Associated Press stoops to a new low

I recently read an article about a tragic and horrible occurance in Ft. Drum, where an Army MP is accused of stabbing to death his two best friends, both of whom are also Ft. Drum soldiers.

An overall tragic situation, a soldier who was unable or unwilling to cope with the psychological effects of war who allegedly beat his wife, lost his faith in God, and apparently murdered his two closest friends.

Then I get to this line:

The shooting contains echoes of the Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, where an Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Hasan, is accused of killing 13 people.

So much for editorial oversight. Are the staff writers at the AP so eager to get their bias across that they completely forget the basic facts of the event?

And how in the f**k do you make a comparison between a murderous Islamic fanatic who kills soldiers as part of his misguided holy war against America and a soldier who clearly couldn't handle the psychological toll of war?

News flash to the MSM: Major Hasan did not deploy, and does not have PTSD. Stop marginalizing a legitimate disorder while making a pathetic attempt to justify the actions of yet another Islamic terrorist.

Pet Peeve #176

Every day anti-gunners put out more material, nearly all of it based in distortions of fact, misrepresentations, fear-mongering, and often outright lies.

This blog posting may take the cake on a reality-distortion-per-word scale.

The general theme is: Guns didn't prevent the four police officers from being ambushed in Tacoma, Washington, therefore Guns = A Very Bad Thing.

Following the same train of "logic," I guess we should remove all smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and fire drills from our school systems, because they have been repeatedly failed to prevent fires.

The Freeholder brings this to our attention with a thorough fisking of some of the so-called data and outright lies, but my favorite quote from the article highlights one of my biggest pet peeves in the intertubes/blogosphere.

How about guns being used to kill innocent people? Type 'multiple shootings' into Google and you get over a million links.

This is relevant how? I've seen this kind of tripe in respected print publications. Since when did number of Google results become evidence for anything? I can type "I rock" into Google and get 193 million results! I guess that must make it true right?

Oh and for the author of that post, "gun saves lives" returns nearly 2.5 million results. Since this is apparently convincing evidence, I guess its time to change sides on the gun-control debate.

Fort Hood to require firearm registration

I can't say I didn't see this coming, but I am disappointed all the same. I had a glimmer of hope that the brass would make a good decision and loosen the firearm restrictions, but alas...

Soldiers assigned to Fort Hood will have to register their personal firearms with the director of emergency services... (more)

This would seem to include registration of privately owned firearms that are stored off-base, which is a constitutionally questionable measure.

Keep in mind, Maj. Hasan had been flagged by the FBI months in advance of this shooting, and this information had been shared with military intelligence. If they are unwilling to take action on a suspected Islamofacist terrorist, how will a list of soldiers who own firearms (all of them) help prevent future attacks?

Justice after all...

When I feel like I have lost all hope in humanity, stories like this both reinforce and shatter my perception simultaneously.

The young man was given three choices: get turned over to the police, go one-on-one in a fight with a seasoned war veteran, or be duct-taped to a flagpole for six hours with a sign around his neck identifying his alleged crime: flag burning. (more)

I'd like to buy the vets at that VFW a round.