Guns, Bias and Texas Reporters

As you all might guess, Bill and I are still on vacation. The NRA Convention is over and we will be hitting the road in a couple of days. Bill is getting acquainted with a fairly brand-new nephew. I'm still getting over my exhibit floor sensory overload. We roamed the floor for three days. The smell of Hoppes and Break-Free, the sound of hundreds of exhibited guns being dry-fired, the roar of thousands of gun-loving people all made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside it is indescribable.

But, but not all the visitors were there to celebrate their gun freedoms. No, the media was there too. They came to spin and castigate me and my fellow gunnies. On a different matter, I quoted T. Bubba Becthol when he said, "That ain't Texas." Yesterday (Sunday), the Houston Chronicle had a front page story on the NRA Convention. Was it "above the fold" you ask? Nope, it was below the fold, but still the front page.

The article wasn't Texas either. It looks at the NRA's stand on terrorist watch lists and as you know this topic is a sore point for me. I've written before on liberals' new-found support for terrorist watch lists. Last summer, they were falling all over themselves in their haste to condemn "no-fly" lists. They rightly pointed out that no one knows how someone is added to the list, there is no forthright procedure to get your name off lists, and those listed are suspects or, like Ted Kennedy, have names similar to someone on a list.

Liberals are right to criticize these lists. But, all of a sudden, they find out that listed people bought guns and they start supporting lists. From the article is a quote by Brady Campaign spokesman Peter Hamm,

Innocent people are getting disenfranchised from their right to get on an airplane or get on a cruise ship....I will not lose any sleep thinking that some poor slob won't be able to buy a gun because he's on the terrorism watch list.

C'mon Hamm is that hypocrisy I smell or did you and reporter Rachel Graves poot out a joint fart? "Innocent people" can't get on a plane. Well, Peter weren't planes used as weapons a few years ago? And, isn't that "poor slob" innocent as well?

Buying and owning guns is a right and if someone must be barred from exercising their right it should not be done through an arbitrary list. If a person is so dangerous that society must bar him or her from buying a gun or boarding an airplane, then throw the SOB in jail. What, they haven't done anything you say, they are "innocent people" and only suspects? Then watch them, but get rid of these lists.

To be fair, Rachel Graves' article quotes Wayne LaPierre,

Nobody really knows who gets on this list....This is a list that somebody has just put a name on. These people haven't been indicted for anything; they haven't been convicted of anything. Ted Kennedy was on the terrorism watch list.

Of course, she has to spin her story some more. She goes on to argue that NRA influence is making it harder for ATF and others to get crime guns off the streets. She quotes Gerald Nunziato who was a former ATF official and is now a consultant for something called "Crime Gun Solutions."

I Googled the company name and didn't find a website, but found links to the Brady Campaign and every other gun grabbing group you can think of. Ms. Graves shifts gears when Nunziato condemns the NRA for making it difficult to compile lists of gun owners so they can better trace crime guns. She throws in another quote from Ron Schuman another Crime Gun Solutions former ATF official slamming the NRA for its support of lawsuit protection laws. Maybe, Ms. Graves could throw in the kitchen sink and make sure she hits every anti-gun shibboleth.

Oops, I guess she does hit them all. She quotes Hamm again about "gun show loopholes" and "terrorists" who have supplied guns to people overseas in contravention to many gun laws already on the books. She doesn't question these sources or attempt to balance them in any way. For her, the "gun show loophole" is written in stone. One person claimed in a 60 Minutes story that he bought guns to send to Kosovo and describes buying rifles used by US soldiers in gun stores. She takes this on face value. Were these World War II weapons, were they fully-automatic, were they just a figment of someone's overactive imagination? No questions for anti-gunnies, but plenty for Mr. LaPierre.

Ms. Graves' article is incredibly biased. It is really a Brady campaign press release disguised as an article in a Texas paper. It looks favorably at every solution that would grow government at the expense of gunnies. It supports barring "innocent people" from gun ownership because they are named in secret lists. It supports listing gun purchases, it supports about everything Sarah Brady dreams.

One other thing Ms. Graves and the Brady Campaign support; breaking the law when it comes to guns. One final quote,

The FBI, in reaction to the GAO report, recently began keeping track of terror suspects' weapons purchases instead of destroying the records after 24 hours as required. "They're violating the existing law," the Brady Campaign's Hamm said, "and I'm sure glad that they're doing so."

I used to live in Texas. For awhile I lived in Houston, but lived longer in Austin. Bill was born in Houston. This incredibly biased article ain't Texas. It ain't even America.