What is going on lately with progressive journalists? First, Katic Couric and her director, Stephanie Soechtig, fabricated a false response to a question in the anti-gun propaganda movie, Under the Gun. Then Couric’s one-time NBC co-host Bryant Gumbel’s team on HBO’s Real Sports was accused of doctoring quotes from on the designers of the AR-15, Jim Sullivan, and they won’t release the raw video supporting their claim that the interview was accurate.
Now New York Times op-ed writer Alan Berlow is being accused of distorting the words of yet another pro-gun voice in order to fabricate support for an intrusive and largely obsolete federal gun law.
According to yet another Second Amendment activist, a writer for the New York Times op-ed page distorted the words of the gun rights activist to make him appear as though he favors national gun registration.
According to Jeff Folloder, the executive director for theNational Firearms Act Trade and Collectors Association (NFATCA),New York Times op-ed authorAlan Berlow took Folloder’s quotes out of context to give the impression that Folloder agreed with certain gun control measures.
“The primary issue is that Berlow’s selective editing gave the impression that I/we support gun registration,” Folloder told The Federalist via e-mail. “We don’t.”
Here’s how Berlow characterized his conversation with Folloder in his New York Times piece published earlier this week:
Jeff Folloder, the executive director of the N.F.A. Trade and Collectors Association, says his members have learned to live with gun registration and lose no sleep worrying about confiscation. “There are still an enormous number of people who think if they register and purchase an N.F.A. weapon, they’re giving A.T.F. permission to come knock on their door at any time, and that’s just not true,” Mr. Folloder told me. “You’re not giving up any rights.”
Folloder takes great issue with Berlow’s characterization of their conversation.
“Many of my quotes/attributions from that past interview were taken out of context,” Folloder told The Federalist. “I detailed to the author that one of the rumors that we have to constantly dispel is the fiction that registering an NFA weapons gives ATF permission to come inspect or kick in your door without cause or warrant.”
“I specifically said that registering an NFA weapon does not mean that you give up any search and seizure rights,” Folloder continued. “Of course, that morphed into ‘not giving up any rights.’”
“Berlow, through manipulation and editing, implied that I/we think that a gun registration scheme is effective,” Folloder concluded. “It’s not.”
I have a very simple question for Ms. Couric, Mr. Gumbel, and Mr. Berlow: if your anti-gun position is so superior and “obviously” correct, why do you have to keep fabricating support for it?
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