Posted on 08/04/2012 5:40:26 AM PDT by marktwain
In 1989, I came close — we’ll never know how close — to shooting a producer and cameraman with a TEC-9 assault weapon.
We were at a suburban gun range with a law-enforcement agent doing a story on how semiautomatic weapons can be illegally modified into automatic weapons, making them deadlier still.
The gun I was given to fire was a fully automatic TEC-9 pistol with a magazine of bullets. The target was straight ahead. My crew was far off to the right and safely — or so we all thought — out of the way.
But with one trigger pull, the weapon took control. My right arm jolted in an arc upward and to the right.
My crew, with lightning speed, dropped to the ground. The whole thing took just seconds.
Terrified?
We all were.
You could argue that’s what happens when an inexperienced person handles an assault weapon.
Tom Ahern, senior special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Chicago and an expert marksman, would tell you otherwise.
“I’ve been shooting for 32 years,” he said by phone Thursday. “If I fired a fully automatic TEC-9 one-handed, it could jump up or down, right or left . . . the gun could flutter . . . and you could dump a 50-round clip in under five seconds. It’s going to spray all over the place.”
And holding it with both hands, he said, won’t significantly improve accuracy.
Why are we talking about this?
Because on the streets of Chicago, there are all kinds of guns — legal and illegal. And all kinds of people getting shot — intended victims plus people who end up as the collateral damage of a barrage of bullets.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
You know if he was holding the TEC-9 sideways gangster style, he would not have the problem he had / S
Some people just shouldn’t be around guns.
And others shouldn’t be journalists.
We need a study to confirm that the “dumb gene” is fully correlated with media dorks and politicians.
“Carol Marin is the political columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. It is easy to see why the MSM is dying.”
Let me guess - because their guns are shooting each other?
“Even legal, semiautomatic assault weapons aren’t precision instruments. Though each bullet fired requires a separate squeeze of the trigger (unlike fully automatic weapons), after the first round is fired, the trigger loosens for subsequent rounds. It still takes only seconds to dump a high-capacity magazine.”
Some elements of truth here but she has a long way to go in her journalistic accuracy. I do commend her on differentiating between semi-auto and fully automatic guns...even though she is a little hazy about what kind of gun’s trigger gets easier to pull after the first round.
Carol is a woman. This reminds me of the scene from one of the Dirty Harry movies where the police are demonstrating a LAW rocket launcher. Harry snatches his partner from the blast zone behind the weapon just before it is fired.
Giving a complete and clueless woman a fully loaded machine pistol and expecting her to be “safe” with it is the height of irresponsibility.
I’m thinking they are culled in the deadly “Walking and chewing gum” experience.
Remember journalists, “If you walk, don’t chew gum, because one of those pieces of Juicy Fruit might have your name on it!”
Carol Marin is the political columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.
In addition to her work at the paper, she is the political editor for NBC5 News and an interviewer/contributer to WTTW’s Chicago Tonight program.
A former CBS News correspondent, she reported for the CBS News magazines 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II. An award winning journalist, she is the recipient of broadcast journalism’s most prestigious awards. She has won two George Foster Peabody awards, two DuPont-Columbia awards and two national Emmys. In addition she is a member of the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame and has received the Ethics in Journalism award from the Chicago Headline Club.
Born in Chicago, she grew up reading the legendary Mike Royko and listening to the television commentaries of Len O’Connor. Carol’s own news career began in Knoxville, Tennessee at WBIR-TV in 1972. In 1976 she moved to WSM-TV in Nashville as the anchor of the 6:00 news and established herself as one of the market’s top reporters. In 1978, she returned home to Chicago to anchor and report for WMAQ-TV. In 1985, she was promoted to anchor the station’s 10:00 newscast, a position she held until May 1997. In 1997 she joined CBS News and a year later joined the staff of 60 Minutes II. She left CBS in July 2002. In 2003 Carol began writing a weekly column for the Chicago Tribune and was hired by the Chicago Sun-Times in August 2004.
A graduate of the University of Illinois, Carol lives in Chicago with her husband and two sons.
I am not qualified to comment on the Tech 9, like most Americans I have never been close to one.
I can comment on the author and it is pretty easy to see her agenda.
Could just as well have been doing a story on how to manufacture a sawed-off-shotgun. In either scenario the cop was violating federal law and the news person was an accessory to the crime.
Must be hard to shoot with a limp wrist.
My conservative congressman’s son is a crime writer for one of the Chicago papers. I suspect that he would have written a far more rational piece.
I worked in the media for many years. As bad and as stupid/unqualified as you think ‘journalists’ are, I assure you you have no idea. And you don’t really want to know. You might think you do, but trust me. I know. And that knowledge haunts me every time I read a news article.
I know the ‘thought process’ that goes into an article like this. The plagiarism, the google searches on gun control sites, calls to ‘unnamed sources and such...the same sources that will be picking them up from work to go home, ot the ‘source’ sitting in the next row of cubicles...
The dishonesty, ignorance ...believe me. you don’t really want to ‘know’. And as bad as you imagine it to be, it is far worse.
It is dependent to some degree on the person doing the shooting and also how well they have been instructed.
Around 35 years ago, I took several of my Nieces and Nephews down to a creek bank on my parents property. We did nearly all our shooting with .22 pistols and a 9mm.
One of my Nieces asked to shoot the Ruger Super Blackhawk in .44 magnum. I told her that was probably not a good idea for a beginner. She was insistent so I finally let her shoot it.
The shooter always had on ear muffs. I gave her some basic instructions on holding the gun two handed and to hold it firmly but not like she was strangling a weasel. Also not to fight the recoil just let it slide up.
Anyway she fired it six times with no problem at all.
‘swhy I left the scribbling profession and went into sales.
I remember the only time I ever fired an automatic weapon. First my uncle had me fire a few single rounds in semi auto to get a feel for the recoil.
When I fired in full auto he told me to forget about aiming at the target and fire a few rounds downrange into the ground first again for the feel. The whole time he was at my shoulder ready to take control.
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