Exclusive: Historic LA Newspaper Pulls Pro-Gun Article Due to ‘Political Pressure’

Status
Not open for further replies.

hps1

Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2002
Messages
2,376
Location
Texas
This article illustrates the extremes that anti-gun legislators will go to in order to prevent the public from exposure to any positive efforts by responsible gun owners attempts to promote proper use of firearms and safety.

I'm no lawyer, but ask those who are, wouldn't this interference be
Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's contractual or business relationships with a third party causing economic harm.
, or are elected officials immune?


Exclusive: Historic LA Newspaper Pulls Pro-Gun Article Due to ‘Political Pressure’

by Jordan Michaels on September 18, 2019
Related Tags: Buzz, News

redstone-2.gif
ery week, and he remembers riding his bike past their offices when he was a boy.
Jonathan and Geneva Solomon founded Redstone Firearms five years go to educate and train their clients in firearm use and ownership.

A historic newspaper in Los Angeles caved last week to unnamed “educational and political partners” when editors decided to halt the publication of a pro-gun article highlighting a local gun shop and training service.

Jonathan and Geneva Solomon were surprised and excited when the Los Angeles Sentinel reached out to them to write a profile on their firearm training business, Redstone Firearms. The LA Sentinel is an African-American owned newspaper founded in 1933, and the Solomons cater primarily to the African-American community at two locations in the greater L.A. area.

It seemed like a good fit, and the journalist at the Sentinel wrote a largely positive piece emphasizing the Solomon’s commitment to safe and responsible firearms handling and ownership.

The day before the piece was set to be published, however, the Solomons were contacted by newspaper representatives who told them the piece was being pulled from the website due to political pressure. The representative specifically mentioned a gun control group called Mothers in Action, and Jonathan believes the pressure on the newspaper originated at even higher levels of power.

“A group in Los Angeles called Mothers in Action got with Maxine Waters and Cory Booker to pressure the Sentinel until the newspaper said, ‘We’ll scrap it,’” Jonathan told GunsAmerica. “We’ve been featured in other media outlets and have never had a problem. But when it comes to an all-black newspaper with an all-black self-defense company, they decided it was too much political pressure on them and they pulled it.”

Geneva was able to screen capture most of the article before it was taken down for good, which we’ve published below. Included in original article here:
https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/...toric-la-newspaper-pulls-pro-gun-article-due/

SEE ALSO: Cory Booker Wants Nationalized Gun Licensing, One-Gun-a-Month, Universal Background Checks
Jonathan admitted that the Sentinel representative didn’t name Sen. Booker or Rep. Waters specifically, but he does recall the newspaper mentioning “other political entities” along with Mothers in Action.

Neither the LA Sentinel nor Mothers in Action responded to multiple requests for comment on this story.

The Sentinel published a piece praising Sen. Booker’s anti-gun advocacy only a week before the Redstone Firearms piece was set to post. The paper is also headquartered just north of Rep. Water’s district, so it’s likely that many of its executive and editorial staff lives in the current and former districts of Congress’ most senior black member.

The Solomons felt that they had missed an opportunity to promote their family-owned business and been labeled as dangerous just because they operate a gun-related organization.

“I was highly irritated and pissed off. We’ve never promoted anything negative. It’s always been responsible gun ownership, consulting, educating and training. That’s it. I felt they were labeling us as some type of terrorist organization,” Jonathan told GunsAmerica.

SEE ALSO: Kamala Harris Will Ban Importation of ‘Assault Weapons’ via Executive Action
“It’s like they said, ‘We can’t run an article on them because it doesn’t paint the picture that all these other folks are painting. Guns are bad! Guns are bad! You shouldn’t talk about them.’”

The LA Sentinel also owns and operates a large, all-black festival in Los Angeles called the Taste of Soul. The Sentinel first heard about Redstone Firearms when the Solomons applied to be a vendor at the festival, and the festival organizers initially agreed to allow Jonathan and Geneva to sell merchandise and promote their self-defense training services. The organizers were even prepared to make Redstone Firearms a “featured vendor,” which is why they wanted to publish the original story.

When the newspaper decided to pull the piece, the Solomons had hoped they would still be allowed to pay for a booth at the festival. But the festival organizers soon reversed course.

“My boss notified me that they do not feel comfortable having your booth at the festival,” a Project Coordinator at Taste of Soul named Lauren Brazile told the Solomons via email. “They are concerned about backlash from our political and educational partners, as gun ownership is an extremely sensitive topic.”

Brazile promised to refund the Solomons $1,400 registration fee and apologized for “all of the confusion.”

image1-473x1024.png
Jonathan was disappointed that his business had been marginalized by a newspaper he remembered seeing while growing up in the LA area. He told GunsAmerica his grandmothers would read the LA Sentinel ev

But Jonathan and Geneva haven’t been silent. They called their clients—who they call their “family”—together, and they’ve sent dozens of emails and made dozens of calls to the Sentinel’s office in the last few days. The newspaper hasn’t responded, but Jonathan said he will continue to speak out.

“I can’t make them run the article but I sure as hell can say something about it.”

***Buy and Sell on GunsAmerica! All Local Sales are FREE!***

https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/...toric-la-newspaper-pulls-pro-gun-article-due/

Regards,
hps
 
I thought the segment aired on TV was pretty good about being responsible gun owners, educating the public and for their community. This is very irritating and saddening yet we know the agenda the media has to not give any positive light. I'm not surprised by this move, the masses will continue to be programmed towards the agenda given to them. The world was believed to be flat and that reaching the ends one would fall off. SMH that this concept exists in peoples minds.
 
