jfh
Member.
sugarman and 'assault weapon'--
This was the day that galvanized me, so to speak.
It was the day after the Luby Cafeteria shootings. And, the NRA had won some sort of tactical victory in the House or Senate. I was listening to the news on MPR at about 11:30 or so--and the news reader, Gary Eichten, came up with a Luby story and how the shooter used an "assault weapon."
You can imagine my reaction to the term--being an English Major and former (English) Teacher--so I called MPR and got Eichten on the line and started chewing him out for using deceptive language. He protested mightily, and explained he was reading AP copy, or APR copy by way of NPR.
So I got a phone number, and, after several phone calls over the course of the afternoon, chased down the original AP writer. It was a guy based in DC, IIRC, and when I went after him he explained that he'd gotten the term out of the VPC.
AFAIK, that day and date was the first time "assault weapon" was widely used in the MSM. So, while the incident has some looseness to it, I wonder if by now we could Google it back to him.
Who has the Sugarman quote on hand about confusing the public?
Jim H.
This was the day that galvanized me, so to speak.
It was the day after the Luby Cafeteria shootings. And, the NRA had won some sort of tactical victory in the House or Senate. I was listening to the news on MPR at about 11:30 or so--and the news reader, Gary Eichten, came up with a Luby story and how the shooter used an "assault weapon."
You can imagine my reaction to the term--being an English Major and former (English) Teacher--so I called MPR and got Eichten on the line and started chewing him out for using deceptive language. He protested mightily, and explained he was reading AP copy, or APR copy by way of NPR.
So I got a phone number, and, after several phone calls over the course of the afternoon, chased down the original AP writer. It was a guy based in DC, IIRC, and when I went after him he explained that he'd gotten the term out of the VPC.
AFAIK, that day and date was the first time "assault weapon" was widely used in the MSM. So, while the incident has some looseness to it, I wonder if by now we could Google it back to him.
Who has the Sugarman quote on hand about confusing the public?
Jim H.