The city of Oakland has never had a reputation for being the safest of communities. It’s always been the rough-and-tumble sibling of the more sophisticated San Francisco–this is before San Fran was known more it’s streets lined with human fecal matter.

Yet as violent crime rose in the last several years, Oakland has seen the same trends.

Much of that violence has, unfortunately, involved a firearm. That’s hardly surprising considering just how many guns are on the black market there.

CNN decided to take a look at things there, though, and honestly, their look is downright laughable.

The red-tipped bullet pierces skin and melts into it, Javier Velasquez Lopez explains. The green-tipped bullet penetrates armored vests. And the hollow-tipped bullet expands as it tears through bodies.

At 19, Velasquez Lopez knows a lot about ammunition because many of his friends own guns, he said. They carry to defend themselves in East Oakland, where metal bars protect shop windows and churches stand behind tall, chain-link fences.

Some people even hide AR-15-style assault weapons down their pants legs, he said.

“It doesn’t feel safe. Wherever you’re at, you’re always anxious,” said Velasquez Lopez, who dreams of leaving the city where he was born. “You’re always wondering what’s going to happen.”

Now, I’m not going to get into the rest of the piece because any credibility was shot in those first three paragraphs.

Let’s go through them the way I first read them for a second, because, well, I think it’ll be funnier.

The red-tipped bullet pierces skin and melts into it, Javier Velasquez Lopez explains. The green-tipped bullet penetrates armored vests. And the hollow-tipped bullet expands as it tears through bodies.

Well, the red-tipped rounds are generally tracers, which allow you to see what you’re hitting at night. The green-tips might well be armor piercing rounds, or they could just be ballistic-tipped rounds that use a plastic tip to help reduce drag on the round. And the hollow-tipped bullets do indeed expand, and while they may create a bigger wound cavity, they’re also like likely to overpenetrate and hit the person behind the target.

But hey, maybe this guy has some very relevant expertise that I don’t have. Maybe he’s talking from an emergency room perspective or something, in which case he’s not trying to be an authority on firearms or ammunition, but how it impacts the victim.

At 19, Velasquez Lopez knows a lot about ammunition because many of his friends own guns, he said.

OH HOLY CRAP! WE’VE GOT A REAL, LIVE EXPERT HERE!

He’s got a lot of friends with guns? Well, in that case I’m basically a fighter pilot because I have friends in the Air Force.

Now, on a more serious note, at the age of 19 and in Oakland, California, he may well know a lot of people with guns, but how many of those have obtained those guns legally? He might know some folks over 21 who can buy them lawfully, of course, but he’s also going to know a lot more people his own age who can’t buy them.

But let’s get into why they carry them. That’s in the second sentence in the above paragraph.

They carry to defend themselves in East Oakland, where metal bars protect shop windows and churches stand behind tall, chain-link fences.

CNN almost stumbled on a truth here. They almost started to realize that when people start to feel like they need protection, they turn to firearms to do so.

But I have doubts about the veracity of their source, and not just because of his statements on ammunition. It’s because of this next paragraph.

Some people even hide AR-15-style assault weapons down their pants legs, he said.

I’m disappointed in CNN. Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t be, but I am.

The least they could do is show us how something like this is done, because I’ve never been able to figure out how to conceal an AR-15 by putting it down my pants leg and still be able to walk, sit, or do anything remotely resembling natural, human movement.

Clearly, their fact-checkers are top men, ladies and gentlemen.

Top.
Men.

Honestly, after getting to this point, it became absolutely impossible for me to take anything else they say in this piece seriously. It’s clear they’re taking this kid at face value without even bothering to verify literally anything he said as factual.

Why? Because he told them what they wanted to hear. They wanted to hear that everyone in Oakland has guns because then they could frame the issue as being, at least in part, about the proliferation of guns in Oakland.

Yet California has the strictest gun control laws in the nation and this is a kid who can’t lawfully buy a handgun anywhere in the US.

He even made the AR-15 sound worse because he’s claiming you can carry it concealed just by sticking it down your pants.

They never bothered to check the validity of these claims because, frankly, it was too good to check.

And yet, they want us to take them seriously. They want us to think that their other news reports are valid and have been fact-checked, that they’re accurate in their reporting.

Just don’t. It’s clear they have an agenda and so long as they can push that agenda, facts are irrelevant.