This morning, I did something that has become almost as rote and perfunctory as showing that Nick Coleman is wrong about…well, anything; I fisked a Heather Martens op-ed. It’s one of many, many such efforts, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
But buried at the very, very bottom of the op-ed was something…different.
And Finally, Something Remotely True, And Historic! We may have witnessed some history, here – Heather Martens closes out with something that is both substantial and true.
Although not in the way she might think:
Journalists ought to do their homework,
Yes. If they did, they’d cut Heather Martens off from any further attention. I’ve built a long history on this blog, over more than a decade, now, of showing you something that’s almost up to the level of a Berg’s Law; that Martens has never, not once, said a substantial, true, original thing about Gun Rights or gun issues.
But she’s finally said something that I agree with wholeheartedly. And so should every shooter: she wants the media to…
…force the gun lobby and its friends to defend their indefensible opposition to important new policies, and stop misdirecting the conversation by setting up straw men to destroy.
I agree! It’s time for Heather Martens and the Strib to get to the facts [1]!
So on behalf of my friends in Minnesota’s gun rights movement, I accept Heather’s challenge; to set up a debate between Heather Martens and any gun-grabber activists or lobbyists she wants to bring along, and a couple of us from the Gun Lobby: perhaps Joe Olson, Andrew Rothman, Bryan Strawser and/or myself.
There, the journalists and activists can force us to defend the policies we support, live on camera! Allow both sides to question, and cross-question, each other, live and without a net!
Heather Martens; for all of the flak I’ve given you over the past decade and change, this is your brilliant, shining moment.
This is too important to skip!
Heather Martens: Challenge Accepted!
PS: Naturally, we’ll charge admission, and donate the proceeds to a mutually agreed-upon charity.
[1] And learn the definition of “straw man”, which I don’t think means what she thinks it does.
Let us know when you get her call, Mitch.
Hopefully, you won’t die of old age before you get it. 😂
But it’s not original.
Something for which I would gladly pay to see.
But with all the valuable, important and correct information coming from one side of the debate table, an event such as this would be best open to the public. Television broadcast even, with many replays…
I like what Sean Davis of “The Federalist” recently proposed to DC area journos that have their heads filled with gun show loophole plums and internet sales fairies: he committed to taking journo’s to a gun show and documenting them attempting (a key word) to purchase a gun exploiting the gun show ‘loophole’.
http://twitchy.com/2015/10/05/federalist-co-founder-challenges-dc-journalists-to-use-gun-show-loophole-to-buy-a-firearm/
I think it might be easier to get a Strib narrative coordinator to take up this challenge, and like St Paul, have their gun control ideas knocked off their ass. At this point, Martens is beyond redemption.
People who won’t debate are are either using bad arguments or are knowingly lying (c.f. the non-existent “debate” about the complex theory of anthropogenic global warming in the media, or Krugman’s desire to silence people who disagree with his krugmanogenic economic theories). Even the truth of the Holocaust should be under debate. There is a lot of ignorance on that topic that would be dispelled by an open debate (the Germans killed many, many more Jews in Eastern Europe than they did within Germany, for example). Time and again I read mainstream, well-educated journalists repeat the lie that Americans have unrestricted access to virtually every gun imaginable. They should be called out on their lies at every opportunity. I can only assume that they have become such insular leftists that they believe every “press bulletin” they are sent by any gun control group as the gospel truth.
Sign me up for the paying audience!