Guns

On Monday, I noted how the Washington Post editorialized against repeal of Virginia's 1993 one-handgun-per-month law. The Post reasoned in its top March 1 editorial that without the law "straw purchasers" could "serve as front men for criminals who come to the state to buy guns in large quantities."But today, in a Metro section front page story, Post reporter Fredrick Kunkle noted that experts in…

Headlines can be an excellent window into the biases, albeit sometimes subtle, of editors. An AP story about a gun rights case, McDonald v. Chicago, challenging the Windy City's handgun ban before the Supreme Court today is one such example. "High court looks at reach of Second Amendment" reads the headline the Associated Press assigned its story by Mark Sherman. The AP's headline is pretty…

Print newspapers are an ecological nightmare, what with the trees felled to make them, the fossil fuels burned to print and then deliver them, and the tons of unrecycled paper that millions of Americans toss into the garbage instead of a recycling bin. As such, do newspapers really need to print everyday? Isn't once a week, say Sunday, the most popular day for newspaper reading, enough for most…

CNN's Ed Lavandera misrepresented "lost and stolen" gun ordinances passed by municipalities in Pennsylvania as "straw purchase ordinances" on Wednesday's American Morning, and hinted that gun rights supporters were somehow extreme. Lavandera also omitted that county and local governments in Pennsylvania cannot pass gun laws due to the state legislature preempting this area of regulation.The…

CNN's Ed Lavandera highlighted what gun control activists call the "iron pipeline" during a report on Tuesday's American Morning, where guns are obtained illegally through straw purchases, a felony offense under federal law, and smuggled to criminals who cannot legally purchase them. Lavandera never made it clear that such straw purchases are illegal during his report.Anchor John Roberts…

The popular chain coffee shop, Starbucks, is known for a lot of things, but up until recently guns were not one of them. Some patrons of the Seattle-based coffee shop have recently started exercising their rights to carrying guns while they enjoy a cup of coffee. While the Starbucks customers have been expressing their right to bear arms, as allowed by the Second Amendment, there has been some…

Nightline’s Brian Ross on Monday filed a hyperbolic report on "secret Jesus codes" that are on the sights of rifles used by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Ross featured two voices highly critical of the fact that Bible versus can be found on these weapons, but no clip of the opposing side. Ross repeated, "Michael Weinstein runs the Military Religious Freedom Foundation which claims thousands…

On Tuesday's The Ed Show, MSNBC host Ed Schultz fretted that NBA players who own firearms are setting a bad example for impressionable young people who may be inspired to emulate their athletic heroes and purchase guns of their own as he called on NBA commissioner David Stern to impose a rule that, "If you want to play in the NBA, you can`t own firearms because with the visibility comes the…

Tackling "The Myth That Democrats Are Soft on Crime," Newsweek's Ben Adler took to the magazine's The Gaggle blog to critique New York Times columnist Ross Douthat for his latest column. Adler praised Douthat for saying that conservatives need to "take ownership of prison reform" to "correct the system they helped build" but took strong exception to his suggestion that, even so, Democrats "still…

Cam Edwards giggled as he shared his "Headline of the Week" with his audience Friday night at NRANews.com. It comes from Indianapolis: "Homeowner Holds Burglar Hostage."Understandably, while that headline remains on Google, WXIN (Fox 59) has changed the headline now to the more appropriate "Homeowner holds burglar until police arrive." The lesson is a gun owner beats a burglar with a screwdriver…

Posing the question, "Will Gun Measure Threaten Amtrak [with] Terror Attacks," Newsweek's Michael Isikoff informed readers of a legislative battle to allow passengers aboard Amtrak to transport unloaded firearms in their checked luggage.Isikoff pitted supporters of gun rights, particularly the National Rifle Association (NRA) against "security-minded" legislators worried about gun use in…

On Monday’s American Morning, CNN’s Jim Acosta rehashed a three-month-old report from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center about the apparent rise in militia activity in the U.S., and extensively featured a militia from Michigan whose members purportedly “could not specify which of their constitutional rights are being peeled away.”Acosta didn’t use any specific ideological labels to…

On Monday's Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC, correspondent James Rosen filed a report describing the line of obstacles to acquiring a handgun legally in Washington, D.C., in spite of last year's Supreme Court ruling overturning the city's outright ban on handgun possession in the city. Host Baier introduced the report: "Correspondent James Rosen reports while it is now legal to get a…

CNN correspondent Allan Chernoff highlighted New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s hidden camera operation against gun shows in several states on Thursday’s American Morning, but omitted any sound bites from gun rights supporters. Chernoff featured two clips from Bloomberg and one from NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, but only read an excerpt from a statement by the NRA.Anchors Kiran Chetry and…