Life Magazine pictorial about gun shows

[answerguy]

They wouldn't be considered anti-gun would they?

I think you could find it by going to Life.com

A fun game to play would be to go through the 11 pictures and see how many mistatements they made in the captions below each picture.

Here's one: a father and son are looking at a couple of AR-15's but the caption says: "An 18-year-old and his father look at automatic weapons at a gun show in Kentucky"

 

[S.W.G.]

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/54401/inside-a-gun-show#index/0

 

[S.W.G.]

In the description of number two they have a blatant lie:

Laws on gun shows vary wildly from state to state. In seven, sellers are required to run a background check before selling any kind of gun to a buyer. In 33, there are no restrictions at all

I seem to recall filling out a 4473 when I bought my 10/22 at that gun show...

 

[CoRoMo]

...mistatements they made in the captions below each picture.

Here's one: a father and son are looking at a couple of AR-15's but the caption says: "An 18-year-old and his father look at automatic weapons at a gun show in Kentucky"

I would also guess that they are apt to improperly describe any particular firearm, but how do we know that was a misstatement? It possibly could have been a couple of machineguns, and there is nothing wrong with that. The editorial staff at Life magazine most likely would think that it would be horrific for a father & son to shop for machineguns, but what else is new? I see nothing at all alarming about it, and we'd all be better off if Mainstream America thought this way.

 

[Deus Machina]

Usual activism style here--post mature pro-gun comments and corrections!

 

[chicharrones]

Here's one: a father and son are looking at a couple of AR-15's but the caption says: "An 18-year-old and his father look at automatic weapons at a gun show in Kentucky"

They must have fixed that one. When I look at it, the word "automatic" is gone.
http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/54401/inside-a-gun-show#index/7

 

[ZCORR Jay]

"In a third of its investigations of gun shows, the ATF found that the firearms were eventually used in crimes"

Would be nice to know how many of the gun show firearms were also reported stolen, how many hands the gun passed through before it was "eventually used in a crime", and the average type of firearm, shotgun, assault rifle, pistols?

 

[answerguy]

mike crenshaw (is he a member here?) made a very astute observation:

Sadly the author and photographer have misrepresented a significant portion of their material in this piece. Images taken from the largest industry trade show which is closed to the public are easily recognizable compared to the folksier "gun shows" the article is supposed to be about. The first image is from an industry trade show as the second, sixth and tenth. Almost half. The seventh image's caption would imply that the "Kentucky gun show" depicted is a source of guns used in crime, but the show is the easily recognized Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot in which highly collectible, and highly regulated, machine guns are displayed and sales take place. Considering that legal sales of machine guns take months to complete, more paperwork than a law enforcement officer has to complete for their job and the firearms are all very expensive (thousands of dollars) collectable weapons on a Federal registry, this "show" has numerous ATF agents looking for improper transactions and registered machine guns have been used in fewer crimes than spoons it is unlikely the caption is appropriate for the image.

 

[earlthegoat2]

Even though the feature is somewhat lame, I did love the picture of the STG 44/MP 44/43 and the FG 42 hangin out.

 

[MagnumDweeb]

I navigated to another picture set, I think it was Women and Their Guns, it had lots of old black and white pictures with little old ladies carrying and practicing with guns, plus a couple young girls laying prone, one with a scope rifle, the other with a scope spotting for her I guess. I couldn't copy and of the pictures...because they are copyright protected I guess, otherwise they would make great posters to show folks gun ownership has been and will always be a normal facet of everyday life. There are some pictures with 'hot' women posing with guns, some ugly ones too.

 

[hammerklavier]

Laws on gun shows vary wildly from state to state. In seven, sellers are required to run a background check before selling any kind of gun to a buyer. In 33, there are no restrictions at all

They are probably referring to the so-called gun show loophole: private sellers.

