The Guardian is a British newspaper of questionable repute. Well, I question their repute, anyway. After all, I’ve seen a lot of BS get spewed on the pages of that particular paper’s website–I have no intention of spending actual money on a copy, after all.
As a British paper, it’s no surprise that they don’t like things like firearms or our right to keep and bear them.
So imagine my complete lack of surprise when I read this from the Guardian:
It is the Christmas card that has sent shockwaves across the world – and provided a chilling reminder of the size and type of weapons that are perfectly legal to own and carry in large parts of the US.
An analysis by the Guardian indicates the guns in the photograph published by the Republican congressman Thomas Massie are military grade and – in some cases – similar to those used in recent notorious deadly incidents.
…
The calibre and range of the weapons on display horrified one expert. Philip Ingram, a former British military intelligence officer, told the Guardian: “There is no way in a modern society these weapons should be in hands outside law enforcement or the military … They are designed for one purpose: to kill people.”
You know, it seems to me that we fought an entire war a couple of hundred years ago just so we didn’t have to give a damn what anyone in England had to say about us having guns.
Their little trip to Lexington and Concord was explicitly to seize arms from the colonists, after all, and that didn’t really work out well for them. They lost a lot of colonies and got bloodied by a bunch of farmers, and they were considered the most powerful nation on Earth at the time.
However, there’s a lesson here, and that’s precisely how the media slants coverage. The Guardian gets a single voice–I can’t say he’s an expert, in part because working in intelligence doesn’t make one an expert on firearms–to say what they want to be said, then doesn’t bother to get any other side of the story. They don’t get an opinion from anyone else to counter it and provide balance.
That’s by design.
Frankly, Philip Ingram’s opinion doesn’t matter. He’s entitled to it, but my opinion is that the United Kingdom is courting bigger problems because they forbid civilians from having these weapons.
It should also be noted that for all the scaremongering in that “article,” they fail to note that while there are millions upon millions of these guns in private hands–at least the non-NFA ones–crimes committed with them are incredibly rare. Yes, we see them on the news semi-regularly, but that’s kind of the point. The media doesn’t report the common stuff.
Further, none of the Massies are criminals. Those guns, no matter how much they might make former British intelligence officers and the journalists who interview them wet themselves, are not a threat to anyone unless they wish to harm one of the Massie family.
In fact, I’m glad Congressman Massie posted the photo. Firearms need to be renormalized in our society. People need to get used to seeing them in hands that don’t belong to the police, the military, or even the bad guys.
Unfortunately, the downside is that some people will see anyone with a gun as the bad guy, no matter what you say to the contrary.
I’m pretty sure that at least some of them worked for British intelligence and other work for the Guardian. After all, this is the same paper that called increases in gun ownership “disturbing” so it’s not a stretch.
