Anti-Gun Group Called Out (Mildly) for Falsification As the News Media Continue to Confuse Matters

We have noted previously that gun control organizations often exaggerate, confuse, conflate or just plain misrepresent the facts in the pursuit of their political agendas. It happened again following the recent tragic murder of NYPD officer Brian Moore by a career criminal. This time, however, the Politifact organization did some fact checking and found that Everytown for Gun Safety’s talking points had outrun the facts. It rated one of the group’s key statements “mostly false ,” adding “Such overreaches allow political debate to shape facts.”

We call that understatement. Indeed, we believe that is the intent. Everytown, of course, is funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has never met a gun he didn’t hate, unless it was on the person of one of his bodyguards.

For New York City reporters, it’s become standard fare to blame out-of-state firearms retailers for the problem of street crime involving guns in their city. Here, reporters literally learned to take their their lead from U.S. Sen. Charles (Chuck) Schumer, who has been a champion of this misleading narrative for many years and who dusted off his talking points to repeat the exercise. For New York’s senior senator, it is better to blame out-of-state businesses than criticize Democratic officeholders for failed policies or, heaven forbid, the city’s criminals themselves for their actions.

The gun used to murder Officer Moore had been stolen in a smash and grab burglary in 2011. The theft was reported to ATF and local law enforcement as required by federal law, which is how the police were able to so quickly trace the gun.

In fact, most guns used in crimes are stolen. But the New York Daily News moved past that fact to report, “Georgia’s lax gun laws are often cited by critics for the steady northern flow of illegal weapons to New York.” Last we checked Georgia had not repealed any of its criminal statutes covering the crime of burglary. And then there’s that old journalistic trope of using the unnamed “critics” to make an editorial point in a news story. But why stop there?

Pivoting to the equally tragic December ambush murders of two other NYPD officers, the Daily News adds to the public’s confusion by reporting, “Straw buyers purchasing firearms for people who can’t legally own guns face no penalty…” Wait. That’s wrong. There are tough federal laws on the books for those convicted of illegal straw purchasers. What’s more, the gun used to murder these officers was not straw purchased.

Click here to read the entire op-ed at NSSFBlog.com.