7 thoughts on “Setting the Record Straight”

  1. I do wish people on our side wouldn’t lie by omission, in this case by going into needless details on what makes an “assault weapon” and leave out the non-cosmetic and in this one case potentially relevant flash hider.

    1. I’m not sure if having a flash hider would have helped the Aurora shooter all that much. It’s my understanding that flash hiders are more for preserving the night vision of the shooter, than hiding the shooter’s wherabouts.

      And even if I’m wrong about flash hiders, is a shooter who planned months in advance going to be deterred by a law banning such a thing? Would the assault weapon ban really have been of help, when it would have allowed for the possibility of a flash hider, so long as he didn’t have a bayonet lug? And when the theatre was dark, filled with tear gas, and filled with unarmed teenagers, would a flash hider made one whit of a difference?

      I don’t think leaving out “flash hider” in the article was a lie by omission, because I doubt having a flash hider would have made any difference in the outcome here–any more than having a supressor would have done anything to make things worse!

      1. It’s my understanding that flash hiders are more for preserving the night vision of the shooter, than hiding the shooter’s wherabouts.

        That’s my understanding, and therefore my point: the better he preserved his night vision “when the theatre was dark”, the better he could aim.

        Now, it wasn’t necessarily dark enough for one to make a difference, but it’s a possibility, and far too many commentators on our side, while poo-pooing the cosmetic—more or less, for us—“assault weapon” characteristics, are clearly tip-toeing around this one detail that perhaps was a functional detail in this one incident.

        1. I don’t think that the presence or absence of a flash suppressor even entered his thoughts.

  2. When I read something like this, I think,”It must be hard, turning out a column on deadline, and some days are better than others. This is one of the others.

  3. What the Media never reports is his statement: And since 1997, two of eight school shootings were both stopped by citizens with guns (before police even arrived at the scene).

  4. There is perhaps a pattern of that, and maybe it would be effective to offer polite feedback to any news outlet that does that sort of thing. Don’t rant, just tell them that their standards of journalism need review.

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