Sports writers off the mark
It wouldn’t be a shooting without someone in the media blaming guns. Can’t let an opportunity go to waste! Here’s this week’s exploiter, Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News, writing about Steve McNair’s murder:
The gun was found next to the woman, Sahel Kazemi. Where did the gun come from? Where it always comes from: Somewhere. … He is the 36th homicide victim in Nashville this year. That is down from 41 at the same time last year. Only in a country of gun lovers is that considered progress.
And just who would argue that less murders isn’t progress?
There’s plenty in the piece that could be given to a logic class to hack apart. Hot Air did a nice debunk of Lupica, along with a graph of gun use in violent crime, so be sure to check it out.
Lupica’s stellar “analysis” reminds me of ESPN’s Gregg Easterbook going off on last year’s Supreme Court decision in the Heller case, in which the majority ruled 5-4 that D.C. couldn’t just ban handguns outright. One of Easterbrook’s gems is this:
In modern society, handguns are used in law enforcement, as military sidearms and for crime.
While Easterbrook has some interesting points, overly broad quotes like this painfully reveal his ignorance. Given that Easterbrook links to an anti-handgun study, maybe he should have looked at this one by John Lott as well. (Easterbrook also apparently thinks it’s quite difficult to hold a phone in one hand and a handgun in the other. As an owner of both handguns and rifles, I’d take that over one-handing a long gun any day. Feel free to give your own preference below.)
Readers can figure out gun control and other political issues on their own. Sports writers ought to stick to sports.
User Comments
JFK
July, 2009
Those quotes leave the reader with an empty, hollow feeling. Broad generalization is often my specialty, but not when it comes to firearms