So. Fla. Sun-Sentinel: Slams Hysterics Over Gun Banning While Advocating Gun Banning


Seriously, do the kindly folks at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s editorial board even know what the definition of the word logic is? In theirs headlined, “Hysteria fuels sales of guns and ammo,” the Sun-Sentinel takes Floridians to task for being so stupid as to be afraid of Obama’s gun banning plans, claiming that Obama “didn’t do it.” But, even after telling readers no one wants to ban guns, the piece ends with the Sun-Sentinel editorial board advocating for the banning of guns! So the message is, no one wants a gun ban but we should ban guns? This is the sort of logical disconnect that fuels the very “hysteria” that the paper is claiming to want to dispel.

And this ridiculous about face isn’t the only illogical idea or uninformed claim the piece makes, either. Just about every word in this piece proves that the editorial board of the Sun-Sentinel is wholly uninformed about the Constitution and the technical aspects of firearms, not to mention being uninformed about the various gun banning bills floating about Congress and the several states at this very moment.

The piece begins sarcastically telling South Floridians to “get a grip. Not on their weapons, but on their senses,” because of the run on purchases of ammo and guns that has swept the country since Obama’s election.

First, there was the big run on guns, both locally and nationally, when it was feared the Obama administration would quickly enact tougher gun legislation that would make it difficult to own guns.

Didn’t happen. And doesn’t figure to happen, particularly since the Supreme Court has reinforced the right of an individual to bear arms.

What does the Sun-Sentinal mean when they say that Obama’s gun ban “didn’t happen”? Is the Sun-Sentinel saying that because Obama didn’t get around to addressing guns in these first 35 days of his term in office that it is a foregone conclusion that he won’t do so? Are they seriously trying to claim that because four whole weeks have passed without the Obama administration’s first moves on the subject then we can all rest assured that he will NEVER make such a move? What an absurd premise. Obama has also not moved on actually closing Guantanamo Bay (despite his toothless Executive Order) nor has he made a move on the payoff to Big Labor with the Employee Free Choice Act. Are we to assume that he will never address these issues since he didn’t do it in the first 35 days of his presidency?

Come on, Sun-Sentinel, are you really that foolish? Or is it that you think the readers are really that stupid?

Then we get this illogical paragraph:

One firearms shop manager in Davie told the Sun Sentinel he received a shipment of five 1,000-round boxes of .223 caliber rifle cartridges, and sold all five boxes in one day. At $450 a box. During a recession. A Delray Beach shop manager said customers were buying rounds for AR-15s and AK-47s in large quantities, and said “the rumor mill’s going nuts.”

Did the Sun-Sentinel use incorrect words on purpose to make its story sound more dramatic? First of all a “1,000-round box” is not a box, but a crate that holds 50 boxes of ammunition. A box of .223 caliber cartridges only contains 20 rounds. Secondly, the story makes it sound as if a single customer pad “$450 a box,” but that is the cost of the entire crate of cartridges, not the cost of the individual boxes of cartridges (the cost is closer to $25 for a box of 20 rounds). More likely, customers bought several boxes apiece, none of them spending the “$450″ that the entire crate costs as cited by the story.

The Sun-Sentinel then uses it faulty accounting of ammo sold to make a wild conclusion:

As for who is buying the ammo, a Pompano Beach dealer said, “Everybody. Your normal Joe is now buying four, five boxes…”

Which means that in South Florida, the “normal Joe” who lives next-door might be filling up a spare room with ammo for an AR-15. Hardly a calming thought.

So that “normal Joe” who is, according to the Sun-Sentinel, “filling up a spare room with ammo,” did so with “four or five boxes” of ammo? So, a guy that just bought five boxes of ammo containing 120 rounds — a haul that takes up about a 20 inch square space — is “filling” a room with ammo? Those must be some awfully small rooms!! Or, as is actually the case, the Sun-Sentinel is taking leave of facts and indulging in hysteria.

The Sun-Sentinel also seems to think that the .223 round is exclusively for “military-style assault weapons.” But apparently the Sun-Sentinel is unaware that this is a common round for small rifles used for “varmint” hunting and target practice. In fact, it is one of the most popular calibers in the entire country, hardly just for military purposes.

Now this idiotic example of uninformed blather begins by scoffing at anyone worried that banning guns is in the offing. It says that citizens rushing to gun stores to buy guns and ammo are stupidly falling prey to “hysteria.” No one wants to ban guns, the reader is sternly scolded. And then the Sun-Sentinel ends its piece with this:

Semi-automatic weapons should be banned, because the “normal Joe” simply doesn’t need one, for protection or anything else. But the ban has expired, and having more guns and ammo on the streets simply makes South Florida a more dangerous place, for cops and regular citizens alike.

It’s time for the hysteria to stop.

BOTTOM LINE: No need for this craziness.

