To some local residents' dismay, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown doesn't believe the public is made safer by permitting more people to carry loaded and concealed weapons.Right. As I've demonstrated time and again, we're just not as stable and trustworthy as Brown and his "Only Ones."
And he cites a 2005 handgun murder that climaxed a road-rage incident in Buellton as evidence of why he feels that way...
“I don't subscribe to the theory that it's safer in public if you have large numbers of armed people running around,” Brown added during an interview at his Sheriff's Department office near Goleta.
Nice to see the "authorized journalists" are finally getting around to noticing something we mere bloggers have been covering for over half a year now. Still, it's funny how the primary issue that makes this story unique--NRA's "A" rating and endorsement of an anti-gun sheriff who doesn't believe armed citizens make society safer-- apparently isn't considered "newsworthy."
There's also an important clarification to make about Larry Rankin, who the reporter does mention. Per Larry:
Just for your information, they said, I "could not be reached for further comment," they did not try to contact me or I would have given them some good feedback about Sheriff Brown and my reasons.I'm working on a follow-up right now--it will feature statements from Santa Barbara gun owners and NRA members who have contacted NRA on this matter and been blown off. Their silence on this and refusal to explain themselves and condemn Brown's stance is simply unacceptable. But count on the stonewalling to continue because only myself and a handful of others give a damn enough to demand answers. Which means the ratings charade will continue.
I've been discussing a similarly egregious case of "grade inflation" by the NRA in Illinois, here
ReplyDeleteand here.
Wayne isn't giving up his ticket to kiss the asses of "really important people" at all those Washington functions. Nor is he giving up all the problem for a solution so long as the majority of his membership are fools. And they are.
ReplyDeleteNot all, but enough that he remains in a position to continually betray all the membership.
Sorry to stray off the topic a bit. With apologies to Mr. Schultz if I'm wrong, but is there a code-phrase morphology handbook that must be memorized by every journalism major? These code-phrases appear in news articles far too often to be anything but the product of some bizarre indoctrination.
ReplyDeleteThese phrases are like weeds in the journalistic garden. "Handgun murder"? What is that? Think about it's literal meaning. It doesn't make any sense, and the context suggests something different. Why use such an awkward phrase?
Every time I see these words, they're stuck together. Why not just make them compound words? (Note that "road rage" is hyphenated in the article. That's a first step.)
Guncontrol: Not losing control of your firearm?
Gunviolence: Two guns beating up on each other in a street fight?
Guncrime: "Yes officer, I witnessed the suspect stealing the cash drawer from the store. Description? Let's see. He was about 6 inches tall, had a shiny nickel finish, and he was wearing mother of pearl stocks."
Handgunmurder: Imagine a chalk outline in the shape of a Glock.
Perhaps, it's something else. Perhaps the indoctrinated journalist, not merely content with excluding a huge swath of relevant facts from a story in order to purposely misinform the reader...
http://shootingmessengers.blogspot.com/2007/05/carjacker-beats-91-year-old-man.html
- and comments -
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/fits/4521624665427618181
...and not content with exaggerating (over- or under-) the elements of the story to support his bias, must also attempt to instill his biases in his readership through a tactless and clumsy form of negative association. (Again, apologies to Mr. Shultz if he's just following the example of his peers.)
Anyway, back to the topic. My faith in the NRA has been shaken, since they continue to endorse the sheriffascism in Santa Barbara County. Wish I had known about this a couple months back, when I had the chance to discuss it with an NRA board member. I've always said that if the people depend on lobbycorrupt groups, their ability to speak up in defense of their own rights becomes atrophied. Here's a question that would shine some light on the matter: What exactly are the criteria that the NRA uses to "grade" politicians? Once we know this, we can perhaps perform some peer review on their grading, and see if it's the criteria provided, or some other means.