Drizzt
Member
Is it any surprise that a gun story contained mistakes?
By LOWELL BRANHAM
February 15, 2003
An interesting news story from The Associated Press is at this very moment lying on my desk. It's datelined Springfield, Mass., and it starts off like this: "Dirty Harry is now outgunned. Smith & Wesson has introduced its biggest handgun ever - a .50-caliber magnum."
Actually, that's not the exact way the opening sentence appears because AP managed to cram three errors into the one sentence. Sadly, that's pretty much par for the course for a news agency that has about the same regard for grammar and punctuation that it does for accuracy and objectivity, which is next to no regard at all.
For the record, the errors were a colon instead of a period after the word "outgunned," a comma instead of a dash after "ever," and "magnum" was capitalized when it should've been lower case. Forgive me for making the changes, but I spend so much of my normal workday correcting mistakes in AP copy that it's become almost a reflex action for me to do so.
Mistakes are not what make the story interesting, though, and it isn't the subject matter, either, even though I'm a big fan of firearms. Over the past four years or so there have been at least a dozen introductions of new cartridges that come immediately to mind, and the addition of another one by Smith & Wesson is certainly not earth-shattering news.
Nope, what makes the story interesting is the fact that this is the first time in my memory - and I'll turn 64 years old next month - that AP has ever seen fit to write a news story about the introduction of new product by a gun maker.
It makes you wonder what their motivation was for doing so. And if you read the story, it doesn't take you long to find out. AP jumped on the story for the opportunity it offered to promote the news agency's longstanding anti-gun agenda, and it didn't waste any time getting to the promoting part.
The fifth paragraph of the story says: "Some questioned the wisdom of producing a more powerful handgun." Guess who the "some" is? Turns out it's Tom Diaz, senior policy adviser of the Violence Policy Center, a Washington-based anti-gun group. AP quotes Diaz as saying that S&W's gun will create "a new order of threat to law enforcement."
(Actually the first version of the AP story gave Diaz the wrong last name and job title, but they corrected those mistakes in later editions.)
If you question whether AP has an anti-gun agenda, ask yourself why they went to the head of anti-gun organization for quotes about a gun. AP also writes about clothing styles, but they wouldn't dare go to PETA or the Fund for Animals for quotes about a new fur coat. The bias of such an action would be too obvious. But AP, blinded by its own ignorance, thinks we gun owners are so stupid we can't detect bias when it reports about guns.
Now let's consider the validity of his pronouncement about the gun being a "threat to law enforcement." As AP points out, S&W's new gun weighs 42 (4 and one-half) pounds. It has a barrel 8a (8 and three-eights) inches long.
AP says the barrel is 82 (8 and one half) inches long, but as so often happens with AP, they got it wrong again.
The point, though, of my listing the dimensions and weight of the gun is to demonstrate that no criminal would have a hope of concealing such an unwieldy weapon. To contend, as Diaz does, that S&W's new gun is a threat to law enforcement is simply preposterous.
If AP had been as eager to talk with someone on the pro-gun side as on the anti-gun side, they might have found that out and avoiding printing a statement that has no validity.
Also, if AP had checked with pro-gunners, they might have learned that a .50-caliber handgun cartridge isn't anything even remotely new. The .500 Linebaugh has been around for almost 20 years and the .50 Action Express since 1993. As far as I know, no cop has ever been killed by either.
Here's a final quote from AP: "The introduction of the big gun marks a sharp departure for the 150-year-old company, which for the past five years has concentrated on the development of lightweight revolvers using alloys of rare metals."
Now there's a statement that's just plain flat wrong. Rather than a departure for S&W, the introduction represents the continuance of a longstanding tradition. It was Smith & Wesson that introduced the first magnum handgun cartridge - the .357 Magnum - in 1935. They followed with the .44 Magnum in 1956 and the .41 Magnum in 1964. And now they're coming out with the. 500 S&W Magnum, the name of which, by the way, AP totally left out of its story.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com)
http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/outdoors_fishing/article/0,1651,TCP_1062_1748981,00.html
By LOWELL BRANHAM
February 15, 2003
An interesting news story from The Associated Press is at this very moment lying on my desk. It's datelined Springfield, Mass., and it starts off like this: "Dirty Harry is now outgunned. Smith & Wesson has introduced its biggest handgun ever - a .50-caliber magnum."
