Matt Wuerker got caught up in a bit of irrelevantly inaccurate reporting the other day.
As a comment or two on his cartoon gleefully pointed out, the weapon used in the Orlando shootings was not, as originally reported, an AR-15. It was a Sig Sauer MCX.
Which, as that linked article suggests, raises the important question: "So what?"
Another comment pointed out that the Umpqua shootings were done with handguns, but didn't mention that the killer also carried a Del-Ton 5.56×45mm AR-15 that he never got a chance to use.
Well, accuracy does matter, and I am speaking here of reporting, not marksmanship.
When reporters write of "bullets" in a crime committed with a shotgun, they undermine their own credibility. Ditto when they clearly don't know the difference between "automatic" and "semi-automatic."
It matters, in part, because small mistakes make the reader wonder what else you may have gotten wrong.
And it particularly matters when the topic is not "who killed the guy?" but the gun itself.
Mostly, it matters because minor, avoidable errors provide a toe-hold for people who aren't prepared to argue over the actual point being made.
In this case, the only blame for Wuerker is that he relied on the widely-reported description of the weapon in Orlando rather than the somewhat below-the-radar minicorrection that followed.
It's unfortunate, because, had he caught that change in the report, he might have simply used the label "assault rifle" and made the same point: That, yes, it's the weapon and not the wielder. That religion and ethnicity are not relevant. That providing psychopaths with a tool with which to kill people is a very bad idea.
It's still a good cartoon that makes that important point, and here's the next thing:
Had he used that more generic label, he'd have been besieged with complaints about the exact definition of an "assault rifle," because that's what we do these days.
We are in an age of nit-picking and finger-pointing.
It reminds me of a friend who, several decades ago, applied for a job in Japan and, in filling out his resume, said he had received a degree in May of a particular year. It turns out that, while he finished his coursework in May, the actual graduation and awarding of degrees that year took place a few days into June, and the response from the prospective employer was "A person who would lie about something so small would lie about anything."
So he had a forged document made to show that the degree was actually awarded in May, which proved him to be an honest person, which meant he could be hired.
At the time, it was an amusing and revelatory anecdote about the precise way in which a Japanese employer might strain after gnats and swallow camels, but in the years since, the attitude has become more universal.
And it's not just the gun-rights people, even in this particular case: We've got a whole other group of gnat-strainers who are arguing that Orlando is not the worst mass shooting but that the honor goes to the Wounded Knee massacre, which I would point out was -- however misguided and reprehensible -- a military operation that stretches the definition of "mass shooting" even more than the favored example of a second group that claims the honor for a mass lynching in which it's not even clear how many of the victims were shot at all.
So one side argues over the precise weapon that killed the victims, while another insists "My victims matter more than your victims."
Because that's who we have become. Now ain't you proud?
It makes you wonder if anyone really wants to focus on issues, or if we've just fallen into a relentless cycle of NIGYYSOB.
Goodness knows, the game is not confined to issues of gun control, but it seems particularly heartless in this context.
If you'd like to make sure gun laws reflect reality, step up and educate people. But using technicalities to duck the overall issue makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution.
And bickering over whether those dead people are the most dead people ever in their category is just ... wow.
(UPDATE: Wuerker reports that, after the more accurate reports emerged, he edited the cartoon to say "assault weapon," but the version cited here was already out.)
Meanwhile
Joel Pett seems to be exploring the issue of the Second Amendment and then delivers an unexpected pie in the face that cracked me up.
He's right about the Second Amendment, by which I mean he agrees with what I said the other day, that the Founders didn't intend to have militia members keeping cannons in their homes.
In fact, back in the days when we still sorta kinda believed in local militia, weapons of war were kept in local armories where they belonged and, even today, that's where National Guard units store their equipment.
There is a line drawn in the law between things like missiles and tanks and flame throwers that are obviously military armaments, and the weapons that have civilian applications.
So the question is not whether to draw a line, but where, and that's both a worthy and a necessary discussion.
Which we are not having.
The Democrats' marathon session in the Senate the other night produced only an agreement to consider a topic that isn't particularly controversial: Even the NRA and some Republicans have said restricting people on terrorist lists from buying guns makes sense.
That doesn't mean they'll actually support a bill doing so, mind you. But, if the bill comes to a vote, we'll at least get a roll call and a chance to see which side each legislator stands on. It's a start.
As for that last panel switch, that's up to the voters. But since he's such good friends with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, I guess he won't drop nukes on them.
Just on ISIS and Iran and on the families of terrorists.
So watch out if he wins, Port St. Lucie.
Now here's our new national anthem
(now watch someone whine that Warren Zevon actually wrote it)
I thought of "one of these things is not like the other" à la Sesame St. 5 AR-15s and 1 Sig Sauer
Posted by: Brian O'C | 06/18/2016 at 08:30 PM