A reminder not all news stories are always as they appear

[RoeBear]

With permission of the mods I'm re-posting this thread

http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/index.ssf?/base/news-3/107997217531110.xml

"Authorities link gunshot victim to armed robbery"

When a 20-year-old man came to a Bad Axe hospital on Friday night with a gunshot wound to his buttocks, he claimed he had been shot during a road-rage encounter with an angry motorist.
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I'm not sure what others were thinking my intentions were with the original thread but I think I was misunderstood.

1st- I assumed everyone here would click on the link and read it, so I wasn't 'hiding' anything.

2nd- I wasn't inferring that anyone else here was doing anything dishonest. I was inferring that not all news stories are the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. edited to add: I'm not even saying that reporters are doing it on purpose, they just don't always have all the facts available

3rd- I wasn't trying to make those who disagree with me look bad

[texasdem99]

1. Simple, Roe...

To the pro control "crowd", you're an advocate for RKBA, so that means you're autmatically a liar, like the rest of us.

[iverglas]

3. speaking for myself

Simple, Roe...
To the pro control "crowd", you're an advocate for RKBA,
so that means you're autmatically a liar, like the rest of us.

... it was actually a whole lot simpler than that.

I just couldn't figure out what the fuck he was on about.

Anybody else on whose behalf you'd like to speak, into whose mouth you'd like to put words, or into whose head you'd like to put thoughts? Speak up, now; don't be shy. I'd expect that mind-reading and fiction-writing skills might be sharpest in the a.m., and we wouldn't want to waste an opportunity for that kind of enlightenment.

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[RoeBear]

8. At least you didn't start accussing me...

...of being a liar.

[iverglas]

10. well hey now

At least you didn't start accussing me...
...of being a liar.

I didn't start accusing you of having big feet and body odour, either.

Your point was?

I mean, that was and still is, and probably will ever be, *my* question ...

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[RoeBear]

12. Did you read the original thread?

Therily you wilst find your quest for knowledge.

[iverglas]

14. I surely did

Are you claiming that someone called you a liar in that thread?

Maybe you could quote said claim; I see it not.

Seemed to me that nobody else got your point, in the first place, either.

And I'm still wondering what it is/was.

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[RoeBear]

16. Here and here:

"If you had posted the first four paragraphs of this story, like most of us do in the "GITN" threads, everyone would have seen the true meaning of the story:"

Above I'm accused of hiding the true meaning of a news story, a news story I expected everyone to read. A news story to which I posted a fully functional link.
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Below I'm told what individuals never resort to "lies, half-truths and obfuscation" and then go on to associate me with Bush's handlers and by implication; well I'll let you figure out the rest.

"You see RoeBear, unlike Bush's handlers and the NRA leadership, pro-control folks like MrBenchley and myself don't have to resort to lies, half-truths and obfuscation to advance our agenda. Facts and the truth work just fine.

[iverglas]

19. honestly

"If you had posted the first four paragraphs of this story, like most of us do in the "GITN" threads, everyone would have seen the true meaning of the story:"

Above I'm accused of hiding the true meaning of a news story, a news story I expected everyone to read. A news story to which I posted a fully functional link.

How you read that in there, I just dunno.

YOU posted a snippet of a story in an attempt to make a point. Very obviously, NOBODY COULD FIGURE OUT WHAT THE POINT WAS.

I believe that CO Liberal inferred from what you wrote that you were suggesting that SOMEONE ELSE might have posted only the first paragraph of a story and thus given a misleading impression.

He pointed out that "most of us" who post in the GITN threads would never have done that. Period. He responded to the point he apparently figured you must have been trying to make, by saying you didn't have a point.

I see absolutely no accusation that YOU were hiding the true meaning of a news story. I see someone responding to what he took to be an accusation that SOMEONE ELSE would have tried to hide the true meaning of a news story -- because there just wasn't any other reasonable way to interpret what you were saying. There just wasn't a point in your post, if that wasn't it.


Below I'm told what individuals never resort to "lies, half-truths and obfuscation" and then go on to associate me with Bush's handlers and by implication; well I'll let you figure out the rest.

"You see RoeBear, unlike Bush's handlers and the NRA leadership, pro-control folks like MrBenchley and myself don't have to resort to lies, half-truths and obfuscation to advance our agenda. Facts and the truth work just fine."

Well, if you say you see it, I guess you must. I see a line being drawn between "Bush's handlers and the NRA leadership" and "pro-control folks like MrBenchley and myself" -- in response to the perceived insinuation that "pro-control folks like MrBenchley and myself" would have misrepresented the story you used in your post to make whatever point you thought you were making. That's all I see.

If *you* chose to associate your*self* with "Bush's handlers and the NRA leadership", which *I* would certainly not assume that you would, that would be entirely your own choice and the perceived slight would still be entirely in the eye of the beholder.

Pointless, pointless pointless pointless. (With apologies to Neil Young.)

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[MrBenchley]

5. Gee, Pete....

"you're an advocate for RKBA, so that means you're autmatically a liar"

[iverglas]

2. how true, how true

Like that story that was posted back in October about the guy in Boca Raton, Florida, who successfully defended himself against an intruder by shooting and killing said intruder (in the back, as he fled) ... who turned out to be an unarmed 16-year-old engaged in a pre-Hallowe'en doorbell-ringing prank.

Last I checked, the "victim" had been charged with homicide, some time after the event, when the police had investigated it -- even though I was insistently told here that if he had done anything wrong he would have been charged on the spot, and it was plain from the initial news reports that he wasn't.

