From: [yarvin norman] at [CS.YALE.EDU] (Norman Yarvin)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: [MEDIA] New York Times long story on NRA
Date: 11 Sep 1994 20:25:27 -0400

[c--wf--d] at [fido.econlab.arizona.edu] (David Crawford) writes:
#The New York Times Sunday  Magazine today (94 Sept. 11)
#has a cover story on the NRA (12 pages long) titled 
#'A Hoplophobe Among the Gunnies'.  
#
#It's a fairly detailed story, and picks up on a few good points
#often overlooked by the Times and other leading media.
#
#A sample of points made:

Actually if you look carefully it doesn't submit any supporting
evidence for any of those; it just lists them.  This will not be in the
least convincing to anyone who does not already know what's going on.
For instance he mentioned frequently that gun owners think the media
lies, but failed to mention even a single example of the many such lies.

In my opinion the article as written is a manual for confusing gun
owners, and can have no other purpose.  Anyone who wants to confuse gun
owners first has to know some of the terms they use -- so he can
distort them beyond recognition with specious arguments.

There was only one good pro-gun point in the article.  It was where the
author states that at the range, having a gun in his hands, he suddenly
realized that this didn't force him to go around shooting everyone in
sight.  Five or six more realizations like that, and he'd become
halfway reasonable.  But everything else in the article was thoroughly
unconvincing, whether it was pro-gun or anti-gun.  Either the people
the author talked to held back all the damning evidence out of fear of
seeming too intense, or he (and his editors) declined to print any of
it.

It's quite probable that all the blame is due to the author and editors,
but I've heard of too many cases where technical types dealt with
journalists on the grounds of "all he's ever told me is fluff, and all
I'll ever tell him will be fluff."  While it's not unreasonable to
refuse to give information to one's enemies, if you are going to treat
a journalist that way it's easier on everyone if you just refuse to
give him an interview.


--
Norman Yarvin						[y--rv--n] at [cs.yale.edu]
 "We Communist Party members are the most advanced revolutionaries in
  modern history... The enemy must be completely crushed and wiped out
  from the face of the earth before a Communist world can be realized."
	-- Nelson Mandela