Adam Weinstein’s article The NRA Was Waging War on Facts Long Before the ‘Fake News’ Boom singularly, spectacularly fails to prove that the NRA is fact-challenged or pumping-out fake news. Here’s the Trace scribe’s “proof” that the NRA is misleading Americans:
– The ATF’s “Fast and Furious” operation was “a plot against the Second Amendment.”
– Obama is coming to confiscate your guns.
– “The terrorists want you to elect” Hillary Clinton.
– “Chaos is an ever-present danger to Americans today.” (This prediction by LaPierre has been a perennial one, shared on the eve of at least two recent American elections.)
1. NRA Veep’s Wayne LaPierre’s accusation that the ATF’s gun running operation was an anti-gun rights plot hasn’t been proven, but it makes perfect sense. One thing we do know: F&F wasn’t an attempt to arrest gun smugglers, as the government maintained. The fact that the ATF let over 2000 guns “walk” in 10 months puts paid to that theory.
2. The link for the “Obama is coming to confiscate your guns” takes us to a politifact.com page without any direct mention of gun confiscation. The same Politifact with a deep, demonstrable anti-gun bias that infects every analysis of a firearms-related claim. Except for the top article listed at the link, which rates the NRA’s assertion that More people die from “medical misadventures” than firearm accidents nationally and in Florida as “mostly true.”
3. NRA commentator Don Raso’s does indeed state that “the terrorists want you to elect Hillary Clinton” in the video above. However, it’s clear that Mr. Raso isn’t speaking literally. His point: Hillary Clinton’s anti-gun rights pro-“gun free zone” agenda leaves potential victims vulnerable to terrorist attacks, which suits their purposes.
4. Weinstein’s fourth and final example of NRA “fake news” links to his own article NRA’s Leader Warns of “Sprees of Murder and Mayhem” as Elections Near at fortressamerica.gawker.com. Gawker, the how-low-can-you-go, anti-gun, left-leaning organization forced into bankruptcy because of their editorial misadventure, is the source for proof of fake news? Anyway, the NRA’s warnings of an “EMP, a massive cyber attack, another 9/11 or just isolated sprees of murder and mayhem” is positing the possibility. Which is true.
In short, none of Mr. Weinstein’s claims count as fake news. And this is the best he’s got. On the other hands, we’ve fisked dozens of articles proving that The Trace is a constant source of “fake news” — twisting stats to further their holy war against Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
As Dan the Man might say, if gun control advocates like Mr. Weinstein didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all. But more than that, they are people without moral bearings. As proven by The Trace propagandist’s final sentence.
This is the NRA’s pride and pain: It is engaged not in an exhaustive search for truth on gun issues, but in an exhausting, manichaean struggle against everyone who doesn’t understand the absolute need for absolute gun freedom.
According to wikipedia.org, “”manichean” is widely applied (often used as a derogatory term) as an adjective to a philosophy of moral dualism, according to which a moral course of action involves a clear (or simplistic) choice between good and evil, or as a noun to people who hold such a view.”
When it comes to gun rights, there is a clear choice. The NRA makes the right one. Mr. Weinstein and his employers make the wrong one. Which is why The Trace publishes fake news about everything, including fake news.
“The fact that the ATF let over 2000 guns “walk” in 10 months puts paid to that theory.”
Im not disagreeing but never discount the capabilities of incompetent bureaucrats. A well funded bureaucracy can do wonders when it comes to losing children, money, personnel records. You name it a government agency has lost it
And fake news isn’t that new, cherry picking facts and bending science dates back to the earliest days of Greek democracy, we just put a fancy new name on it
A plane couldn’t be used as a missle?
Dude, learn history. Planes have been missles as long as there have been planes. Does Kamikaze mean anything to you?
And stop pitting Americans against Americans and focus on the real issues. If you want a dark world filled with fearful citizens and nervous police then move back to Iraq.
LOL…..remember this above all other things to research and consider…..”fake news” was NEVER a subject of consternation until the main stream media began to lose the trust of the majority of the American public……………………LBJ once received that omen and now the shoe is on the other foot!!!!! Funny how all forms of media declared a “war on fake news”, only to ratchet up the lying garbage they put out…….
I grew up with the understanding that manicheanism is the rejection of the physical as evil. I also grew up with the understanding that manicheanism is heresy.
Trace is Mike Bloonmberg owned, specifically made for advocacy of his policy aims.
When I looked back at 187 trace posts and articles up to 2016 on gun issues, only two mentioned gun homicide rate had plummeted in a 20 year trend. The core metric on the issue, and they don’t even mention it was plunging .
They also do pieces on Australia proclaiming it a 39% decrease in overall homicide since the early 1990’s, but don’t mention the OECD countries including countries that made no changes in laws saw a 41% decrease, while the US saw an even bigger increase while relaxing gun control.
They also ran a peice on NRA income structure, which they
1) inferred from USPS magazine mailing number trends — when ALL non profits are reducing magazine mailing and going to pdf! They claimed the decline in reported magazine postage says paid membership fell, when AARP and others which we also know increased like NRA, also saw decline in physically paid and mailed magazines.
2) They claimed advertising in the magazine was all “corporate donations”. In fact counted the way Trace researchers count, the NRA has both a a) higher acutal paid membership, and b) a higher proportion of individual paid membership than ACLU, NAACP, Human rights Campaign, Greenpeace America, PETA —combined
3) counted the way the trace counts, all gun control advocacy “groups” combined have under 4% of NRA’s paid membership
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