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Outrage over CBS and the National Guard Memos
by Glen Thompson

 

September 22, 2004
Wednesday


No one should really be surprised that CBS LIED about these memos, they have a history...

For example, in his book, "Guns: Who Should Have Them?" author David B. Kopel illustrates this point by writing:

Persons who do not know much about guns may be forgiven for thinking that "assault weapons" are machine guns; these people are victims of what has been, in some cases, a quite deliberate fraud. For example, CBS's Chicago affiliate, WBBM-TV, showed a reporter buying a (then legal) semi-automatic Uzi carbine (small rifle); the report later showed an automatic Uzi being fired, and viewers were never informed that the guns had been switched.

and:

People who get most of their knowledge about guns from television may have different impression of the lethality of "assault weapons" as the result of bad reporting on the part of some stations. For example, in early 1989, when 'assault weapons' had just become a major interest of the media, a Los Angeles television station arranged with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for a demonstration of the "awesome power" of "assault weapons." Using a rifle like the one used by Patrick Purdy in the Stockton shootings, an officer shot a watermelon that had been set up on a target stand. The bullet punched a hole the size of a dime in the watermelon, leaving the large fruit otherwise intact. The television reporter complained that the result was "visually unimpressive." The officer obligingly unholstered his service gun (a Beretta pistol, not an "assault weapon"). Loaded in the officer's pistol were high-performance Winchester Silvertip STHP rounds. He fired once, and the watermelon exploded into tiny fragments. By the time the "demonstration" had been edited for broadcast, viewers saw only the officer holding the "assault weapon" and then the exploding watermelon. Viewers were deliberately misled into believing that the "assault weapon" had caused the explosion.

Typical SPIN?

Glen Thompson
Ketchikan, AK - USA

 

Note: Comments published on Viewpoints are the opinions of the writer
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