negative descriptive terms

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icedog88

New member
All too often, just headlines on the web make legal gun owners sound crazy. I just ran across this and thought that the headline is extremely inflammatory. Gun totin', pistol packin', and brandishing are all terms used too often even when the recipient of these terms are acting within their legal right.

http://nation.foxnews.com/weird-news/2012/01/25/gun-toting-granny-stymies-suspect

Even the picture of her holding the gun lends itself to the notion we're all crazy. When is the media going to start acting responsibly? Is it ever going to change or just something we are going to have to live with. One picture even has her pointing the gun with her finger on the trigger!
 
Nothing new

Even the conservative media screws this up. I cant count how many times Ive heard the term "high powered rife" on fox. According to them a 22LR could be a high powered rifle. The term has no actual definition and it puts the ignorant against us.

I had a friend tell me that sawing off a shotgun made it more powerful! I had to explain to him that this actually makes it less powerful while spreading the shot pattern. He believed this because of the laws against "sawed off shotguns" and the way they're portrayed in the media must mean that they're too powerful.
 
IceDog88:

See my post above on "Hi-Point 88, good for the money". The author used the words Saturday Night Special and played into the hands of the Anit's.

Semper Fi.

Gunnery sergeant
Clifford L. Hughes
USMC Retired
 
I know the terms are out there. I know that they will be used. What bothers me is the portrayal of gun owners as reckless through these terms and the complacency that has imbedded itself around them. While gun totin' granny might be a funny description of a movie character (ala Clint's mother in Any Which Way But Loose or was it Any Which Way You Can?), when it comes to serious matters, I think we as gun owners bear some responsibility to correct these images somehow. I don't know how, so don't ask :D. Somehow it got there and therefore it can be gotten rid of. I understand the NRA (of which I am a proud member) and other groups have been working to promote an image of responsible gun owners for decades, but in the face of press clippings such as the one provided that only get scanned, it undermines that work.
 
Beyond language....the wanna be paramilitary attire really sends the wrong message. The cops at the local gun show were cool. One talked to me for about 20 minutes and almost bought the gun I brought. All 3 of the cops were cool. Joking around w each other and me. Later on a tacticool ninja showed up and the cops talked to him for about 15 minutes as he attracted the wrong type of attention. Don't know the guy from Adam...but think about the image you're sending to the public/LEOs. For sure I agree w the language comment. I have also noticed a lot of vendors don't even care their magazines are called clips by their clients and now advertise them as such. Don't get me started on the covers of magazines that the antis see whilst they shop for the Communist Manifesto or whatever.
 
I saw a story recently with the headline "Cop shoots man reaching for Assault Rifle. Pictures inside!"

The picture was of a Ruger mini-14 with what looked like a rimfire scope on it and an extended round mag. I would call that a "Varmit rifle" or "Small game rifle." Though I realize there is not really such a thing as an "Assault rifle" and more than their is a "battery rifle" or "robbery pistol" in this case the term was so drastically misapplied I had to comment...

The criminal was a meth dealer and totally in the wrong, he deserved what he got, but the new's description of the gun was ignorant and unhelpful to the legal gun owning community.
 
When is the media going to start acting responsibly?
Click to expand...
Never has...ever. People only think it once did, the mythos of Walter Cronkite and the 'golden age' of radio/tv news. Reality is the press has never been responsible, accurate or balanced. Hearst and his newspapers, the penny press of the 1800's, etc.

I work in TV news and could go on and on and on why the media is what it is, but I'm going to try to be brief.
The outlandish newspaper/websites headlines and on-screen graphics on Fox, MSNBC, NY Post and other likes that are...well par for the course for them for all types of stories. It panders to their audience and got us and others to notice them, which is all they're trying to do. Inspite of what the public thinks...and the members of media itself (by that I mean your TV reporters and anchors), news isn't a public service...it just thinks it is. It's there to make money and nothing else. All that righting wrongs, helping the helpless and all that stuff...even getting the story right isn't really why it's there. It's there to get the maximum number of people to see the print/web ad and sit through 2 minutes of commercials before weather. Most reporters, and most of the general public, will disagree with me about that; but the owners and sales departments will agree with me and they're the ones in charge.
You typical news producer is well under 30 and just out of school, even at national outlets. That anchor may have been on the air since you were a kid, but the newsroom he works in would resemble a highschool, and because it's very low paying job with lousy hours and the false belief that you provide a public service you end up attracting people who are mostly liberal into the field.
We gun owners know the truth, but we are fighting an uphill battle...and frankly we're lazy as hell at it too. We may have the lobbying element down, but we don't do nearly enough to "win the hearts and mind". Anti-gun organizations have a very well run and organized media PR machines (plural), we don't. Faxes, news releases, "studies" and all sorts of similar stuff are sent out to news outlets or over newswires and "press releases" from innocuously named organizations, say...the National Commission of Crime Prevention (made that up for an example, don't know if it's real or not) and the people on the receiving end don't research it's source, sounds legit. This is just one of the reasons so much misinformation about firearms and us gets out to the public.
 
Don't get your shorts in a wad you gun-weilding vigilante!

I agree with you about the negative terms and incorrect reporting of the "facts". It is another of the forces working against our 2nd amendment rights and freedom. It is unfortunate that ignorance runs amok through our political system and the politically controlled media. This is part of why we have to keep up the fight to educate the ignorant wherever they may be.

P.S. I was reminded of the song "Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley when I read the previous responses.
 
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