Daily Howler Nails Gun Lobby Lies

[MrBenchley]

A fine summation on the aftermath of the Appalachian School of Law shooting incident last year which killed two and wounded three others...and the absurd and dishonest lengths the NRA and the right wing press went to to spin away blame and claim that guns HELPED, not cause the situation.

"Why didn’t newspapers mention the guns? How about this: How about the fact that the “rescuers’ guns” seem to have played no role in the rescue? A bit of background information will help: By March of 2002, the NRA was complaining about the gun-free coverage of this incident. In response, the Kansas City Star’s Rick Montgomery did what Bernie refuses to do; he actually conducted a full investigation, and he reported a full range of facts. In particular, Montgomery interviewed two of the students who tackled the killer; he also interviewed the Virginia State Police. And the story that emerged from Montgomery’s research is quite different from the claptrap in Arrogance. Did students “get the guns and use them to subdue the killer?” On balance, it seems they did not.
...
But according to the State Police, the armed students arrived on the scene after Odighizuwa was tackled. Why were unarmed students able to subdue him? His gun was out of bullets, Stater said—a point which no one disputes. By the way, even Bridges didn’t mention his heroic gun-pointing until several days after the incident."

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh112203.shtml

[slackmaster]

1. A blog by a guy with a Hotmail addy? Now THAT'S a credible news source

:eyes:

[MrBenchley]

2. Gee, slack...

Are you really trying to tell us The Daily Howler isn't credible?

Too too funny.

[slackmaster]

3. It's no less credible than you are

:evilgrin:

[MrBenchley]

5. I'll live with that...

Especially considering the source....

[Romulus]

4. what I find interesting

is that the crux of this guy's argument is that the students' firearms weren't really needed because the shooter had already run out of ammo. That's the argument in a nutshell - having private citizens with firearms on the scene was of no consequence because the shooter ran out of bullets before those private firearms could be used to subdue the shooter. :crazy:

And yes, one of the gun-owning students was an off-duty Tennessee LEO (with no LEO authority in VIRGINIA) and the other was a former LEO (with no LEO authority ANYWHERE). Since they were private citizens as as far as Virginia law was concerned, their employment experience is irrelevant to the discussion.

[MrBenchley]

6. Too frigging funny...

"That's the argument in a nutshell - having private citizens with firearms on the scene was of no consequence because the shooter ran out of bullets before those private firearms could be used to subdue the shooter."
Yeah, it's weird isn't it? The people who subdued the gunman did not have guns...which doesn't keep the gun lobby from DELIBERATELY LYING about the incident. You'd almost think the gun rights crowd was an ugly bunch of dishonest right wing thugs.

"Since they were private citizens as as far as Virginia law was concerned, their employment experience is irrelevant to the discussion."
Gee, and was that really the main point of the article? Or is it yet another sideshow to try and draw us away from this deliberate bit of journalistic fraud by the NRA and the right wing press?