Associated Press reported that on Sunday, a Mount Rainier National Park ranger was murdered by a man whom authorities suspect had earlier shot four people at a house party near Seattle.
The story’s fairly well written until the conclusion, which is where writers place the message they want readers to take with. After writing about how sad this situation is — and it is — AP wrote:
It has been legal for people to take loaded firearms into Mount Rainier since 2010, when a federal law went into effect that made possession of firearms in national parks subject to state gun laws.
Gun banners 101: Work up the emotions and insert the anti-gun message to get people motivated to do something.
As if somebody committing murder — a capital crime resulting in death or a life sentence — cares about a niggling misdemeanor or low-level felony like a gun ban?
Tacoma News Tribune mirrored the AP message in their lede, except when they interviewed George Coulbourn, a park volunteer who’s against guns in parks, who admitted:
If guns had been prohibited at the park, it doesn’t sound like that would have any effect on this. This is murder.
“I don’t think that has any bearing on this. When you have someone who would spontaneously kill someone, a prohibition of guns in the park wouldn’t stop someone like that.
Regarding park carry, Coulburn also said: “If you’re not comfortable visiting the park because of animals, you don’t belong there.”
Curiously, News Tribune ran a story a few weeks back where a woman died in an “animal attack, possibly a wolf attack.”
Grades: News Tribune, C; AP, F.
There’s a world of difference between gun nut paranoia and reality. Media fails in its duty by creating news instead of reporting it.
(Brady misreports, too.)
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