Called Out on a Callout

A pet peeve is "readers" who aren't actually readers, and who glom on to a headline or an isolated highlight and presume that's enough to condemn the article and the writer as unprincipled betrayers and worse. That's the case with a callout in my "Rights Watch column, "I Will Not Comply," in both the print and digital edition of the September issue of GUNS.

Understand that I submit articles months in advance of the publication sent to subscribers and newsstands, and have absolutely no layout input or control. That said, let's look at context, which you can read for yourself in either the above-linked iPaper version or on the website preview copy:

“[T]he bottom line is the state must try to enforce the law,” The Hartford Courant railed, noting “scores of thousands of Connecticut residents failed to register their military-style assault weapons with state police. 

“If you want to disobey the law, you should be prepared to face the consequences,” the editors, who had no personal skin in the enforcement game, proclaimed.

Read the whole article. I was condemning that statement, not endorsing it.

Over the years I have consistently challenged those who advocate "Enforce existing gun laws" by asking if they would also urge the government to "Enforce existing Intolerable Acts."