A Friday editorial at the Second Amendment-despising New York Times thought it had caught blatant hypocrisy at the NRA relating to gun-carrying rules at its national convention in Nashville, Tennessee. What was really blatant was the editorial's ignorance and the writers' failure to fact-check.
After getting caught, the Times should have decided to retract the editorial. Of course, that didn't happen. Then, in a pathetic "correction," the Times threw yet another error into the pile.
The problematic editorial appears to have been "inspired" by a Monday afternoon tweet from Shannon Watts, a founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Watts' organization, because of one of its major sources of funding, is also derisively known as "Moms Demand Action From Michael Bloomberg’s Wallet."
Her tweet claimed that "The @NRA is all about #gunsense at their upcoming #Nashville convention." While that's true, it certainly wasn't in the sense Watts intended.
Her tweet pointed to a Nashville Tennessean convention preview, the final point of which apparently gave Watts a false sense of self-satisfaction:
6 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE NRA CONVENTION
... 6. Security
A multilevel security plan went into works not long after Nashville was chosen as the convention destination. All guns on display on the exhibit floor will be nonoperational, with the firing pins removed, and any guns purchased during the NRA convention will have to be picked up at a Federal Firearms License dealer, near where the purchaser lives, and will require a legal identification. The NRA and Music City Center have confirmed that gun owners with the proper carry permits can bring their guns into the center during the convention. However, Bridgestone Arena, where an NRA-sponsored concert will be held Saturday, does not allow weapons.
Four days later, even though several commenters at Watts' tweet had already pointed out that the Tennessean's final paragraph didn't mean what she thought it meant — one wrote, "You have to remember, there will be 1000's of us carrying live guns" — The Times editorial writers were beside themselves with glee at the NRA's alleged hypocrisy.
The editorial has since undergone a thorough rewrite without adequate indication of what was revised — a fact proven by Googling the editorial's current title and seeing that the listing's opening quoted text differs from what is now present. The original opening text is from Sean Davis's rebuttal post at The Federalist (bolds are mine throughout this post):
Seventy-thousand people are expected to attend the National Rifle Association’s convention opening on Friday in Tennessee, and not one of them will be allowed to come armed with guns that can actually shoot. After all the N.R.A. propaganda about how “good guys with guns” are needed to be on guard across American life, from elementary schools to workplaces, the weekend’s gathering of disarmed conventioneers seems the ultimate in hypocrisy.
Too bad, as Davis noted, that the claim of "hypocrisy" is based in sheer fantasy (links are in original):
... There’s only one problem: this claim is blatantly false. It is a complete lie. There is no ban, NRA-instituted or otherwise, on the carrying of working weapons at the NRA convention in Nashville this year.
Contrary to the claims of the New York Times editorial board, anyone who is licensed to carry in the state of Tennessee — including those with carry permits from states that have a reciprocity agreement with Tennessee — may carry working, loaded weapons at the convention in accordance with state and local laws. The removal of firing pins from display guns is a commonplace practice for most gun shows.
The NRA even explicitly states on its website that convention-goers may carry their weapons in accordance with state and local firearms laws ...
Davis further noted that three days earlier, the Tennessean had reported that "The NRA and Music City Center confirmed that gun owners with the proper carry permits can bring their guns into the center this weekend."
So, as Davis summarized:
Rather than doing basic research to confirm actual facts before publishing them, the NYT editorial board decided to just copy and paste the uninformed lunatic ravings of a paid PR hack.
Rather than maturely admit its mistake and retract the editorial, whose entire existence was premised on conditions which did not exist, the Times, as noted earlier, quietly revised the editorial's text and added the following "correction" at its end:
Correction: April 11, 2015
An editorial on Friday about the National Rifle Association’s convention incorrectly described the rules for carrying concealed firearms at the event. Carrying is prohibited at one of the main convention venues, not all of them.
As Davis noted, this treatment added a new deception to the mix:
The New York Times has issued a two-sentence correction to its editorial, but has thus far refused to retract the piece, which depended entirely on the factual misrepresentation. Even more amusing is the fact that the second sentence of its two-sentence correction itself needs to be corrected.
The Bridgestone Arena, a privately owned and managed entity that has chosen to prohibit firearms on its property, is not a “main convention venue.” Of the more than three dozen events listed on the NRA convention schedule, only one–a Saturday night concert featuring Alan Jackson and Jeff Foxworthy–is scheduled to take place at Bridgestone Arena.
In other words, more than 97 percent of all scheduled events will take place in a venue other than Bridgestone Arena.
The Times probably doesn't even deserve credit for being 3 percent correct, as the NRA likely has no legal influence over Bridgestone Arena's policies.
The is an an editorial which never should have been written, dhould have been retracted after it was shown to be entirely based on a bogus claim, and which nonetheless remains.
The Old Gray Lady's fealty to facts has never been weaker.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
