Media and the Truth

14 May 08

The media is incapable of reporting the truth!

Earlier this month, the Chief of Police of Riverdale, UT unintentionally shot himself with his own pistol during a "training exercise." I strongly suspect this "training exercise," which mysteriously took place, not on a pistol range, but in a conference room, was part of a hastily-generated and transparently incredulous cover-story designed to make the entire incident look slightly less inexcusable than it actually is.

The press report phrased it, "... accidentally shot himself in an ankle while demonstrating how to dislodge a jammed handgun." Of course, we're never told for whose benefit this curious "demonstration" was intended.

The word "accidentally" is non-descriptive and inappropriate. The media would have us believe that modern pistols used by American police officers" accidentally" discharge themselves now and then, and there is apparently nothing that can be done about it! The fact is that the Chief first pointed the pistol at himself, and then pressed the trigger. That is the ONLY way onecan injure himself with any reputable pistol I know of. We call it a "negligent discharge," not an "accidental discharge."

No, the Chief didn't "accidentally" shoot himself. The shooting was probably unintentional, and it probably came as a surprise to all concerned (although, with such sloppy gun-handling apparently being the norm there, it shouldn 't have!), but the pistol in question didn't discharge via some magical, mystical, unforeseeable alignment of the planets, nor did that bullet findits way to the Chief's ankle after several, cosmic, high-speed, right-angle turns! The media would love for us to believe such rubbish, because their leftist political agenda earnestly desires that the American public to continue to be morbidly afraid of guns and believe guns are controlled by evil spirits!

The unvarnished truth is that (1) Modern pistols are relatively simple mechanical devices that will discharge only when sufficient pressure is applied to the trigger. (2) Unintentional injury results only when pistols are carelessly pointed in unsafe directions.

Thus, proper gun-handling always involves strict muzzle-consciousness and keeping one's finger in a strong, "register" position until/unless two things are true at the same time: (1) Sights are on target, and (2) the decision to fire has been made.

Violators shoot themselves episodically, as we see. Again, we correctly identify such incidents as "negligent discharges." No mystery, and no " accident," here!

/John