AP Doesn’t Know What Semiautomatic Means
Posted By John Moore on February 13, 2003
The associated press reports:
Police carrying semiautomatic rifles patrolled the grounds of the Capitol on Thursday, …
Anyone with the slightest knowledge of firearms (which excludes most members of the press) knows that these police are carrying fully automatic rifles.
The press, of course, has been brainwashed by gun-banners to assume that any wicked looking weapons must be semi-automatic. After all, wasn’t that what we heard during the “assault weapon” debate? They were evil-looking semiautomatic weapons that spray bullets.
They still haven’t learned, and probably never will.
Most journalism schools teach nothing about how the world works. Reporters are normally ignorant about science, technology and just about everything else. You can get a Masters in Journalism from Columbia without taking any science courses (unless you count anthropology as a science).
An aside for those not familiar with firearms (for example, any reporter who might read this):
- Semiautomatic weapons fire one bullet for each pull of the trigger. They do not “spray bullets.”
- Fully automatic weapons fire more than one bullet on a trigger pull – they are submachineguns. Most will continue firing until the trigger is released or the magazine is emptied.
- “Assault weapons” were developed to provide greater firepower to infantrymen. This means that they are fully automatic. So that more ammunition can be carried, they fire light, relatively low powered ammunition.
- Real assault weapons in the United States are all tightly controlled, since they are machine guns. Normal civilian owned “assault weapons” look like the real thing but are only semiautomatic.
Reporters know very little about ANYTHING outside their narrow field. As a lawyer, I can rarely read a mainstream press account of a court case or legal issue without cringing. It’s shameful how ignorant most reporters are.
I refer back to the Delta 191 crash at DFW, and the news accounts that spoke of “heaps of twisted steel” from a reporter obviously ignorant of the fact that aircraft are largely aluminum. Any time I read a news story that I know something about, it’s almost always in error.
Yep… that is a pretty safe generality. I know of one case where a story I was involved in was accurate. It was a Phoenix New Times feature article on local storm chasers. The reporter spent many hours with us (Arizona Thunderstorm Chase Project) and went out on chases with us. That story was surprisingly accurate.
But that’s the exception.
I agree one hundred percent with the above statement about reporters, anchormen and it applies to all of the anti-gun lunatic fringe!