Actually, that's not the exact way the opening sentence appears because AP managed to cram three errors into the one sentence. Sadly, that's pretty much par for the course for a news agency that has about the same regard for grammar and punctuation that it does for accuracy and objectivity, which is next to no regard at all.
For the record, the errors were a colon instead of a period after the word "outgunned," a comma instead of a dash after "ever," and "magnum" was capitalized when it should've been lower case. Forgive me for making the changes, but I spend so much of my normal workday correcting mistakes in AP copy that it's become almost a reflex action for me to do so.
Mistakes are not what make the story interesting, though, and it isn't the subject matter, either, even though I'm a big fan of firearms. Over the past four years or so there have been at least a dozen introductions of new cartridges that come immediately to mind, and the addition of another one by Smith & Wesson is certainly not earth-shattering news.
Nope, what makes the story interesting is the fact that this is the first time in my memory - and I'll turn 64 years old next month - that AP has ever seen fit to write a news story about the introduction of new product by a gun maker.
It makes you wonder what their motivation was for doing so. And if you read the story, it doesn't take you long to find out. AP jumped on the story for the opportunity it offered to promote the news agency's longstanding anti-gun agenda, and it didn't waste any time getting to the promoting part.
The fifth paragraph of the story says: "Some questioned the wisdom of producing a more powerful handgun." Guess who the "some" is? Turns out it's Tom Diaz, senior policy adviser of the Violence Policy Center, a Washington-based anti-gun group. AP quotes Diaz as saying that S&W's gun will create "a new order of threat to law enforcement."
(Actually the first version of the AP story gave Diaz the wrong last name and job title, but they corrected those mistakes in later editions.)
If you question whether AP has an anti-gun agenda, ask yourself why they went to the head of anti-gun organization for quotes about a gun. AP also writes about clothing styles, but they wouldn't dare go to PETA or the Fund for Animals for quotes about a new fur coat. The bias of such an action would be too obvious. But AP, blinded by its own ignorance, thinks we gun owners are so stupid we can't detect bias when it reports about guns.
Now let's consider the validity of his pronouncement about the gun being a "threat to law enforcement." As AP points out, S&W's new gun weighs 42 (4 and one-half) pounds. It has a barrel 8a (8 and three-eights) inches long.
AP says the barrel is 82 (8 and one half) inches long, but as so often happens with AP, they got it wrong again.
The point, though, of my listing the dimensions and weight of the gun is to demonstrate that no criminal would have a hope of concealing such an unwieldy weapon. To contend, as Diaz does, that S&W's new gun is a threat to law enforcement is simply preposterous.
If AP had been as eager to talk with someone on the pro-gun side as on the anti-gun side, they might have found that out and avoiding printing a statement that has no validity.
Also, if AP had checked with pro-gunners, they might have learned that a .50-caliber handgun cartridge isn't anything even remotely new. The .500 Linebaugh has been around for almost 20 years and the .50 Action Express since 1993. As far as I know, no cop has ever been killed by either.
Here's a final quote from AP: "The introduction of the big gun marks a sharp departure for the 150-year-old company, which for the past five years has concentrated on the development of lightweight revolvers using alloys of rare metals."
Now there's a statement that's just plain flat wrong. Rather than a departure for S&W, the introduction represents the continuance of a longstanding tradition. It was Smith & Wesson that introduced the first magnum handgun cartridge - the .357 Magnum - in 1935. They followed with the .44 Magnum in 1956 and the .41 Magnum in 1964. And now they're coming out with the. 500 S&W Magnum, the name of which, by the way, AP totally left out of its story.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com)
http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/outdoors_fishing/article/0,1651,TCP_1062_1748981,00.html