http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/columns/article_999631.php
Media are shooting themselves in the foot
GORDON DILLOW
Register columnist
[email protected]
There was an astonishing amount of ignorance and incompetence on display in the Dick Cheney hunting accident.
No, I'm not referring to the vice president's actions. Instead, I'm talking about the ignorance of so much of the news media on the subject of firearms.
You know the story. Cheney was quail hunting in Texas over the weekend when he fired his shotgun at a bird and accidentally hit another member of the hunting party, a 78-year-old Texas lawyer – an incident that produced not only an avalanche of Cheney jokes but also lawyer jokes.
Which is all well and good. Cheney is the second-highest public figure in the land, and has to expect that sort of thing. As for the incident itself, although the details are still a little murky, my father drummed it into me from an early age that the guy holding the firearm is ultimately responsible for everything that happens with it – and so I figure the buck has to stop with the vice president.
But what has driven me and some other Orange County firearms owners to distraction is how much firearms misinformation has been bandied about on TV in connection with the shooting incident.
For example, time and again as the story broke I heard TV talking heads say the hunting partner had been hit with "buckshot" from Cheney's shotgun – which if true would have been most unfortunate for the hunting partner.
That's because buckshot, which is often used for deer-hunting – hence the name – are large round projectiles that most commonly measure 0.34 inches in diameter, a single one of which would put a pretty big hole in a lawyer, or anyone else. He was actually hit with birdshot, which are tiny pellets about the size of grains of coarse sand. They're still potentially lethal in some circumstances – but they're not buckshot.
And so on, and so on. I heard people call Cheney's shotgun a "rifle." They said Cheney was using a ".28-caliber" shotgun instead of a 28-gauge shotgun.
Yes, I know a lot of this stuff can get pretty arcane, even for some gun owners. For example, although I own several shotguns, I still had to ask my friend Chris Wayland of Costa Mesa, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and range safety officer, why we classify shotguns by gauge instead of caliber – except of course for the .410 shotgun. Chris, who is a walking firearms encyclopedia, explained that it all goes back to a 19th-century English standards commission that decided to – well, let's not get into that here.
Still, when you don't know buckshot from birdshot you probably shouldn't be spreading the ignorance by talking about it on TV. Because a lot of gun owners, myself included, believe that ignorance about firearms – among reporters, legislators and the general public – is what has prompted most of the pointless, useless, semi-hysterical "gun-control" laws that law-abiding gun owners have to contend with these days.
"This country is too far removed from the farm," says Jan Wensink, 49, a longtime NRA member from Huntington Beach. "Most people grow up in cities and have never held a firearm in their hands" – which is why, he says, they're willing to believe that certain now-banned so-called "assault weapons" are functionally different than semi-automatic hunting rifles, when actually they aren't.
In fact, Jan figures that firearm ignorance, and anti-firearm bias, are fueling the Cheney story.
"If they'd been riding motorcycles in the desert, or skiing and Cheney had hit him, this would have gotten very little play," he says. "But because it was a firearm involved they're all over it."
He may be right. On the other hand, I remember the comics having a field day when President Gerald Ford was routinely conking spectators with errant golf balls.
Meanwhile, Chris Wayland wonders if firearms ignorance in the news media is really simple ignorance, or something more sinister.
"It's hard to know what errors are from ignorance and what errors are intentional," Chris says. "But in my judgment, 90 percent of the misinformation in the press is sensationalizing, either to sell newspapers or to advance an (anti-firearm) agenda."
He could be right, too. Some of the firearms ignorance is so egregious as to seem almost willful.
But either way, I hope my news media colleagues will start providing the public with more accurate firearms information.
And that they'll stop shoveling buckshot.
Media are shooting themselves in the foot
GORDON DILLOW
Register columnist
[email protected]
There was an astonishing amount of ignorance and incompetence on display in the Dick Cheney hunting accident.
No, I'm not referring to the vice president's actions. Instead, I'm talking about the ignorance of so much of the news media on the subject of firearms.
You know the story. Cheney was quail hunting in Texas over the weekend when he fired his shotgun at a bird and accidentally hit another member of the hunting party, a 78-year-old Texas lawyer – an incident that produced not only an avalanche of Cheney jokes but also lawyer jokes.
Which is all well and good. Cheney is the second-highest public figure in the land, and has to expect that sort of thing. As for the incident itself, although the details are still a little murky, my father drummed it into me from an early age that the guy holding the firearm is ultimately responsible for everything that happens with it – and so I figure the buck has to stop with the vice president.
But what has driven me and some other Orange County firearms owners to distraction is how much firearms misinformation has been bandied about on TV in connection with the shooting incident.
For example, time and again as the story broke I heard TV talking heads say the hunting partner had been hit with "buckshot" from Cheney's shotgun – which if true would have been most unfortunate for the hunting partner.
That's because buckshot, which is often used for deer-hunting – hence the name – are large round projectiles that most commonly measure 0.34 inches in diameter, a single one of which would put a pretty big hole in a lawyer, or anyone else. He was actually hit with birdshot, which are tiny pellets about the size of grains of coarse sand. They're still potentially lethal in some circumstances – but they're not buckshot.
And so on, and so on. I heard people call Cheney's shotgun a "rifle." They said Cheney was using a ".28-caliber" shotgun instead of a 28-gauge shotgun.
Yes, I know a lot of this stuff can get pretty arcane, even for some gun owners. For example, although I own several shotguns, I still had to ask my friend Chris Wayland of Costa Mesa, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and range safety officer, why we classify shotguns by gauge instead of caliber – except of course for the .410 shotgun. Chris, who is a walking firearms encyclopedia, explained that it all goes back to a 19th-century English standards commission that decided to – well, let's not get into that here.
Still, when you don't know buckshot from birdshot you probably shouldn't be spreading the ignorance by talking about it on TV. Because a lot of gun owners, myself included, believe that ignorance about firearms – among reporters, legislators and the general public – is what has prompted most of the pointless, useless, semi-hysterical "gun-control" laws that law-abiding gun owners have to contend with these days.
"This country is too far removed from the farm," says Jan Wensink, 49, a longtime NRA member from Huntington Beach. "Most people grow up in cities and have never held a firearm in their hands" – which is why, he says, they're willing to believe that certain now-banned so-called "assault weapons" are functionally different than semi-automatic hunting rifles, when actually they aren't.
In fact, Jan figures that firearm ignorance, and anti-firearm bias, are fueling the Cheney story.
"If they'd been riding motorcycles in the desert, or skiing and Cheney had hit him, this would have gotten very little play," he says. "But because it was a firearm involved they're all over it."
He may be right. On the other hand, I remember the comics having a field day when President Gerald Ford was routinely conking spectators with errant golf balls.
Meanwhile, Chris Wayland wonders if firearms ignorance in the news media is really simple ignorance, or something more sinister.
"It's hard to know what errors are from ignorance and what errors are intentional," Chris says. "But in my judgment, 90 percent of the misinformation in the press is sensationalizing, either to sell newspapers or to advance an (anti-firearm) agenda."
He could be right, too. Some of the firearms ignorance is so egregious as to seem almost willful.
But either way, I hope my news media colleagues will start providing the public with more accurate firearms information.
And that they'll stop shoveling buckshot.
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: 
