A good illustration regarding guns and our society ocurred recently when the media confronted Dick Cheney regarding his votes on "plastic guns" and "cop killer bullets". Two complete fabrications and gross distortions of the truth by the anti-gun side.
The "plastic gun" scare was created with the advent of the Glock pistol and its polymer frame. The anti-gun crowd seized the opportunity to cry that this weapon was invisible to metal detectors and airport security systems. The facts of course have been proven otherwise. The Glock still has a substantial amount of metal in it and it still looks like a gun on x-ray systems.
The "cop killer bullets" is another outright lie by the anti-gun forces and the media. These rounds, created by a company called KTW, were developed for law enforcement use to enhance pentration against hard targets such as vehicles. The typical police rounds such as full metal jacket and especially hollow point were not having good penetration qualities aginst windshields and car doors etc. Originally these bullets had a steel core and later used a solid brass bullet with a Teflon coating. The Teflon was used to eliminate the severe rifling abrasion caused by the brass.
ABC did a so-called story on the "cop killer bullets" even though asked to not do so by law enforcement.
The result was a hue and cry on the part of the anti-gun forces to ban these and any bullet that could penetrate a typical protective vest. Well it turns out that that just about every rifle round could penetrate a vest and the propsed legislation was so broad it would have banned most kinds of ammunition. Suffice to say that the laws that were passed were based, with the help of the NRA, upon the construction of the bullet and did not impact the typical ones used by most shooters.
However, rather than being any kind of a positive thing the whole affair was really a negative.
1. Bad people were made aware of ammunition that could defeat protective vests at a time when the mere wearing of these vest was not a widely known fact.
2. It had alwasy been illegal to sell armor piercing ammunition to civilians now it seemed as if a there was a ready black market.
3. KTW rounds were never sold in the civilian market -only to police and the military.
4. The so-called "Fourth Estate", the media, excercising their right to free speech, disseminated information to the population that had the potential to create harm for both law enforcement personnel and the public in general. I'm not sure why the people's "right to know" regarding specialized penetrations rounds overruled the safety of the police and the public. ABC aired the special twice by the way, they must have been really proud of themselves.
5. The Teflon coating was depicted as being an "evil secret" in helping to defeat protective vests when in fact it actually made it less effective.
There are other details that are illustrative of the point. Perhaps the most telling one being that this is all old news. The facts are widely know that both of these stories are really complete fabrications. You have to wonder why the Networks and media personalities like Matt Lauer would confront Cheney with his votes on these issues as a bad thing when the truth is easy to find. I won't dignify the folks who participated in this charade as journalists. A journalist would use the truth not hide or distort it.
As a lady on the gun newsgroup said "It isn't about GRAVITAS, its about VERITAS.
But of course it is much easier to give in to emotion rather that be forced to use energy and brainpower to divine the truth.
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"The more perfect
civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government." Thomas Paine The Rights of Man 1792
[This message has been edited by Coyote 6 (edited August 09, 2000).]