If we'd gone by that news report alone, we'd have thought that Mr. Milquetoast Accountant of Boca Raton, proud owner of a concealed carry permit and keeper of an in-home handgun, was a shining example of yer average citizen who deserves to have a firearm to defend his/her life against bad guys and whose tale illustrated the wisdom and necessity of having a firearm handy at all times.

As far as the story re-posted in this link, I'm still at a loss to know what the point actually is, notwithstanding all the disclaimers.

Who reads only the first sentence of a news story? Who posts only the first sentence of a news story, when it doesn't report the actual story?

It seems to me that the news story in question was exactly what it appeared to be -- a report of someone claiming to have been the victim of an unjustified shooting who was, in fact (well, apparently), no such thing.

Now, there is certainly a point to be made; it's just that this item doesn't make it. The jig was apparently up by the time the tale made it to print.

The Boca Raton story, on the other hand, made the point quite well. Stories in the news may appear backwards in your mirror. "Victims" claiming to have shot someone dead in self-defence are not always victims and are not always acting in self-defence, for instance.

What both these tales seem to illustrate might be something like "people, especially people who have done something bad, don't always tell the police the truth".

Yup.

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[MrBenchley]

4. Hell, you might recall

the "defensive use of guns" news stories degenerated in less than 24 hours from "poor Joe Homeowner defending his property" (usually from some other imbecile with a gun, but still....) to "Joe" shooting at the cops as they came to arrest him.

[CO Liberal]

6. Proof Once Again...

...that "gun logic" is not always logical.

[MrBenchley]

7. Exactly...

One wonders how many of the charmers shooting holes in others in the "Guns in the News" threads initially tried to claim self-defense when they were nabbed....

[RoeBear]

9. Or how many times...

...victims of gun violence said that "we were just sitting around minding our own business" when in fact they were minding to their drug business.

[iverglas]

11. so what *is* this point?

Or how many times...
...victims of gun violence said that "we were just
sitting around minding our own business" when in fact
they were minding to their drug business.

I have yet to get this one, either.

It's okay for people to shoot other people as long as they're all drug dealers, and as long as nobody gets caught in the crossfire (or in a crib or bathtub in the next block)?

It's okay for drug dealers to have guns?

If these aren't the points, what's the point?

The fact is that drug dealers (and users) have guns and drug dealers shoot people, and not always one another. And in most of the instances when they shoot other people, it wouldn't have mattered how many firearms those other people had had, tucked in their belts or littered around their living rooms; they'd still get shot.

Yours in search of the point,

...

[RoeBear]

15. Responses

"It's okay for people to shoot other people as long as they're all drug dealers, and as long as nobody gets caught in the crossfire (or in a crib or bathtub in the next block)"

Where did I say or imply that? I love it when people try to speak for me.(hee-hee) OK, I'm done doing my you impression. I'm not as good at being you as; let's say you are.

Well if I could work out a master plan where bad guys only shot at other bad guys I think we' have something.
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"It's okay for drug dealers to have guns?"
No, at least till I implement my above master plan

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"If these aren't the points, what's the point?"

The point is that people get all worked up over news stories. If this had been reported as the 20 year old attempted to have it reported people would have been all worked up about the 'poor' 20 year old victim of some bad man with a gun in his car.
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"Yours in search of the point,"
<whisper> look under your bonnet <whisper>

[iverglas]

18. still not seein' it

The point is that people get all worked up over news stories. If this had been reported as the 20 year old attempted to have it reported people would have been all worked up about the 'poor' 20 year old victim of some bad man with a gun in his car.

"People"? Anyone in particular?

If the dog hadn't stopped ... if wishes were horses ... if pigs could fly ...

Have you any actual examples of this having happened in this forum??

*I* had such an example.

A story reported here as a self-defence shooting by a homeowner faced with a would-be intruder -- that turned out to be a story of a cold-blooded killing of an unarmed teenager, engaged in an act of mischief and intending no offence against person or property, by a disgruntled vigilante.

Your point seems to be that *if* a criminal had succeeded in pulling the wool over some cops' eyes, and *if* the story in question had come to the attention of, uh, some people hereabouts, *then* the story would have been reported here as an offensive rather than defensive use of a firearm.

Like I said. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. And you'd have a point.


look under your bonnet

I just watch too many British mysteries. I was all prepared to go out and look under the hood of my car.


And I'm STILL trying to figure out what the point might be of all the "lots of these shootings are drug dealers shooting other drug dealers" carrying-on.

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[MrBenchley]

20. "people get all worked up over news stories"

The RKBA crowd sure seems to fly into rages about them every once in a while...

[RoeBear]

21. That was exactly what I meant...

..."look under your bonnet
I just watch too many British mysteries. I was all prepared to go out and look under the hood of my car."

The points are part of the ignition system. Did you think there was a second meaning?

[iverglas]

22. heh heh

I thought you meant the point on my noggin.

Second and arguably better meaning. ;)

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[Romulus]

13. remember Roe

"all life is precious, even the lives of dirtbags" :evilgrin:

The National Right to Life Coalition would be proud . . .

[MrBenchley]

17. Gee, rom, who said that?

I sure didn't see that "all life is precious..." quote in anything iverglas wrote...<sarcasm>I'd hate to think the RKBA crowd has sunk to making up crap out of whole cloth instead of dredging their material out of right wing cesspopols</sarcasm>

But since you brought up anti-abortion nutcases, almost all of the scumbags in Congress opposing a woman's right to choose also get money from the gun lobby. And that's a fact--you know, one of those things the RKBA crowd never seems to have?