Here is one idea, from a letter I wrote to a reporter who ranted about gun makers "using loopholes to evade the law." You may use it as you wish. I have x'd out the reporter's name.
-----------------------------------
A news story, fictional:
"Bank robbery is against the law, at both the federal and state level, and most of those who rob banks are arrested by the F.B.I. or local police and brought to justice. But Mary xxxxxxxx, by exploiting loopholes in current laws, has managed to elude law enforcement officials and evade capture and imprisonment on charges of bank robbery."
"Ms. xxxxxxxx, who sometimes poses as a news reporter, has escaped capture and thwarted justice due to a combination of circumstances involving corruption of the local police, incompetence at the federal law enforcement level, and the seemingly irrelevant fact that she has not robbed any banks. But, while seeming to obey the law, she has cleverly used a legalistic loophole under which only those who rob banks can be imprisoned for the crime. The readers will be well aware of this kind of clever manipulation of the legal process, used by so many people who loudly proclaim their "innocence" when challenged by a courageous press."
-------------------------
OK, Ms. xxxxxxxxx, that is called pejorative writing. It is used by clever demagogues, writers of polemics, advocates of fringe causes, sophomore journalism students, and Dan Rather. It is, or should be, beneath any responsible journalist. What is the difference between "exploiting a loophole in the law" and "obeying the law"? As you may have noticed in the "story" above, there is none; it is all in the way a writer expresses the idea. I did say that you never robbed banks, and I have written nothing but the absolute truth, but I will bet that nine out of ten readers of those paragraphs would conclude that you are public enemy number one.
In 1994, Congress enacted legislation defining a "semi-automatic assault rifle" as a semi-automatic rifle having more than one of a list of features, and banned the manufacture and importation of those rifles. Those features included bayonet attachments, flash suppressors, and folding stocks. Presumably the law was intended to reduce such crimes as drive-by bayonetings.
So makers of semi-automatic rifles obeyed the law and removed those features, and no "assault rifles", as defined in the law, were made or imported in the next ten years. Semi-automatic rifles were made, but they had none of those features and were not "assault rifles." The makers obeyed the law; there was no "loophole".
Since "assault rifles" had never been used to any significant extent in crime, Mr. Eric Howard's [spokesman for the Brady Campaign, quoted in the article with no attempt made to verify the accuracy of the statement] statement about them being "overwhelmingly favored" by criminals is simply a lie. Once again, a responsible journalist would never accept and report the word of an interested party without checking the facts with an independent and reliable source.
:banghead: 
