Good Thing We Have Gatekeepers!
By Mitch Berg
Last week,Joel Rosenberg highlighted a piece from the Blue Earth Daily Democrat about a fatal shooting.
Let’s flip through the piece and find the bits and pieces of atrocious style, editorial malfeasance, and error in fact; I’ll highlight them and put explanations in square brackets.
No fair looking at Joel’s piece. Yet.
A Richfield man was charged Tuesday with unintentional murder for shooting his half- brother to death in their home last Friday.
Jerome H. Bartlett, 40, allegedly got into an argument with his half-brother who went out with a friend to get takeout food and found the front door locked when he returned about 9 p.m. Friday [Leaving aside that it’s a bit of run-on – who found the front door locked, the half-brother or the friend? Who were these half-brothers and friends? Do they turn up in the future?]. Derek Storrusten, 36, had left it unlocked and got angry at his brother for locking it, said the friend, according to second-degree murder charges filed in Hennepin County District Court [Huh?]. The charging document continued:
Storrusten pounded on the door and called his Bartletts cell phone [Whose? His? Huh?] before getting in through a back door. He started arguing on the basement stairs with Bartlett, then went down stairs to Bartletts bedroom. Then the friend, who was identified only by initials, heard a loud gunshot.
“You killed me,” Storrusten yelled a few times, the friend told police.
“Talk to Jesus,” Bartlett replied several times.
The friend [Was this the same friend as above?] ran outside and called police, as did Bartlett. He said Bartlett appeared in his underwear and yelled at him to go home.
Bartlett initially told police he was awakened by noises he thought were made by an intruder and accidentally shot his brother. Then he said he knew it was Storrusten, but he fired in self defense [Brother? Storrusten? The usage is confusing].
Bartlett was waiting for police and directed them to the basement where they found Storrusten dead, with a 50 mm handgun a few feet away. He was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center where he died that night. [What? Both times?]
Oh, yeah. And that “50mm handgun”? Fifty millimeters is two inches – almost five times the bore of Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum:
Would it be this kind of handgun?
No, that’s only 27 milllimeters!
Here’s the only “50mm handgun” I know about…
…and it’s not technically a “hand” gun.
Oh, and I lied. The story wasn’t from the Blue Earth Daily Democrat. It was from the Minneapolis Star/Tribune – the place with the gatekeepers that make them so much better than bloggers.
March 14th, 2007 at 6:19 am
Tracy needs to get back on the job. You’re eating our lunch, Berg.
March 14th, 2007 at 6:25 am
Well, tip the hat to Rosenberg.
March 14th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Please ask the gatekeepers what “unintentional murder” might be. “I recall Malice Aforethought well. He planted many, many trees in Israel” (satire on George Jessel’s many eulogies)
March 14th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Apparently the Strib is reading Joel’s blog, because the version he lifted showed a last update time of March 06, 2007 – 1:42 PM.
The piece now says “Last update: March 07, 2007 – 12:38 AM” with the pointed-out errors corrected (he was found with a revolver a few feet away, and died later at HCMC, for example.)
Joel should demand editor/proofreading fees.
March 14th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I want 50 caliber gun with a two inch barrel. For when things get scrappy in close quarters.
March 14th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Knock yourself out, Terry, and while I mean it in a friendly way, I do mean it literally — Taurus is making a .500 Mag snubby. I’m not sure if the barrel is quite that short, but, if not, there are many fine gunsmiths who could handle that for you.
LTCT — that’s probably not a good thing to challenge the Strib on. As it turns out — and please do remember that a stopped calendar is right once a year — “unintentional murder” is the real name of a crime.
March 14th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I had a friend who had a .357 derringer. I told him that he’d be a fool to ever use it because if he actually got close enough to his target to score a hit, he’d have so much evidence scattered over him a prosecutor would have no problem bringing in a conviction.
March 14th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
I stand corrected. Are there a lot of states that classify unintentional acts as MURDER, not manslaughter, negligent manslaughter, und so weiter?? I don’t recall that any states I lived in so classified. Perhaps, had I been charged…
March 15th, 2007 at 5:55 am
Well technically the guy could have been shot him with the Desert Eagle, which is a 50mm handgun http://www.magnumresearch.com/Desert_Eagle.asp
which would explain the “loud gunshot” and having to yell.
Although, every time I’ve seen someone shoot the Desert Eagle at the gun range the concusion knocks off some of the ceiling tiles, so as the story doesn’t say that the shooter “fell flat on his backside” I think that theory might not be sound.
March 15th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Just Me, the Eagle maxes out at “only” 12.6mm, i.e. 0.495″ (or “fifty caliber” if you will). It’s still off by a factor of 4 even in its biggest configuration from 50mm.
Even then, I never liked the Eagle much. It never sat well in my hand, nor have I really met anyone who liked one much other than for the macho aspects. But to each his own.
March 15th, 2007 at 8:50 am
It seems common to mix up “millimeter” and “caliber”. A caliber is a fraction of an inch – .38 means 38/100″.
A millimeter is about .04″ – there are 25.4 mm to an inch.
Like so many things in English vs. Metric, they are not interchangeable.
March 15th, 2007 at 8:53 am
And as far as I’m concerned, Desert Eagles are great photo and movie props, but (for me) really unpleasant to shoot.
I always wished the Browning HP35 (“High Power”) was a .45; that gun has always been my absolute favorite; it fits my hand, and points, just perfectly. Pity it’s only a 9mm.
One of these days.
March 15th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Don’t have a gun, just lots of nasty looking knives and swords. Unfortunately I had to sell my dad’s hand gun that I inherited many years ago for financial reasons. One of these days when I am flush, I’ll get one. what is a good inexpensive hand cannon going for nowadays?
March 15th, 2007 at 11:55 am
You can, if you shop carefully, find a decent used .38 snubby for around $250 or so; you can find a Makarov for under $200, ditto.
March 15th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Look around a bit. I saw a brand-new mil-spec .45 for under $300 at a north suburban pistol range, and for about $500, a brand-new Taurus .45 that has every high-end option.
And don’t forget to set aside a few bucks to take a quality course to get your Carry Permit. Also counts as a statewide permit to purchase so you don’t need one from your local police department.
March 15th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
LTCT — the more I learn about the law stuff, the more I find out that there’s wierdnesses all over the place. If we’re ever in the same place, sometime, remind me to tell you about the guy who came up from Missouri to take his class with me so that he could get his Maine permit so that he could carry in Missouri . . . and what he was doing actually made sense.
nate — yup. That said, if he ends up taking his carry class with me, he’ll hear the pitch for revolvers, rather than semiautos, as a regular carry piece.
March 15th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
He’ll hear the pitch for revolvers, rather than semiautos,
And a good pitch it is. Although I’m a life-long auto fan, Joel got through to the User Interface Designer in me, and convinced me about wheelguns for carry.