Over the weekend, my attention was drawn to an op-ed at the San Francisco Chronicle. Ostensibly, it sounds rather pro-gun, oddly enough. A newspaper editor having a gun for protection and all that. Unfortunately, there are some “facts” about the story that don’t add up. I’m sorry, but I’m going to call BS, even if you’re making a point I make all the time.

Take, for example, this tidbit:

I had come to Oakland from Texas, where having guns was part of the culture. When you go to a church or a bar in Texas, you usually see a sign saying “Leave your guns outside.” I bought mine at a gun show, with no background check, just cash on the barrel, so to speak. I took a gun safety class and started to target-shoot for a hobby. I got pretty good. Eventually, I became an instructor in gun safety and taught classes on weekends.

That is a leftist talking point that has no basis in reality.

Either the writer, Christine Lavin, is lying or she bought it from a private individual who also happened to be at the gun show. Since the vast majority of gun show sales are from dealers who have federal firearms licenses, there are background checks performed. There have been for years and years.

Instead, a line like this comes from someone who buys into the so-called “gun show loophole,” the idea that there are massive amounts of guns being moved at gun shows without background checks. It’s a typical anti-gun talking point, but it’s also a lie. There’s no such thing.

Of course, Lavin also talks about the gun she got.

It comes up in the context of having been rammed by someone who she believes took issue with her pro-Anita Hill bumper sticker.

I opened my glove compartment, took out my Glock 17, and flipped off the safety. It was the first time it had ever come out of the glove compartment for any reason other than target practice. I rolled down the driver’s window and held the gun in front of my chest in both hands, as I’d been taught. I was the first to speak.

“May I help you gentlemen with anything?” I asked.

This was not what they had expected. They paused, then they saw the gun. I’ve not seen many men run faster since.

Now, part of me would like to pretend this happened. It really would. After all, Lavin has just illustrated the point in the private ownership of firearms. She has made the point that they can protect human life even while not being fired, as this was allegedly wasn’t.

I just don’t think it happened.

For me, the tell-tale mark is “flipping off the safety” on a Glock 17.

Anyone who spends much time with a Glock knows there’s no safety. Yes, there are a handful of exceptions, but those are extremely rare, and I seriously doubt Lavin purchased one of those. Statistics alone means it’s unlikely she did. If there’s no safety on the gun, and she shot it as much as she claims, then how can she forget there’s no safety on the Glock 17?

Maybe because she didn’t know?

Lavin continues:

I am not a huge fan of gun ownership. But when I got to the Tribune, and as editor heard firsthand the plethora of complaints and threats that came over the transom every week, and without a single barrier between the newsroom and the street, I brought the Glock to work.

Again, I’m doubtful it happened, but it should have. I’ve worked a newsroom, and there’s little to no barrier between that and the public. It’s why I carried a CZ-75B to work with me every day at the time. I pissed people off for a living, and there were more than a few who probably wanted me to go away. I was not alone in doing that from a newsroom. The fact that so many journalists share Lavin’s feelings on gun ownership still baffles me, especially since so many of our colleagues are murdered throughout the world.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that this story seems to support my position ostensibly, I still have to poke holes in it. In particular about how Lavin claims to have obtained the gun. Either she bought it before background checks were necessary–which may be possible–in which case, it doesn’t matter that it was at a gun show, or she bought it from an individual who just happened to be at a gun show. That’s a face-to-face transfer, no different than if I advertised in the classifieds of the newspaper that I had a gun for sale.

I can’t help but feel that even though the op-ed is ostensibly pro-gun in that Lavin clearly talks about using the gun for self-defense purposes, it doesn’t help when it also advances a BS narrative based on fearmongering and nonsense.