"Beware the people who moralize about great issues; moralizing is easier than facing hard facts."
— John Corry, former New York Times reporter, 'My Times: Adventures in the News Trade' 1993, p.131
Consider the opinion piece quoted below, from December 2015, by
the editorial board of
'The New York Times' —
https://archive.is/a4PaG
As you read this, keep in mind that
'The New York Times' editorial board is staffed by senior journalists with many years of experience — when this was written, the editorial page editor
Andrew Rosenthal, for example, had been with
'The New York Times' for
almost 30 years, since March of 1987, and the associate editor
Robert B Semple, had been with the paper since 1963
--
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/opinion/end-the-gun-epidemic-in-america.html
End the Gun Epidemic in America
It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can
legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal
speed and efficiency.
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD DEC. 4, 2015
All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.
But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places.
The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.
It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.
Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.
But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not. Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs. It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.
It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.
Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.
What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?
You would think (or hope) that a group of people like
'The New York Times' editorial board, with
well over 100 years of combined experience reporting on world news, would be able to write more than a collection of bromides on a subject as old as gun violence. But the opinion piece quoted above is a dramatic demonstration of the simple truth that
they cannot.
Notice how absurdly nonsensical this expression of
'The New York Times' editorial board is — after
explicitly stating the obvious point that no law will stop criminals from obtaining firearms illegally, the editorial board still insists we should pass more gun control laws. The editorial board wrote
it is true that
"no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal" — well,
of course, since no one
willing to commit an extreme act like murder would be restrained by the threat of a much less serious penalty for violating some firearms restriction.
Even the subtitle to the opinion piece is absurd.
All firearms are
"weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency".
That is the point. Who on earth thinks that a pistol, for example, is designed
to maim people with gentle slowness and inefficiency?
And, of course,
'The New York Times' editorial board must avoid the obvious point that
military assault weapons are
not legally available to the public. They were long since banned for civilian use back in 1986 by the
'Firearm Owners Protection Act'.
The civilian replicas of
military assault rifles that are currently legal to purchase do not have the critical feature of an
assault rifle — that is, the civilian replicas are
not machine guns. Military rifles can be
automatic, and civilian look-a-likes cannot — which means the civilian versions require a separate trigger pull for each shot.
In short, the statement from
'The New York Times' editorial board, that civilians can purchase
"weapons of war, barely modified", will only seem valid to those who are ignorant about the difference between a semi-automatic weapon and a machine gun. Here is a short video demonstrating that difference, and also the absurdity of writing laws to restrict magazine sizes (which accomplishes absolutely nothing, other than forcing people to purchase more magazines)
--
And recall, as just one obvious example that helps to demonstrate the irrelevance of the debate over particular gun features, that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated former President John F. Kennedy with a
single shot, bolt action rifle. But it is often the case that recommendations from advocates of gun control have no relevance to any particular murder — just as
'The New York Times' editorial quoted above
falsely assumes
from ignorance that some
imagined military assault weapon feature
facilitated a murder.
And notice this revealing statement in
'The New York Times' editorial —
"It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment."
Well, what on earth is so
"peculiar" about the wording of the Second Amendment? Here's the wording, in case you have forgotten —
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Is it
really so hard to understand why a group of people, who
just fought a revolution against a government that they viewed as tyrannical and
contemptuous of individual rights, would write a law prohibiting the government they were forming from
disarming its citizens, precisely so the
people would always be able
to defend themselves, just as the founders had done during the Revolutionary War?
Both the
intent and need of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution seems
painfully obvious to me — pity it is so difficult for such an
obvious and desperately needed check on government power to be understood by others.
So, what is the goal of those who insist on futile, self-defeating measures?
What is the goal of someone who insists on taking an action that they openly acknowledge will not help?
'The New York Times' editorial board
adamantly insists that we take a course of action which they simultaneously acknowledge
does not work. What do they hope to gain with their strident cries for more gun control, when they simultaneously and
explicitly state that murderers are
not thwarted by such laws — that murderers can
always obtain firearms illegally?
How can this be anything other than
pretentious moral preening? That is,
posturing that you care more than others.
'The New York Times' editorial board makes the absurd claim that
"at least those countries are trying", in response to the passage of gun control laws in other countries that
we know with certainty did not prevent murders (which the editorial board at least had the honesty to openly acknowledge). So how can any even
barely reasonable person describe pursuing a course of action known to be futile as
"trying", or as displaying a
"sense of decency", as the
'The New York Times' editorial board put it?
A reasonable person with many years of experience as an honest observer of human life, would fully expect such empty emotional demands
to do something, to do anything, to be repeated, even when we know the recommended actions will accomplish nothing — other than to make more individuals susceptible to becoming a victim. But no reasonable person would be satisfied by such lazy, knee-jerk, emotional reactions. Recommending actions that you
acknowledge are ineffective, so you can grasp at creating the appearance of
"trying" or of
"retaining a sense of decency", is a profound expression of abject moral cowardice.
The problem of human violence is rooted
deep in human nature, and simplistic recommendations for governments to pass restrictions regarding
how men kill one another does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental problem — it only
makes it easier to victimize those who would obey the restrictions. Of course, repeating
this obvious point will never stop people from making pointless recommendations that ignore the fundamental issue — as
'The New York Times' editorial board clearly demonstrates in their opinion piece quoted above, even with an
open acknowledgment that what is being suggested
has been tried and did not work, the temptation to engage in moral preening is overwhelming.
As an important aside, regarding the general deterioration of
'The New York Times', quoted below is part of an interview Brian Lamb conducted with John Corry, a former reporter of the
'The New York Times' — the same reporter who wrote the quote that heads this blog post. If you take the time to read this interview, you will notice that it contains a significant indictment of the standards of news media in general. John Corry states that
"I've never considered myself a Republican", but he believes that
"when I applied, in my view, journalistic standards to television news, I began to sound like a conservative."
