See the Daily News front page here.
“12 More Innocents Killed in D.C.”
“Maniac Used ‘Newtown’ Weapon”
“Lupica: AR-15 Made for Murder”
But don’t worry about philosopher Mike Lupica (here and here) and the gang at the News being embarrassed. If you tell them they have egg on their faces, they’ll just denounce you as a dupe or shill of “the gun lobby.”
With that said, the News would have had no point, even if the murder weapon had been an AR-15, which is a great self-defense weapon for our diverse society.
Then again, the murder weapon that mass murderer Adam Lanza used in Newtown wasn’t an “assault rifle,” either. Lanza left it in his trunk, and did his evil with a semi-automatic pistol. The “assault rifle” fairy tale was later concocted by Connecticut’s political hack Chief Medical Examiner, H. Wayne Carver II. Thus, the Daily News and other MSM outlets were piling one lie on top of another.
[Full disclosure: I used to freelance at the News—unbeknownst to its editors! I have no personal history, however, with the philosopher and literary man Lupica.]
The News got Google to pull the link to Lupica’s rant, I got in through the back door, via the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple. As usual, Lupica’s editors have protected him form criticism, by refusing to permit reader comments. I’d post his entire rant, but it consists mostly of huge, dramatic photographs of psychotic killers and teachers taking little kids to safety, plus another moronic News front page pic “BlOOD ON YOUR HANDS,” referring to lawmakers, and yet another gun-grabbing, Daily News petition.
After Newtown, I recall seeing what passes for a poll at the Daily News. It went something this:
How much do you hate the right to keep and bear arms?
A lot
A whole lot
A whole gigantic lot
New York Daily News no-comments AR-15 cover
By Erik Wemple,Published: September 17 at 9:01 p.m.
E-mail the writer
Of all the media outlets that linked their credibility to loosely attributed sources that an AR-15 was somehow involved in yesterday’s Navy Yard shooting, the New York Daily News stands out, as the paper’s cover image attests. It’s a provocative presentation, a great marriage of type and image. Alongside a photo of what appears to be an AR-15, it screams, “SAME GUN DIFFERENT SLAY: 12 more innocents killed in D.C., Maniac used ‘Newtown’ weapon, Lupica: AR-15 made for murder.”
It got the fatality count correct, at least. The rest of it was off. Today an FBI official appeared in front of reporters and said that the agency had no “information” that the gunman, Aaron Alexis, had an AR-15 in his possession. Bad news for the Daily News, which earlier this year campaigned for further gun restrictions in the aftermath of Newtown.
All day long the Erik Wemple Blog pressed New York Daily News spokesman Ken Frydman for an accounting as to how the gun could have ended up on the cover when its role in the killings hadn’t received formal confirmation.
“No comment,” Frydman replied late today.
Meanwhile, a column by Mike Lupica posted to the New York Daily News website last night argued that the AR-15 was “the rifle for the ‘sport’ of hunting humans.” First paragraph: “So it takes nine months and two days from Newtown, from 20 dead children and six adults, for someone else to carry the same kind of AR-15 that Adam Lanza carried into Sandy Hook Elementary School into the Washington Navy Yard.”
This afternoon, the New York Daily News affixed this italicized addendum to the story:
The FBI’s assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office said Tuesday that gunman Aaron Alexis acted alone in the Navy Yard shooting that killed 12 people and added “we do not have any information” that an AR-15 was used. Mike Lupica’s column was written Monday when The Daily News and The Associated Press among many others reported, using reputable law enforcement sources, that the shooter Alexis had used three weapons including an AR-15.
Bolded text added to highlight the New York Daily News’s reliance on the safety-in-numbers justification for its screwup.
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