You don’t have to be aware of anything to know that the opening line of a New York Daily News story attacking the NRA is untrue. All you have to do is keep reading. In a Wednesday news piece (not an opinion piece) about today’s NRA convention in Tennessee, Daily News reporter Dan Friedman opens with a brutal snark, ” The National Rifle Association wants guns at schools, but not its own annual convention.”
That’s a good line. Except it’s not true. And a mere 50 words later, Friedman himself admits it’s not true:
Conventiongoers can still pack their own heat, though.
Attendees can bring their own firearms as long as they are compliant with local ordinances, NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said Wednesday
So the National Rifle Association DOES want guns at its convention, “as long as they are compliant” with the law.
Incredibly, just a few paragraphs down, it happens again. Friedman writes…
But when it comes to its own security, the virulently pro-gun group is pro-background check.
He’s right. That is horribly hypocritical. Great gotcha. Except … in the very next sentence we learn that…
Attendees who want to buy a gun won’t be able to get one there. They will have to pick it up from a Federal Firearms License dealer near where they live, and present legal identification.
Our annual meeting isn’t a gun show,” Baker said. “We don’t sell firearms.”
Under federal law, gun purchases and transfers from such deals require a background check.
Well, unless the NRA has been running around demanding Americans not follow gun laws, there is no hypocrisy here. The facts are that the NRA has never been about defying gun laws. The Second Amendment Civil Rights organization is actually big on respecting the law. Sure, they want to change some laws, but only through our democratic process.
Therefore, the NRA following and respecting federal gun laws is perfectly within the organization’s character. This is the opposite of hypocritical. And respecting the law does not, in fact, make the NRA “pro-background check.”
Friedman also takes issue with the fact that the NRA is requiring convention vendors to remove the firing pins from display firearms. But isn’t that like taking the keys out the cars at a car show? At my local WalMart they remove the game cartridge’s from the game boxes.
What am I missing here?
Earlier this week, my colleague AWR Hawkins covered what should have been obvious to the Daily News in detail.
But isn’t this just common sense?
And how did this get past the Daily News’ editors?
I don’t mean to single out the Daily News. The facts don’t support the reporter’s snark, but at least he put the facts in there.
The New York Times chose to outright lie. All snark, no facts.
Listen, I get that the Left freakin’ hates the NRA in the exact same way I hate CNN. Defeating a political opponent, though, should probably start with something approaching logic. Hate can be a wonderful muse. Blind rage, however, makes you blind.
Breitbart News reached out to the Daily News for comment.
John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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