Now isn’t that a head spinner? The piece begins by pointing out the stupidity of fears about gun bans, yet it ends advocating for a gun ban?

So, um… doesn’t the end nullify the beginning? Doesn’t the advocacy for banning guns substantiate the fears and “hysteria” that the piece was supposed to be dampening?

On top of all of this, we see the Sun-Sentinel using the gun banner’s biggest lie by pretending that the word “semi-automatic” is a meaningful way to separate what are ostensibly “normal” guns (i.e. guns for hunting, target practice and protection purposes) from “military arms.” The truth is, however, that the words “semi-automatic” do not describe the purpose of a gun. There are all sorts of guns that are semi-automatic that have no military application whatever. It would be like claiming that cars with automatic transmissions should be banned because the military uses the automatic transmission in some of its vehicles.

Sadly, it seems the anti-Constitutional left has succeeded in making those uniformed about the reality of guns duly frightened by misusing words where guns are concerned.

Additionally, it is simply a statistical untruth that access to legal guns and ammunition automatically makes a community a “more dangerous place, for cops and regular citizens alike.” There is no place in this country where a wild upswing in violence has been seen when guns become widely legal and more freely available to the citizenry.

But, even the bland assurances of the Sun-Sentinel is not nearly enough to dissuade worry about the march of gun banners everywhere. Currently there is the “Blair Holt” bill (H.R. 45) sitting ready to be addressed in the House of Representatives. This bill is a sweeping gun bill that goes far in restrictions on gun ownership. And as to Obama, there is ample evidence of his warm feelings for gun banners. Aside from Obama’s entire anti-Second Amendment legislative history, there is his latest pick of Gil Kerlikowske as the next so-called drug czar. Kerlikowske is a long-time foe of Second Amendments rights. Then, back in Obama’s home town Chicago, there is Illinois State Representative Kenneth Dunkin that wants to create an expensive new form of indemnity insurance that gun owners will be forced to purchase to be “allowed” to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Examples like this criss-cross the country, so its not easy to agree with the Sun-Sentinel that gun banners are non-existent.

No, what he have here is a newspaper editorial board that is at the same time woefully uninformed of the facts about guns, yet seem to imagine that its strong opinion is one worth heeding nonetheless. The Sun-Sentinel’s anti-gun hysteria is, indeed, some “craziness” that should stop.


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10 Comments Leave a comment

Terrific work

kowalski (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 7:21AM EST (link)

Terrific work and I’ve been watching your other posts on the subject in the past month. We’re all going to need to be more engaged with this subject in the near future. The first two shots across the bow came from Illinois, by Bobby Rush and another state legislator you wrote about, Kenneth Dunkin. The Sun Sentinel is doing a vast disservice to its readers by fudging the facts and misstating the case again.

There are several ways people can respond effectively. One of the best, of course, is to join the NRA and other bonafide organizations that exist to protect and defend your 2nd Amendment rights. The other is to have the facts on your side, and I can recommend that everyone read the latest version of Gunfacts, version 5.0.

It’s actually a little frightening that the Sun Sentinel argues that because Obama didn’t sign an executive order banning private firearm ownership in his first weeks in office, that’s an indication that he won’t sign legislation accomplishing the same thing in the fullness of time. If Obama had done such a thing, he would rightly have been called a dictator. The fact that he didn’t act as a dictator in his first month of office is no reason to rest easy, and it’s perverse to imagine the editors of the Sun Sentinel construing “not a dictator” being equivalent to “good President.” The Democrat legislative strategy to accomplish the same ends is a little more nuanced than that; however we are all going to see in the next few years that the goal is nothing less than that.

Thanks for the article. And remember folks: it’s a bad economy right now, but the $25 membership fee is well-spent. At the very least, sign up for NRA-ILA Legislative Alerts so that you can be aware.

I was knocked over...

Warner Todd Huston (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 7:27AM EST (link)

Yeah, I too was knocked over by the idiotic assumption that because Obama hadn’t done anything about guns in his first 35 days that we should dismiss talk of Democrat attacks on 2nd Amendment rights. It is the most childish and just plain stupid claims I’ve ever seen in print… well, that didn’t come from Mad Magazine or Mother Jones and other such fabulist entertainment, anyway.

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Today, I am cancelling my Sun-Sentinel subscription in a very vocal manner.

Kenny Solomon (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 7:49AM EST (link)

Hi.

By now I think y’all know I live in South Flori-duh. Broward County near Ft. Lauderdale.

When I saw this lovely editorial yesterday, my first thought was to call the paper that minute and cancel.

Then, I realized the editorial was anonymous…… Cowards.

My next thought was a tad more special, so I acted on that. I’ll call the paper and cancel today–with a follow-up letter to the parent corporation as to my reasons (this editorial was the camel that broke my straw back).

What was my next thought, you ask ?

I went shopping and returned with a rifle, 6 extended capacity magazines, a scope, hard case, another (weapon-specific) cleaning kit and “a few” rounds of ammunition (FMJ and JHP).

