Washington Post article...Obama against guns?

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I mean I am all about gun ownership but this article seems a little ridiculous. I mean look at their arguments. In a way, I want to believe its satirical, but its not.
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You find Obama's comments so ridiculous that they should be satirical, or The Post's comments so ridiculous that they should be satirical?
 
Glenn Kessler writes "The Fact Checker" for The Washington Post.

He gives Obama's publicly stated claims about gun ownership in the US a score
of "Three Pinocchios" which stands for "significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions."

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQk0HxQCwW8YQGWGhRqExe1uzKcEn7TA0AeYi-py-HpXLf0dcrV.png

Sounds right, but "Four Pinocchios" ("Whoppers") would be closer.

Tinpig
 
SilentStalker said:
What do you guys think of this article? I mean I am all about gun ownership but this article seems a little ridiculous. I mean look at their arguments. In a way, I want to believe its satirical, but its not.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs.../obamas-odd-series-of-exaggerated-gun-claims/
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Gun Violence: The USA has a very high rate, much higher than similar counties with similar standard of living and GDP per capita. Brazil and Mexico are still developing countries.

Buying Guns vs. Vegetables: He is talking about food deserts. There are plenty of places, particularly in cities, that do not have grocery stores and buying fresh meat or produce is difficult. These same places have plenty of pawn shops that sell guns. It isn't about the paperwork required it is the geographical distance to a store that sells the item.

Machine Guns in Bars: It is a pretty silly statement but I suppose if you can legally open carry a long gun into a bar you could bring a machine gun if you were licensed to own one and they were legal in your state / city. Not many would and it isn't machine gun owners that are turning our streets red. It is violence linked to the drug trade and handguns are the weapon of choice.
 
The Washington Post has never been about balanced, well researched journalism. This article is not much different than there norm.

I appreciate that the Washington post is very pro gun, and pro-republican. But they are a bit too close to a right-wing version of the national enquirer for my taste.

Still, they make for amusing reading at time.

In the past, I have posted in the comments section when their factual errors were a bit much to leave alone. Their editors/writers monitor their comments section. And respond by deleting comments they don't like, and banning posters who point out discrepancies... And I was pleasant with my comments.
 
I don't think this kind of journalism really does us any favors, it preaches to the choir while alienating those that may have been receptive to our arguments.

I don't like the practice of releasing an article and then adding updates later. Especially when said updates make the target look a bit more reasonable. How many people read the non-updated version before it was edited?

He was certainly talking about food deserts and it makes way more sense to compare us to European Countries than it does Mexico and Brazil. Now there are certainly counter points to be made to those arguments, but all that happened here is the author defined the president's words in his own terms and then called him a liar

The machine gun and Kindergarten comments were pure hyperbole on the presidents part and the leader of the free world should be better than that, but hyperbole is what we've come to expect from our politicians
 
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Thank you Vamo. I think this piece is garbage. I don’t even really know how to explain how doltish this is. it certainly does not do us any favors. Whatever happened to real journalism? I mean like I said, I am pro-gun, but this article is terrible journalism at a new high. Ridiculous.
 
I appreciate that the Washington post is very pro gun, and pro-republican. But they are a bit too close to a right-wing version of the national enquirer for my taste.
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I think you may mean The Washington Times.

The Washington Post is notoriously anti-gun. It is remarkable to see a Post fact-checker point out Obama's misstatements about guns.

Tinpig
 
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I am not sure if the lies this administration have told to push their agenda, not just gun control, qualify for 1-4 Pinocchio anymore. I think we should start grading these lies based on how far away from common sense they are. At this point I give Obama a grade of...Pluto. After that it gets into numbered planets found by the Hubble.
 
"The Washington Post is notoriously anti-gun. It is remarkable to see a Post fact-checker point out Obama's misstatements about guns."

If you visit the article, they subsequently softened their stance on a couple of those points with some extremely talented backwards bending (and water carrying). "He was talking out his backside; he was referencing obscure facets of laws being proposed in fly-over states, obscure FDA studies on food availability, and a specific economic report that conveniently fails to include two industrialized nations whose crime rates dwarf ours*"

The Post is not anti-gun so much as extremely friendly to the Obama administration (a good half the articles literally parrot the very keywords of the press secretary on any given day; it's pretty shameful, actually). I honestly have no idea why this article made it to publishing; it's very uncharacteristic of them to criticize any activity of the administration. The 'scoop' factor of those laughable quotes must have trumped their political sensibilities, I figure.

"The USA has a very high rate, much higher than similar counties with similar standard of living and GDP per capita"
I suspect the USA also has a much higher standard of living standard deviation than a lot of countries. Since crime increases exponentially with poverty, the shift of the average GDP from our depressed areas corresponds to a highly amplified crime effect that swings the crime rate disproportionately.

TCB

*they include New Zealand, Switzerland, and Luxembourg; I don't think the word "industrialized" means what they think it means. It refers to a nation with a dominant, thriving industrial economy; not one who has successfully purged/quelled/controlled its more unruly social elements. Brazil is hardly unindustrialized. Likewise, a nation whose primary business is banking, tourism, or sheep ranching is not what I'd think of as "industrialized," even if they do have some portion of industry in their economy. We're supposed to believe New Zealand is more industrialized than Brazil? :scrutiny: The US isn't nearly as post-industrial as many of the nations on that list, so once again we're at apples/oranges (that's assuming GDP is an indicator of social equity in the first place --it's not)
 
The article stated that they requested clarification by the White House and none was given. They were hoping that there were facts and truth behind the statements and they had to almost fabricate the data to get even a slightly believeable argument to support the President.