 

[merlinfire]

Laws on gun shows vary wildly from state to state. In seven, sellers are required to run a background check before selling any kind of gun to a buyer. In 33, there are no restrictions at all

Yes, this definitely is misleading, whether or not it is intentional. Taken alone, it reads as if "anyone can buy a gun with no restrictions in 33 states", which is not legal with respect to FFL's. The one thing I never understood, is what closing the so called gun-show loophole is meant to achieve. I can still say to someone "hey, why don't you bring your gun with you to x location and we'll do business" somewhere else. They'd have to make all private sales against the law.

 

[Old Fuff]

They'd have to make all private sales against the law.

Does you think that might possibly be what they have in mind???

Unless they have a database with ALL OF THE GUNS it will be impossible for the anti-gun side to successfully impose the degree of regulation they dream of. Blocking private sales at gunshows would only be a foot-in-the-door.

 

[oldbear]

answerguy,

you posted

"An 18-year-old and his father look at automatic weapons at a gun show in Kentucky"

Below is the quote from Life’s web page. Nowhere does the term automatic weapons appear!

“Critics of the ATF and GAO reports say that it's far more likely that Mexican drug cartels are getting their weaponry from other Latin American countries or revolutionary groups. Here: An 18-year-old and his father look at weapons at a gun show in Kentucky.”

If we are going to have any chance of again becoming a mainstream activity we need to take the highroad and make every attempt to be honest and aboveboard

 

[Picard]

If we are going to have any chance of again becoming a mainstream activity we need to take the highroad and make every attempt to be honest and aboveboard

That is because the editor corrected the mistake after the OP mentioned it.

 

[Dulvarian]

I would wager that the quote was changed after it was pointed out to have a high probability of being the wrong caption. Also, many of them appear to be trade shows as has been pointed out here. Which means that the journalist was either intentionally dishonest or woefully under-informed.

And to think, the 2nd exists to protect even the exploitations of the rest. I do not take any writer seriously if the facts are wrong. I check facts, dig into things, sometimes even before I open my mouth. I find something saddening about a journalist who writes with their political agenda taking up more space on the page than their facts. It would not be the first thing that I've seen posted by a media outlet that was very tilted. (To both sides. I'm not picking a party line here. I get most of my news by reading about three different takes on the same story and try to un-spin them all enough to figure out what really happened.) It's sad that in a country that has nearly unlimited freedom of speech most of it is: wrong, misleading, divisive, or has too many commas.

It would be quite foolish for someone to post something here that they did not really see, knowing that we would be going there to check it out either to rant at the horrible depiction of gun owners or mock their errors? I have more faith in the OP doing a cut and paste than a journalist not skewing the facts.

 

[Old Fuff]

“Critics of the ATF and GAO reports say that it's far more likely that Mexican drug cartels are getting their weaponry from other Latin American countries or revolutionary groups."

"

"Here: An 18-year-old and his father look at weapons at a gun show in Kentucky.”

Here are two statements made within one caption. Is there any relationship between them, or is LIFE trying to imply that somehow a father and his 18-year-old son who are looking at weapons (note that they don't say "guns, "rifles," etc.) at a gun show are involved in supplying weapons to drug cartels? If there is no connection why is the first statement in the caption at all?

I am sure most of those who are following this thread know the answer.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

mike crenshaw (is he a member here?)

Yes, he is.

 

[essayons21]

How is a photo of a swastika emblazoned German police helmet relevant to the gun show/gun control debate?

I guess Life magazine can't make it 4 photos in without invoking Godwin's Law.

I found that series of pictures and captions to be blatantly biased, factually wrong, with a slight racial overtone.

 

[country boy marksman]

in another gallery (inside the secret service) a caption calls the fn p90 "thoroughly nasty looking" IMHO, it is one of the calmest, least gun-looking guns out there. It looks more like something from star trek! They obviously wrote those captions as people who are not used to guns in any way; they're going to get some stuff wrong, be it from lack of care, or unintelligence!

Marksman