I have read with interest comments about Paul Barrett's views on NRA, and RTKBA.
Let me offer a perspective from one who probably knows more about his writing on gun issues than most who have posted on this forum.
I lived in NYC for 18 years. Part of that time was spent running (as an unpaid volunteer) educational shooting events for opinion leaders in the NYC major market press. The events were run on weekends at a range near NYC and they consisted of an NRA FIRST Steps pistol course, a Q & A session on gun laws, explanation of firearms technology that confuse media (e.g. "assualt rifle" falacies), a look at NY and NJ gun laws, and much more. The intent was to provide media with an education experience, live fire, a chance to meet gun owners including NJ's champion shooters, factual information on gun ownership, and establish ourselves as sources should a journalist need information.
Mr. Barrett was among many journalists who were invited because he was covering the gun industry for the Wall Street Journal with a more junior writer and colleage named Vanessa. (I forgot her last name.) You would think that this opportunity (especially the live fire) would interest anyone who covered the gun industry as regularly as Mr. Barrett. Unhappily, however, he declined to attend each and every time we invited him and often did not return phone calls or even RSVP to written invitations. In contrast, Vanessa did attend as well as many other writers from the WSJ and other media outlets.
Mr. Barrett's coverage of the lawsuits against the industry were more troubling than his lack of open mindedness towards getting a free and fun education on guns. Many of his articles had subtle and sometimes blatant bias, and they reeked of a man with anti gun agenda. His articles appeared during the "post Columbine Clinton era" where our Second Amendment rights were at no greater risk. As memory serves me, one article that made the front page, "Six Who made a Differerence", undescored his disdain for Jim Baker at NRA and NRA's tremendous influence at stopping anti-gun legislation.
His coverage was in fact so cleverly biased against gun makers and NRA that a senior person at the WSJ asked a senior member of the NSSF if he thought Mr. Barrett was "fair." During that same meeting, a senior member of an organization I will not name said that "Paul impressed me as having an agenda and would some day write a book on the gun industry." Funny how correct that prediction turned out to be.
Now, in 2012, Mr. Barrett wants to sell books to people who support an industry he showed bias against while writing for the WSJ. He even made it to the SHOT Show this month to promote his book not knowing that many remember him more clearly that he may desire.
I asked a friend at Glock what he thought about the book. His response was that nobody at Glock would talk to him, so he became angry and interviewed people who had been fired from Glock to get "dirt". My friend also said that there were many material inaccuracies in the book.
Will I read the book? Yes, but not buy it. Mr. Barrett may have become more fair minded about guns since he wrote those biased articles years ago, but the more likely scenario is that he is acting opportunistically to befriend people who he would strip of their gun rights if given the chance.
For a read on Glock from a fair-minded reporter that actually flew to Austria to meet Gaston Glock and his family, see this 2003 article in
Forbes magazine that Mr. Barrett surely used as a source for his book. Here's the link.
http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0331/020.html