The obvious indictment contained in Corry's interview is that prominent news organizations do not have
basic journalistic standards. This comment will not be controversial to any critical reader who even occasionally follows the news
--
http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/55567-1/John-Corry.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/30/books/eyeshades-and-objectivity.html
...
LAMB: How about yourself? Politics. Do you consider yourself a Republican?
CORRY: Oh, no. I've never considered myself a Republican in that sense, but what I found -- and it really goes back to Harper's. You know, I'm a conservative and there's no question about that, and -- look, when I became the television critic of The Times and Abe Rosenthal, then the executive editor, my only marching orders were, apply journalistic standards to television news, television documentaries. That was all -- apply journalistic standards. And I did that, and I found that when I applied, in my view, journalistic standards to television news, I began to sound like a conservative. Now I am a conservative, no question about that, but it seems to me that -- oh, it's almost painful -- it's just cliche that American journalism exists left of center. The media exists left of center. And Abe Rosenthal, who had been executive editor of The Times, always knew this, and it was his lifelong task -- he was dedicated -- he was sworn to holding The New York Times in the center, in the political center.
And Abe said -- and I believe this -- that unless you keep hold of The Times, it will drift to the left because reporters and editors will simply follow their natural impulses, predilections. They will go off to the left. And so I began as writing television criticism and what was on NBC or CBS or PBS and applying journalistic standards -- what I thought were journalistic standards, I began to sound increasingly like a conservative and increasingly was labeled as a conservative. Now I didn't mind this. In fact, it was sort of fun, and I was a conservative in a media culture dominated by liberals and, oh, I confess that towards the end of my time as television critic, increasingly I enjoyed sticking my thumb in the liberal eye, and you can do it fairly. You can do it. You don't have to be sneaky about it, but I was increasingly -- I was reviewing documentaries about the Sandinistas, and if I never see another documentary about the Nicaraguan Sandinistas in which they're shown as agrarian reformers or if I never see another documentary -- another report on Fidel Castro where all that we hear is about the wonderful job that Fidel is doing in education and health and welfare in Havana, well, I'll be awfully happy. But when you apply history, apply journalistic standards to those documentaries and, by golly, you will come across as a conservative. And I enjoyed it.
LAMB: You suggest that a lot of people in the business live on the West Side of New York between what streets and what streets on the Upper West Side?
CORRY: Yeah. One of the interesting things that -- look, everyone in the media in New York knows everyone else. If they don't know everyone else, they know all about them. And actually, it would be on the East Side where the people who run our publications live, and they live between 59th Street and 86th Street on the East Side and/or along West End Avenue or Central Park West on the West Side and a few selected suburbs. And views are spread -- I mean, there is not a media conspiracy. I'm a little bored with conservatives who run around talking about the dark conspiracy in the media and the media's going to subvert all our values or the media may, indeed, subvert all our values, but it's not a conspiracy. It's that views are shared. They're spread by osmosis, and they're enforced by moral persuasion, I suppose. The problem is that people think alike. People think alike, so, yes, if I was in The New York Times newsroom in 1980 and everyone has voted for Ronald Reagan, except Hilton Cramer, I mean, it tells you something about where the media is looking or are looking.
LAMB: How did they treat you?
CORRY: Well, remember, I'd been around for a long time, and I had a lot of friends in the business, and I still have a lot of friends with The New York Times, but increasingly in the '80s, I had the feeling that I was, oh, almost the token conservative, and sure, I was treated just fine. I mean, I knew all kinds of people there. I had been nominated for Pulitzer Prizes in different categories, not as a reporter, so I was treated just fine. But I think when I left in 1988, and I left for a variety of reasons. One reason was that -- oh, I had grown up at The New York Times, and I didn't want to grow old at The New York Times. I had just known too many old reporters who were sitting in the back of the room and gotten sour and grumpy and were taking assignments from 25-year-old editors, and it seems to me that I didn't ever want to be in that position. And it seemed to me that my time was running out at The New York Times.
No, I wasn't fighting with anyone. I got along very well with my colleagues, but when Abe left -- Abe Rosenthal -- and Max Frankel came in as executive editor, it was a different vision of the news. It was a different way of putting out a newspaper, and in the beginning of that book, I speak about the people who've long since retired from The Times or otherwise separated from The Times who still refer to The Times as “we.” Now I still think of The Times as “we,” and even today [March 27, 1994], five years after leaving The Times -- and I go back to The Times for lunch, whatever, to see old friends. But you pick up the paper and you say, “What the hell are we doing with that front page?” or “What are we doing?” You are still part of the family. But the paper has changed so enormously, and I don't think I would fit in to The New York Times today. I have a different vision of news. I have a different vision of what a great newspaper should be.
The other day, on a Sunday, what was it? -- a week ago Sunday, I think [from March 27, 1994], and I picked up The New York Times, and there, page one, there were seven stories on page one. I counted them. And now in the old days -- old only being 10 or 15 years ago [1979 to 1984] -- the news journalistic philosophy was that you would give a snapshot of the world in the previous 24 hours: What happened yesterday all over the world? But the other Sunday, I picked up the paper and I looked at the seven page-one stories and not one story had a yesterday or a last night in the lead. All seven stories were about something that will happen or might happen or conceivably could happen some time in the future. Well, it's a different kind of journalism, and it, what was it? -- the same Sunday or was it just last Sunday? -- I'm not sure. And I picked up the magazine and I just happened to open the last page first and there was an essay on the last page of a Sunday magazine, and it's about penises, and, well, that's not The New York Times that I grew up in. It's a different kind of paper.
...
