Time.com Misleads Readers with Faulty Headline on Pittsburgh Shooter

Photo of Ken Shepherd.
  • Bookmark and Share

"Shop Sold Guns to Pa., Va. Tech Shooters" blares the headline for an August 7 Associated Press story carried on Time.com.

But Time's headline for the accompanying AP story is woefully inaccurate and worse, deceptive. Pittsburgh fitness center shooter George Sodini, whom police say purchased his firearms legally, did not purchase them from online accessories dealer TGSCOM, Inc.

The same story accessed at Google has a more accurate headline,  "Pa. gunman used same Web store as Va. Tech shooter."

Here's the story as carried on Time.com:

Story Continues Below Ad ↓

(BRIDGEVILLE, Pa.) — The gunman who killed three women and wounded nine others at a Pittsburgh-area health club bought accessories for a handgun from the same Wisconsin-based dealer that sold a gun to the Virginia Tech shooter.

Forty-eight-year-old George Sodini bought the accessories from TGSCOM Inc. of Green Bay, Wis.

Police investigating Tuesday's shootings at the L.A. Fitness center in Collier Township have said Sodini bought his weapons legally.

TGSCOM's president, Eric Thompson, confirmed the purchases after WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh obtained a receipt. Thompson says he's cooperating with investigators.

Sodini committed suicide after the shootings, as did Seung-Hui Cho who bought a .22-caliber handgun from TGSCOM in February 2007, two months before he killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.

At the Web site for his company, Thompson denies that he sold any weapons used by Sodini and that he is cooperating with the ongoing investigation.

Other media outlets are taking an even more aggressive tack in spinning this development for maximum pro-gun control potential.

For example, New York Daily News's Rich Schapiro takes aim at Thompson as an arms dealer to psychos (headline in bold below):

Same dealer armed three mass killers: Pa. gym gunman, Va. Tech shooter, Ill. student

The sex-deprived loon who killed three women at a Pittsburgh gym bought gun accessories from the same online weapons dealer that sold firearms used in two other massacres.

—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters


Comments Policy

All comments are owned by whoever posted them and are subject to our terms of use. They should not be assumed to represent the views of NewsBusters.

Viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

I don't know the full details of this purchase but I

believe that any online sales of a handgun still have to go through your local dealer for background checks and has to be shipped to and picked up from the same dealer. So the "same" online site may have sold it but the dealer is the one that issues it. If it were just accessories like a clip, grips or sights then they could be shipped direct. Not sure what the accessories has to do with this story though or why it is relevent. Now if they had the same mother or father and passed down the "crazy" jean to both of the killers then THAT would be an acceptable connection worth reporting.

 

"Live for yourself...there's no one else more worth living for.
Begging hands and bleeding hearts will only cry out for more"- Rush--Anthem

Yes

Firearms must be shipped FFL dealer to FFL dealer, unless a factory is involved for repairs.  The receiving dealer has to do the necessary NICS check and ATFE paperwork before they can turn the firearm over to the purchaser.   

Topglock.com (TGSCOM, inc) is an above board business, they support the Second Amendment and the right of self-protection.  The libtards are, again, blaming everything one and every thing for the deaths, except the person responsible.

 

DON'T ENCOURAGE THEM...

JTP<

 Please don't bring up the idea of looking into the genetics of the parrents. We have more then enough people who would love to promote variations of eugenics funded by the gov't. We saw that in Nazi Germany & the ending was'nt very good.

BTW, nice choice with Rush's Anthem. Saw them in St.Paul last May. What a show, & I will say this...Neil Peart=God on Drums.

 

"...How blind can you be, don't you see...

...that the gambler lost all he does not have..."  

Nightwish

Danybhoy, I did not look at it in that light.

Foolish me.

And yes, Neil is the one who inspired me to play drums. There is no one who can play like the "professor". I saw their very first (or second) USA show back in the early 70's at a bar in East Lansing MI. I had to sit in the rafters to watch because I was too young to be in there. Have seen them many times since.

 

"Live for yourself...there's no one else more worth living for.
Begging hands and bleeding hearts will only cry out for more"- Rush--Anthem

FOX News too

Fox News is reporting this, too. Doesn't ANYONE actaully look into a little known basic of reporting ?   called F-A-C-T-S ???

 

mclantiere

I guess we are not going to read about this in Time:

Pennsylvania Mass Murderer an Obama Supporter

- Relying upon the State Run Media for your information is like relying upon an embezzler to manage your portfolio.