Ravenwood - 03/03/08 06:00 AM
The Virginian-Pilot is beginning their assault on gun rights with a page dedicated to Virginia's gun culture. They include a series of anti-gun articles and a time-line that starts in 1918. (As if guns didn't exist before then.) Pull the trigger on their semi-automatic animation and you get the three-shot burst of a machine-gun.
They research Virginia's gun freedom like it's an anachronism and lament the lack of gun control. They study gun owners like you would a gorilla at the zoo. They claim their agenda is to provide information to readers about where we are now and where we might be headed, but the tone of narrator's voice in the video lets you know what side they are on. Listen to the surprise in the reporters voice when she laments that law-abiding gun owners have even "greater freedom" in the wake of mass shootings. She then expresses shock and begins listing all the (gasp) legal places Virginians can carry guns.
Not once do they mention places that are off limits to carrying guns. They don't mention that a person can lose their gun freedom because of misdemeanor charges, or that dealers can lose their business because forms are filled out with "N" instead of "No". She doesn't mention that you can be arrested for driving on Virginia's GW Parkway with a gun, or that your concealed carry permit is no good when you go out to dinner.
They also don't mention the lives that guns save. They don't talk about women being murdered after getting a restraining order, or civilians using guns to thwart criminals. They don't mention gun control's racist roots, born out of the civil war as a way to keep free blacks from getting too uppity. So far there is a lot left out.
The four part special begins today, but if the introductory video is any guide it appears to be pretty one-sided.
Speaking of places off limits to carrying guns, we shop at Ikea in Woodbridge fairly often (being part Swedish, I'm fond of the items I get in the Swedish food market there).
Well, today we went looking for some baby bathroom items. And saw that they had no guns sign on the front door.
Apparantly, I was breaking their rules. Oh well, concealed is concealed.
You know things really go downhill when an anti-gun organization builds a skyscraper in NY out of guns. http://www.ungun.org.
Posted by: Anti-Gun at March 2, 2008 11:32 PMI love how it's called the "Peace and Love" tower. I hate to break it to ya, but it's hard to have peace without guns. There's a reason it's called a "peacemaker".
Great satiracle site.
Posted by: Ravenwood at March 3, 2008 7:41 AMI've actually met the reporter. She has showed up to a number of Opencarry.org dinners down in Hampton Roads to speak with members. She also spent a lot of time talking with many of us during the "lie-in" on Lobby Day.
I do believe that no one can completely shed lifetime biases overnight. But those of us who have met her really believe that she is trying to give fair coverage to both sides, and just present the arguments for, and against, guns so that the readers can make up their own minds.
Posted by: Laughingdog at March 3, 2008 10:59 AM"First handheld machine gun" is wrong, of course. There were various experiments by inventors in making handheld machine guns. They didn't all work well, of course, but they were trying.
I heard John Browning once converted a lever-action rifle to full-auto...
Posted by: Alcibiades McZombie at March 3, 2008 4:58 PMPresumably they are referring to the Tommy gun as the first popular mass-produced handheld machine gun.
But you are correct that the wording makes it sound like that's when it was invented.
That they even have a timeline of mass shootings shows where they are coming from. They equate guns with mass murder.
Posted by: Ravenwood at March 3, 2008 5:03 PMWell, there were also German MP18s that just saw action at the end of WWI.
Plus, there were BARs and Chauchat rifles. Those were technically handheld (kind of heavy, though).
Posted by: Alcibiades McZombie at March 3, 2008 6:00 PMHey, they just updated their timeline. It's somewhat accurate, though there are still errors.
They call the AK-47 an "assault weapon" (completely in context of assault rifles).
Is that 1950s (graphic says "1850s" for some reason) statement about handgun production true? Or was an increase in handgun production just a result of wartime shortages?
Posted by: Alcibiades McZombie at March 3, 2008 6:11 PM Countertop,
The entire mall complex is off limits to any form of weapon. You have been warned. But the cigar shop on the other side of McDonalds is another story. Probably the safest retail location in NoVa., outside of a gun shop. Don't know if you partake, but if you want to stop by to enjoy a Davidoff sometime, c'mon in. Might even have a little show-and-tell session.
"It's like the status symbol of the younger generation. They walk around like it's Dodge City."
Ravenwood's Law strikes again in part 3 of the series.
Posted by: Laughingdog at March 4, 2008 1:47 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
