wishes that Scruggs and vermin like him wouldn't make it to the hospital, much less a hearing room, but when push comes to shove, we all deserve the recourse of proper justice, the accused and the victims alike. Fortunately, Mumia aside, when the evidence weighs heavily against the favor of the defendants, justice is served, as it should be. When the police and the court system function in proper fashion, you might even call them, um, agents of justice, all of those little cogs being the individual cops, bailiffs, clerks, judges, court reporters, corrections officers, and others who participate in this not-so-tidy little continuum.

Yes, I agree, we are suffering an indecent, violent plague upon humanity, but its agent of destruction is not, and I repeat, not the gun. Instead, it's the animal who picks it up, destroys or maims another human being, and then goes on to do it again, given the leniency of the parole system, the overcrowding in correctional facilities, and an early out from the authorities. Unless, of course, and I say this not to be sarcastic, the victim is a police officer or a person of note. Then, and only then, can we count on the criminal getting the full rap and disappearing deeper into the system than a dungeon dweller in Johnny Hart's Wizard of Id.

Back to the plague: it was a matter of microscopic little critters inside fleas, who hopped on rats, the two of them helping in the life-cycle of these critters who wiped out a huge chunk of Europe. But which of them was the Scruggs in their situation, and which the pistol? Ultimately, the critters did the killing, leaving nasty buboes all over the place and filling wheelbarrows from Calais to Prague. They simply harnessed the fleas and the rats as a delivery system. It may seem a cold analogy, but there it is. The fleas and rats by themselves could have done nothing more than make medieval life slightly more miserable, which is a lot more than you can say about an inert collection of metallic and other components that can do nothing without a human finger.

Jill, it's been said more times than McDonald's has filled paper sacks full of french fries:that people kill, not guns. It's a great if inconvenient truth, it's still true, and it always will be. I share your grief and anger, but I cannot share your departure from that very simple logic. Less guns will not change a Scruggs in the least, and even Mayor Nutter recognized this when he stated, if not a little bravely, that he wanted to see the culture of the city changed.

It's the depraved culture that we need to work on, but the nature of that depravity is very much in contest between the two camps on opposite ends of the firearms question. Some would call me depraved for owning firearms and curse me up one side and down the other without even having made my acquaintance. Surely such incivility is, in itself, a function of that very depravity that we both oppose, is it not? But removing firearms from the equation isn't a cure for what ails the inner city, it's only a treatment for symptoms that penalizes others and denies them the right to self-defense from the very Scruggs who would wreak so much havoc, armed with a gun, or not.

It's easier to demonize an object, Jill. Objects don't vote, and the ones that are in question aren't the root of the evils afflicting Philadelphia and other cities. Oh, we need hope, yes, but we need, among other things, an end to machine politics, cronyism, no-show jobs, kickbacks, bribes, ward pecking lists, and other ills that are the trademark of city politics, and always have been, right down to the block captain level. We need to tear down and begin again, but pols are loath to tell their constituents that they might just be a large part of the problem, because unlike guns, they vote. In a town where practically everyone is constantly saying "Where's mine?" that pie just never gets cut up into enough slices to take care of everybody.

I mourn the loss of Officer Pawlowski, but in my mind's eye, when I look from behind him in the moment of his sacrifice for the people of Philadelphia and visualize Scruggs, I see a massive, decades-old pile of gangrenous, untreated social ills in a mound behind the actor, too, but strangely enough, no guns, save the one in his hand. The gun was the tool, Scruggs the agent of Pawlowski's death, but also symptomatic of what ails Philly and other big cities. Until we sufficiently cure that, we can expect more solemnity, suffering, and long lines of our police officers mourning the end of watch of one of their own.

[Siobhra]

I emailed her and told her that I sold a gun to someone else. I put the gun on sale on a community bulletin board and when contacted we agreed to meet in the front of your paper. The sale and transfer of the gun took place at your newspaper. A lot of gun sales are done at the location of various news media.

We gun owners jokingly call it the "Press Loophole".

Why don't you call the so called loophole the press loophole or the church loophole? (I once bought a gun at a Unitarian Church).

[Bug44]

I want to walk up and say
"Your opinionated lies are fueling the fear fire in America"
(Slap)


haha Sorry couldn’t resist