Friday, February 26, 2016

An Open Letter to Christopher Ingraham of The Washington Post

Link to his propaganda piece here.

Mr. Ingraham,

You have lied to your readership. The first line in your piece says that Barrett’s fifty caliber rifle was originally designed for the military. You obviously didn’t talk to Ronnie Barrett before you wrote the piece. If you had done so, he would have told you he designed it because he wanted one, and decided to market it to civilian long range shooters. The military took notice and started buying them ALSO.

You Called the Violence Policy Center a "Gun Safety Group”. They are a gun prohibitionist group. They are not interested in teaching anyone how to handle firearms safely. They vigorously oppose gun safety training for young people. I have asked them in the past, wouldn’t it be better to have mandatory firearms familiarization and safety training, say, in public schools? That way any young person who comes across a firearm will know how to check to see if it is loaded, unload it and render it safe if it is, and find no fascination and mystery in it which would need to be explored. The response I received was a frantic and emphatic “No!”  They demonstrably prefer ignorance and fear to knowledge and proficiency. 

You repeatedly quote the Violence Policy Center as some authority on firearms. They are mostly ignorant of firearms. None of them are firearm manufacturers. None of them are gun dealers. None of them are professional or even recreational shooters. None of them have exhaustive training in firearms of any kind. 


Finally, you say that .50 caliber rifles are unregulated at the Federal level. You sir, are lying. All firearms in the United States are regulated by Federal Law, including Ronnie Barrett’s .50 caliber rifle.

You really don’t care about any of the above, do you? Because it isn’t about the truth. You are a shameless propagandist.

2 comments:

David Codrea said...

Point of order:
None of them are gun dealers

Actually, I don't know if he's ever actually sold any, but in 2008 Dave Hardy reported Josh Sugarmann was an FFL:
http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2008/02/the_quintessenc.php
Don't know if he still is.

Astounding hypocrisy, is it not?

Caveat-- I have not personally delved into this to validate the info, but I do consider Hardy to be reliable and knowledgeable fwiw.

Longbow said...

It is, David. Josh Sugarcane held an FFL during the very time period that President Klinton told ATF to "reduce the number of FFL's". At that time ATF went around and told Licensees, "You're not really doing business. WE have decided you don't "need" that FFL...", squeezing nuts to try to force people to give them up. Somehow they overlooks the Disarmament crowd.