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by Rob Leahy , Prescott, Arizona, Tuesday, August 28, 2012, 09:03 (4417 days ago)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 27, 2012

Full contact info at end

Dear Editor: What happened to waiting periods for guns?

An open letter to America's news media

From: Alan Korwin, The Uninvited Ombudsman

Re:

The Batman Movie Massacre

Our Forgotten Waiting Periods

The Need for Gun-Control... Counseling

Banning the Glock

Really Small Bullets

Copycat Heroes

Media Culpability for Massacres

Dear Media Colleagues,

Guns can't seem to keep themselves out of the limelight. Urban shootings, outside the ghettos where most shootings take place, are now becoming national news. What changed?

Why aren't we talking about waiting periods anymore? The media and the gun-control movement have abandoned waiting periods, but they used to be the holy grail. Why is that?

It turned out waiting periods didn't matter. They didn't work, had no impact on crime, they were a distraction. They were just an attack that could be made on guns, the flavor of the day, a reflection of what the public out here perceives as media hatred for guns. Like a reported shooting... from two thousand miles away.

Waiting periods were what gun controllers told media to ask for, not what media independently figured out might work. Media were told, "Waits will slow crime," and even though rational people knew this was silly, you (plural) called for them -- and then were bewildered at the resistance you got. Everyone lamented the predictable lack of results, until thankfully, you abandoned that red herring.

Now I find you urging support to ban gear, like magazine size, ammunition types and even brands, like AR-15 and Glock. This is just as bogus as the olden waiting-period demands, and you are just as mystified at the adamant resistance again. This is why it is time for gun-control counseling.

People seeking gun control, media included, understand the subject so poorly they are getting in the way of making any real progress. Gun control is not crime control. It doesn't have the desired effect. That's why gun owners and others resist it so fervently. If it would work they would support it -- everyone wants to stop senseless murder, we're not irrational.

There is actually lunatic talk of banning the Glock sidearm for the public, along with all semi-automatic firearms. The Glock is so good that 65% of law enforcement uses it -- it's reliable, effective, safe, simple, fast. Guns save lives. Guns stop criminals. Guns protect us. This is why we give them to police. This is why the public wants and needs them. This is what gun controllers don't get, and why counseling is called for if we are going to get anywhere.

You would consider taking Glock and other autoloaders away from the public because criminals understand the value and use these too. That makes as much sense as taking them away from the police themselves. Of course the public balks at that, and you interfere with getting to any real solution for stopping armed maniacs. You fail to see how your equipment-based arguments are doomed to failure. The gun-control debate needs an intervention. For example:Why only discuss guns after a mass murder? Wouldn't covering all the newsworthy aspects of guns help us understand the issues better? What about all the good that guns do? You may not even clearly know what that is. What about the shooting sports -- a billion dollars bigger than golf? What about censorship on the subject of guns in education? It is a vacuum. Why don't you cover that?

That vacuum is a measure of your bias. Your bias is a measure of why we have this problem. The media, both so-called "news" media and the cultural media like movies, TV, video games and magazines, are powerful driving forces behind the mass-murder behaviors we have never before seen. This is understandably hard for you to face.

When guns were more available during our baby-boomer youth -- without age limit, without paperwork, without background checks, without the FBI, by mail order from the pages of comic books -- these kinds of atrocities were unheard of, unfathomable, unthinkable. What changed? Our culture, and the media led the way.

--
Of the Troops & For the Troops