There's nothing shocking about any of this if we examine a few missing details:

The LA Sentinel/Taste of Soul Festival and Moms in Action share a common bond, mainly that the latter was co-founded by Danny Bakewell. This is the parent media company (Bakewell Company) of the newspaper and thus, the festival. Also, if you bother to look at the chairpersons of the ToS festival, it reads like an MVP roster of major anti-gun figures:

https://tasteofsoul.org/about/chairs-and-co-chairs

With that said, is it really surprising that this happened? The story should be who let it slip and allowed Redstone to be sought out by the newspaper in the first place. Further, if I were in the firearms business, I wouldn't want to pay for a booth at an event organized by people dead set on putting me out of business. To me, this is a story with a happy ending.

edit: Lauren Brazile is a Bakewell family member too.
 
Last edited:
There's nothing shocking about any of this if we examine a few missing details:

The LA Sentinel/Taste of Soul Festival and Moms in Action share a common bond, mainly that the latter was co-founded by Danny Bakewell. This is the parent media company (Bakewell Company) of the newspaper and thus, the festival. Also, if you bother to look at the chairpersons of the ToS festival, it reads like an MVP roster of major anti-gun figures:

https://tasteofsoul.org/about/chairs-and-co-chairs

With that said, is it really surprising that this happened? The story should be who let it slip and allowed Redstone to be sought out by the newspaper in the first place. Further, if I were in the firearms business, I wouldn't want to pay for a booth at an event organized by people dead set on putting me out of business. To me, this is a story with a happy ending.

edit: Lauren Brazile is a Bakewell family member too.


This information really should have been included in the GunsAmerica article.
 
And they did it quietly for most gun owners who thought it couldn't happen and that they did not need to get involved. Yea, some of us were yelling our heads off, but our fellow gun owners didn't listen.

Get off yer duff and get involved.
If people took one day to study how much time they wasted, they would realize they have no excuse to not get involved. It takes 5 minutes to write an email or make a phone call. 5 MINUTES! They could call or write during a commercial break. It’s nothing more than pure apathy.
 
If people took one day to study how much time they wasted, they would realize they have no excuse to not get involved. It takes 5 minutes to write an email or make a phone call. 5 MINUTES! They could call or write during a commercial break. It’s nothing more than pure apathy.

The handwriting is on the wall! It is half past time to get involved; time to quit all the bickering amongst those who love the shooting sports; ignore the shortcomings of the politicians and pro gun organizations with which we find fault, support pro-gun organizations, get behind the pro-gun politicians, contact your representatives and pull together with one goal in mind.

"We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Ben Franklin

48793313941_3c31297421_m.jpg

Regards,
hps
 
This information really should have been included in the GunsAmerica article.

The guy who wrote it left out an embarrassing amount of information. They speculate that this has some ties to Maxine Waters while wholesale ignoring the fact that Karen Bass is not only a chairperson on the festival, but is also a vendor and pays for a booth at the event. I suppose more people recognize Waters name nationally, but Bass is right up there with the rest of them when it comes to 2A stuff. So is Herb Wesson, Mark Ridley-Thomas (big time), Reggie Jones-Sawyer, etc.

Worst of all, if you read the comments section Geneva Solomon has this to say two days after the guy posted this to GunsAmerica: "The article ran on their website for less than 24 hours then it was pulled. It made the print version. Then they kicked us out of the festival." (bold is mine)

That's sloppy to, at the bare minimum, not come back and include that fact.
 
Years ago, Al Gore said that if driving cars is licensed, guns should be also. So I wrote a letter to the NY Times about their article on Gore's proposal. It said, that any law abiding citizen can get a driver's license. However, in NYC it is next to impossible to get a permit to have a handgun. It takes connections, expense and a tremendous amount of time. Thus, is Al supporting that getting a gun in NYC should be as easy as getting a driver's license.

I received a response that they would publish my letter from the the Letter Editor. Guess what - it didn't appear. I supposed a higher up editor killed it.
 
When i was younger, there was this thing called "freedom of the press", like many good things, it seems to have disappeared.

True, but in this particular instance, the press is the one who self-censored the article. The press is the same group who apparently put the pressure on to nix Redstone. There aren't multiple forces at work here. The LA Sentinel isn't separate from Moms in Action or a whole host of other community groups who are sponsors of the Taste of Soul festival.

In fact, if you do a five minute search of Moms in Action, you'll find out they were a group founded after the 92 riots, and as far as I can tell, they don't pontificate on gun control at all (they have a Facebook page I won't link to -- easy enough to search). The confusion is probably based on the similarity of their name and that of the Parkland group.
 
Deleted a whole bunch of irrelevant posts.

Just a reminder, a free press does not mean a paper has to publish your opinion. It's like a forum. Sometimes we deleted posts. We get an angry message that we violated the poster's First Amendment rights. No, we didn't. We aren't the government.
 
Just a reminder, a free press does not mean a paper has to publish your opinion. It's like a forum. Sometimes we deleted posts. We get an angry message that we violated the poster's First Amendment rights. No, we didn't. We aren't the government.
Had something similar come up during a discussion with a local broadcaster who feels there should be limits on 2A, saying, in effect, there's limits to what he can say on the air and even in places like bars and restaurants.
I told him in response that the Bill of Rights limits what the government can do to a citizen. Therefore a business, a private entity, can limit speech all it wants to on their premises. I have seen signs in taverns saying no political or religious debate. You can say what you want on your soapbox in the park or on a street corner, to a point, without fear of arrest for the opinions you voice.
Also, unlike 2A, no other Right in the Constitution says "shall not bein infringed."
Thanks for having a place where we can voice our opinions and have debate, and thanks for keeping it civil and on topic. Moderating is a tough, thankless job. Well, not thankless, I did just thank you. :rofl:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top