I do think the Washington Post is soft on the President, his administation, and generally favors the Democratic side of the fence. The Post does not favor the pro-gun arguments.

In general I found the article interesting and certainly not ridiculous. The machine gun statement was ridiculous. I don't know anyone who favors such.

The fact remains that the President favors the most restrictive gun controls and would favor them to include sporting weapons used hunting. You remember that the Univ of Chicago poll showed hunting declining among adults in the US which for the President would support his arguments or feelings on guns in general. The President is a city boy and his exposure to firearms was primarily crime related in the Chicago area and the military since he became president.
 
"The machine gun statement was ridiculous. I don't know anyone who favors such."

If long guns are allowed in bars, MGs are kind of by extension allowed in bars. That was the point they were making. Now, advocating something isn't the same thing as permitting, though our statist opposition seems to lack the capacity to understand this (ostensibly since they perform each and every act they are legally permitted to do, alphabetically, on a daily basis :D).

"The President is a city boy and his exposure to firearms was primarily crime related in the Chicago area and the military since he became president."
Pretty sure his "exposure" is solely comprised of his firing that shotgun he bummed off Biden into the air for a photo-op :rolleyes:. "Hearsay" is not experience ;) (A Hawaiian and a Chicagoan; can't believe some people ever thought he wasn't anti-gun. Now, we can be excused for thinking he wouldn't be foolish enough to pursue the subject, but...)
 
I read the article and thought it was pretty good for the Post. The intent of the piece was to explain in an "objective" way that the President was not telling the truth and deliberately exaggerating in his remarks. It accomplished that. It's not what I would have written but at least it tells the truth in a limited way.

Was their an earlier harsher version of it that was edited up?

If some wanted an article from the Post to go on a rant and call the President a liar I think you'll be disappointed. Likely you can find an article like that elsewhere though.

tipoc
 
Everyone defending the article I don't think many people would make the case that Obama is progun. But this article is unfairly portraying most of what he said. There's a logical way to refute those statements, but the author did not go that route and instead just straight up called him a liar. That does nothing to further a logical debate on the issue of guns, it just preaches to the choir and makes us all look bad in the eyes of everybody else.
 
Not only is the WaPo notoriously obsequious to the Obama Administration; but Glenn Kessler carries more water for Obama than a Roman aqueduct. I'm shocked he even bothered to address the issue, though not so surprised it was mediocre journalism.
 
If you check the record, he was one of the most anti gun senators around, so why would he be any different now. He (and the other players) lied to pass his flagship "healthcare" law, so why wouldn't he lie to help pass anti gun legislation.

The answer is of course he would, and has. He's a hard core anti. That is what they do.

The antis, including the president, were bitterly disappointed when they lost in their attempt to ban all ARs and AKs. They will continue to try any way they can to gain support from the largely gun ignorant public through lies and exaggerations to take this and that away from us.

It's what they do, and they are good at it.
 
There is NO defense of Obama in this area. He swore to protect and defend the Constitution. All of it.
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He also swore to have everything open and on the net before voting; he has lied about EVERYTHING.........this is really a surprise?:rolleyes:
 
Got to Agree

What JSH1 said.

That stated, the reason isn't just firearm availability.

It's other factors, too....

If we arranged it so that the people of Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and many other First World nations owned the same types of weapons, per-capita, as we do here, the firearms murder rate would still be a tiny fraction (along with other crime) as to what we see in the U.S.

Why???

He he...I should say "ask a sociologist or a demographer", but I will point to only 2 aspects of our society, although a book could be made of this answer (and has been);

1. A huge, vast polarization and disparity between rich and poor, that breeds (not an excuse, but maybe a partial explanation) crime

and

2. Many other countries have a very homogeneous population, culturally, etc.

We don't. Nuff said.
 
Every country has rich and poor.

Culturally, our pres, with a LOT of help from politicians and media, has been stirring the hate pot for six years. Not very "homogeneous".

To blame thugs murdering people on disparity of income is simply ridiculous.
 
One could also argue that the cultural disparity between densely urban areas and rural ones causes the unruly to coalesce together, and wreck (reek?) exponentially more havoc. We've seen time and again that the vast majority of crime is caused by an even smaller group than can be called a minority; more like a collection of individuals unsuited for free living. When these guys get together, they can cover each other's backs (while not stabbing them) and make it ever harder for authorities to control things. Add to that the corrosive effect these people have on those around them (lack of leads, induction into gangs, illegal commerce) and you can really see how a few dozen people can cause square miles of territory to become crime-ridden and corrupt.

This concentrating effect only gets worse in a country like the US that has both the land and prosperity to allow those with resources and a clue to flee these diseased areas for greener pastures. In many European nations, there is literally nothing going on outside the cities. Not as big on sprawl/suburbs/commutes over there (legacy of walled cities or stricter imminent domain rules on pastureland? I dunno) so the 'quality people' must stick around and dilute the numbers. The sheer freedom of movement in the US (you can earn a living just about anywhere, on average) allows those fed up with corruption to leave behind an increasingly-concentrated cesspool until the last bit of water evaporates and even the crooks must flee (see: evolution of Detroit)

Also helps that the stats are routinely fudged down overseas (ours are fudged, too, but I'm just never sure in which direction :D)

TCB
 
Everytime Obama opens his mouth lies fly out when spoken. 6 years of issues and no one has challenged it except a lone judge down in Texas. It will be interesting to see how the outcome of his ruling comes out.
 
The use of the term 'gun violence', a media invented term, should tell you something. No such thing as gun violence. Guns are inanimate objects that are incapable of doing anything.
 
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