Portsmouth Herald Editorial Board Has An Integrity Deficit - Granite Grok

Portsmouth Herald Editorial Board Has An Integrity Deficit

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” —Mark Twain

Oh No Guns....and magazines...and ammoHoplophobia —n. Irrational, morbid fear of guns (c. 1966, coined by Col. Jeff Cooper, from the Greekhoplites, weapon; see his book Principles of Personal Defense). May cause sweating, faintness, discomfort, rapid pulse, nausea, sleeplessness, nondescript fears, more, at mere thought of guns. Presence of working firearms may cause panic attack. Hoplophobe, hoplophobic

 

Hoplophobes. The Editorial Staff  of the Portsmouth Herald/Seacoast Online epitomizes the very notion of that word.  With each sticky-sweet glass of Kool-Aid they drink, the self-convincing liberal pandering drunkenness sets ever deeper into their psyche of intellectual dishonesty.  Moral Bankruptcy is the standard-bearer for their brand of yellow journalism.

It is, in fact,  an editorial and while editorials possess a point of view, most are slanted in a particular political bent left or right, conservative or liberal, pro-gun or anti-gun. However,  despite stark vehement policy disagreements I might have, no editorial will ever draw the ire of this writer when they are at least, honest. I might think them dead wrong or totally off the mark, but that much I can still respect. Today’s Portsmouth Herald/Seacoast Online Editorial is devoid of honesty and integrity.

The Portsmouth Herald Seacoast Online declares today, Time has come to curb gun violence Portsmouth Herald. Who would disagree? But then again, the time is long overdue to curb all violence, especially those acts of violence that go underreported because they do not involve firearms.

 It took the deaths of 20 young children to do it, but the country is finally horrified enough to call for an end to the sale of assault weapons — and Washington is finally listening.

An end to the sale of assault [sic] weapons is the advocacy point. “Assault Weapons.” A term that few has yet to define.  And, when it is defined by the lamestream liberal media, it becomes abundantly clear the writers know NOTHING about which they write. These demagogues rely on the public ignorance and confusion between a firearm that fires full-auto and a firearm that fires semi-automatically. They do so to keep those emotional fires burning, not against pychos and crazies who obtain firearms and do their mass murder, but on the firearm itself.

Here, the Editorial staff grossly misleads its audience using examples of recent mass murders.

 In August, two people were killed and eight were injured by a lone gunman in front of the Empire State Building. That same month, six people were killed at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis.

FACT: Both incidents involved handguns. not semi-automatic rifles at which the editorial takes aim.  Jeffrey Johnson used a “handgun” outside of the empire state building, not an “assault [sic] weapon.” NewYork City, with its uber strict “Sullivan Laws” some of the toughest gun laws in the country, and cops being present, didn’t prevent Johnson from  open firing. Mass Murder? where is the mass? two died, one of which was Johnson and some bystanders who were wounded were wounded by NYPD’s finest.  At the Sikh temple a Springfield XD handgun was used, again, not an assault weapon. So how do these two examples make the case for an Assault [sic] Weapons Ban?

In July, a man wearing a mask walked into a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and opened fire during a showing of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises.” Twelve people were killed and 58 were wounded.

FACT: James Eagan Holmes used a Smith and Wesson Military & Police 15 (AR-15-style) rifle, A Remington 870 Express Tactical shotgun, and a couple of Glock handguns. At court preceedings it was argued that Holmes was mentally ill, had stated his intent to kill people, and while under the care of a psychologist he gave her a notebook with egregious violent assertions. The Mental Health professional failed to make reports to Law enforcement and hid behind ambiguous Hipaa laws to the peril of the general public. Yet here we are resting the blame squarely on these inanimate amalgams of steel, carbon fiber and black anodized or parkerized-surfaced firearms.Only one example?

 In April, a gunman killed seven and wounded three people in a rampage at a Christian college in Oakland, Calif.

FACT: One L. Goh, the Christian School Shooter used a 45-caliber “handgun”…In California…a state pround of its gun laws…some of the toughest gun laws according to the Brady Campaign. Handgun again, not a black semi-automatic rifle. 

And let us not forget the 9-year-old girl who was killed when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tucson, Ariz., in January 2011.

FACT: Jared Lee Loughner,  a scizophrenic high school drop-out, U.S. Army reject, drug and alcohol user and all-around nutjob, used a “handgun.” Not an assault rifle. The body count was not nearly high enough to be called a mass murder and it lingered in the news cycle because it involved a loved liberal congresswoman, not the little girl.  She was just a kid! But what is so prominent about that whole day? Gabby Giffords being shot. Sans Black Rifle…

  Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., won’t even bring up the subject. By being silent, Ayotte is failing to show she cares more about preventing 6-year-olds from being shot in the face than she does about being a rising star in the Republican Party.

That statement is not just shocking but is clear unethical journalism. I am willing to bet a years pay that Senator Ayotte went to her home, either looked at her young children or photos of her young children and was deeply and profoundly affected by this tragedy.  Senator Kelly Ayotte has children that are around the age of the children of Newtown who were, “shot[sic] in the face” The same New Hampshire Attorney General who prosecuted a cop killer and attained a death sentence for that same cop killer!

The rank dishonesty of the Portsmouth Herald in using handgun examples and only one scary black gun example is a blatant sleight of hand. Its dishonest because there is no widespread call for a ban on handguns…the focus is the proverbial scary black rifle.

It is pointless for me to go back and restate the Second Amendment argument. I made a compelling case in my entry, A Common Thread that throughout the world, gun control has not stemmed the tide of mass murders. In my entry, Connecticut And It’s Tough Gun Control Laws, I reviewed what we already know: tough laws do not prevent this kind of violence.  Plainly put, Gun control and gun free zones are “kill zones” for mass murders. The empirical evidence supports that.  The only thing left for the anti-gun liberals to do is to resort to gutter politics, yellow journalism and the very cowardice we read today in the Portsmouth Herald/Seacoast Online.

 

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