;-)

Cheers !

And did...

Warner Todd Huston (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 7:50AM EST (link)

And did you fill a room with ammo just to celebrate??

LOL

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Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius’ Forum. It’s what’s happening NOW!

You know there's something going on when

Achance (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 8:58AM EST (link)

even in a place as remote from big city Lefty craziness as Juneau, AK, the WalMart started putting case lots of ammunition on the most prominent end cap. Mind you, in Alaska even lefty Democrats are NRA Life Members and the state long ago formed a militia seperate from the NG structure for the express purpose of people being able to join in order to remain armed. They had a good price on 200 rd. boxes of Remington .223, so I bought a “few” just in case. All the thinking here is that to get around the Constitution and the various state constitutions and statutes, the US will just go the taxation route on ammunition and then predicate US social welfare money of some sort on the states imposing insurance requirements. There’ll be a nice propaganda campaign on how much injuries from gun violence are costing ERs and Medicare/Medicaid and they’ll find some children that have been killed in gun violence to tug at weak minds. ‘Course it will never be mentioned that most of that is Black or Hispanic on Black or Hispanic gang violence and rarely is a legally owned weapon involved.

I’d be willing to bet that the editor(s) that wrote that don’t own guns and haven’t a clue what a semi-automatic weapon is other than some vague association with being black and ominous looking.

In Vino Veritas

Oh, something is DEFINITELY going on

alchemist17 (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 10:21AM EST (link)

I’m up in the liberal nature preserve known as Massachusetts, and even here gun/ammo sales are through the roof. I had a brief chat with a distributor who noted that it seems like just about everyone is looking for an AR now – not just in Florida/Texas/Alaska, but also in Massachusetts, Hawaii, etc.

One would think that a government that generates so much animosity that substantial numbers of its citizens are aggressively arming themselves in the face of a depression might stop to think about why this is. But I suppose that would require rational thought and introspection, something I doubt Democrats are still capable of.

 
 
 
 

2 rooms full of ammo.

Kenny Solomon (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 8:00AM EST (link)

I have more than 1 firearm.

:)

 

They're whistling past the graveyard

MikeO Wednesday, February 25th at 10:25AM EST (link)

Or they’re shouting into the rising storm–whatever you want to call it.

An instructor I had in high school, a grizzled retired field artillery sergeant-major was stationed in Berlin when the Soviets were building the wall. He told me that the Berlin Brigade was on constant alert, and when off rotation, the combat arms soldiers would get drunk outside the MP barracks, yelling and hollering about how, when the Soviets attacked, the line units would massacre all the MPs first. I chuckled, assuming it was a joke. He didn’t even crack a smile.

What I think you are missing here by arguing the empirical evidence favoring RKBA is that the sentiment behind Rick Santelli’s Tea Party is scaring the lefty elites. They have been drawing lines to pit race against race and class against class. That works for them because these conflicts breed reliable voting blocs at the polls. The tea party concept, on the other hand, draws the line between the responsible and the irresponsible, and if every American is forced to choose a side, we will end-up with the capable against the incapable.

Before the election, James Carville got on TV and threatened riots if McCain won the election. I bought enough canned food and water to last us a couple of weeks. I filled two bathtubs with water for sanitation. I also bought enough ammunition to defend my household until order returns. I didn’t expect things to go wrong, but Carville’s threat made a failure to prepare unreasonable.

When porkulus first passed in the House, and I caught-on to the fact that the 52-percenters are going to rob me blind using the monopoly of force granted to an increasingly collectivist government, I started eating my stockpiled canned food in favor of stockpiling more ammo. Again, I don’t expect a collapse, but the signs are there.

The difference between then and now? Back then, I still harbored illusions of a coming-together-in-the-face-of-adversity, cooperate-and-graduate response to civil disorder. Now, should things break-down, I have a do-unto-others-before-they-do-unto me mindset, and I will take what I need from those I hold responsible for this situation.

“It’s time for the hysteria to stop.”

Indeed. I’ve ended my rosy-viewed hysteria of mistaking my domestic enemies as merely misguided fellow countrymen.

 

I wonder if the Sun-Sentinel is

RJD (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 10:37AM EST (link)

still going to attempt to introduce pay-to-read content. There was a plan to do so last year, but so far, I haven’t read anything else about it.

The Miami Herald, now a McClatchy paper, is a slightly better paper, though its focus is Miami-Dade, not Broward county.

Letter to the Editor of the Sun-Sentinel or e-mail letters@sun-sentinel.com

 

Assault against the 2nd Amendment

mizzoutiger Wednesday, March 11th at 4:04PM EST (link)

I think it is ridiculous that the government is trying to ban semi-automatic weapons. How many more of our rights are they going to infringe upon. I found a video that compiles perspectives from across the nation about this controversial issue.

http://www.newsy.com/