Posted on 05/20/2003 10:08:37 AM PDT by Redcloak
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:03:21 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
CNN has found itself the target of criticism for misleading viewers about the types of weapons prohibited by a federal law due to expire next year.
Two CNN broadcasts last week, which featured firing demonstrations by the sheriff's department in Broward County, Fla., suggested that firearms banned under a 1994 law are more powerful than similar, legal weapons. Yesterday, CNN admitted that was not true.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Here's the CNN transcript of the exchange between the NRA's Wayne LaPierre and CNN's Krya Phillips...
PHILLIPS: Now we give you the other side from the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre
Wayne, thanks for being with us.
WAYNE LAPIERRE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, NRA: Hi, Kyra. Good to be with you.
PHILLIPS: Well, if the ban on assault weapons expires, what kind of weapons would be legal?
LAPIERRE: Kyra, let me say this to start: I'm glad you ran the story because apparently the only difference between "The New York Times" and CNN is that when a reporter for "The New York Times" fakes a story, he's fired, and at CNN he's not.
Your bureau chief, John Zarrella, deliberately faked the story yesterday and intending to show that the performance characteristics of banned firearms on the list are somehow different from the performance characteristics of firearms not on the banned list. He was -- he was implying that these were machine guns or fully automatic guns. That's not true.
PHILLIPS: Mr. LaPierre, I have to stop you there. No one fakes stories at CNN and John Zarrella definitely did not fake a story at CNN. You're very off base. I'm going to let you say your opinion, and let's have a conversation, but don't accuse our reporter of faking any stories, sir.
LAPIERRE: Let me say it again. In front of the whole country, your reporter faked that story yesterday. It deliberately misread...
PHILLIPS: All right, we're going...
LAPIERRE: There's no way it could be true and I challenge CNN to defend it.
PHILLIPS: Well, we're not going to continue this interview because our reporter did not fake...
LAPIERRE: Because you don't want the truth. The truth you don't want out there.
PHILLIPS: OK, that is not true. We did not a fake a story.
LAPIERRE: You ought to register your -- you ought to fill out a lobby form and register.
PHILLIPS: Why don't we ask another question? What are the uses for an assault weapon? Tell me what the uses are for this.
LAPIERRE: Why can't you accept the truth? There is no difference, Kyra, in the performance characteristics of the guns on the banned list and the guns not on the banned list. They don't shoot any faster, they're not more powerful, they're not machine guns, they don't make any bigger holes, all which your reporter, John Zarrella, implied in that story.
PHILLIPS: Let's talk about the ammunition. Folks had problem with the ammunition. We've heard a lot in the last 24 hours from viewers who made the point that it's not the weapons who do the damage, it's the ammo. OK? Can legally be bought, ammunition. Now does this do -- do just as much damage than an illegal weapon?
LAPIERRE: Kyra, they all fire the same ammunition. Why can't you accept the truth? There is no difference in the guns on the banned list and the guns not on the banned list.
Your reporter's story was deliberately misleading the viewers. Bill Clinton deliberately misrepresented the House and the facts to the House of Representatives in the Congress and I don't believe this House of Representatives is going to fall and have the wool pulled over their eyes the way what happened did in '94.
The truth matters. The public needs to hear the truth and the truth is every police officer on the street knows it. There's not a dime worth of difference between the guns on the banned list and the guns off the banned list in terms of their performance characteristics and I challenge CNN again to defend that story to its viewers because it's not true.
PHILLIPS: What do you say...
LAPIERRE: All day yesterday you misled the viewers.
PHILLIPS: What do you say to the members of the law enforcement community that we had on the air who say assault weapons don't belong on the streets?
LAPIERRE: Kyra, I got calls all day yesterday from law enforcement officers going crazy over that story you ran saying it's not true. They were dismayed that there was a law enforcement officer on there lending himself to it.
The story misrepresented the facts. What we need to do to stop crime -- every time you catch a criminal, 100 percent of the time, prosecute him. Put him in prison.
We have all kinds of gun laws. Catch a violent felon with a gun, put him in jail. Catch a violent drug dealer with a gun, put them in jail 100 percent of the time. That's what rank-and-file cops know stops crime. But again, I challenge CNN in the headquarters to take an objective look at that story and defend it because it's simply not true.
PHILLIPS: All right. Executive vice president...
LAPIERRE: "The New York Times" reporter was fired, John Zarrella ought to be fired.
PHILLIPS: Executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, that's why we are interviewing you today and that's why we're addressing this to show both sides of that story.
And we all stick by John Zarrella and how credible of a reporter he is.
Thank you for your time, sir.
Kudos to Wayne for outing the weasels!
John Zarella
5.56mm
RTKBA people oppose this law, too, and the SCOTUS rulings of the era on the subject, so this report is really not that big of a deal. Nuclear weapons are covered under the 2nd amendment. Any arms the government has, we have a right to have. I want my Patriot Battery, and one for my kid.
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BIGTIME !
Of course that's what they're doing. The hamfisted message to the soccermoms is "The NRA wants to shoot your kids with machineguns." I would be utterly shocked if they actually ran a retraction during the same hours they aired "Jayson" Zarella's original pieces. They're more likely to make sure that the same batch soccermoms never sees any retraction.
I agree. As a corrollary, the NRA says that only 1-2% of guns used in a crime are "assault rifles", so they shouldn't be banned. By that logic, handguns should be banned, since they are used much more often than "assault weapons" in crime.
Most people in the U.S. don't know about firearms. Thus, they think due to the gun-grabbers' willing accomplices in the media that the 1994 Crime (of a) Bill bans fully-automatic firearms. Those of us who are firearms enthusiasts know this to be false; that the 1994 law only bans firearms based on their appearance and not functional characteristics. The Great Unwashed don't, though, and thus they supported the ban and probably will support its renewal.
The point they're trying to make is that the banned firearms are no different functionally from firearms with which most voters have no problem. Therefore, the ban should sunset.
(The other option, of course, is to ban all of them, and that will not fly.)
Once this ban is in the /dev/null of history, then we can start to work on educating the majority of voters, to the point where a roll-back of other laws is possible. Remember, politics is the art of the possible, and a repeal of the 1934 National Firearms Act is not possible given the current political climate. One step at a time, though, and we'll see progress.
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