Bad Theatrics

While I was gone, the Americans for Gun Safety group released a report that showed that "gun dealers located in 22 states supplied nearly 15% of guns recovered in crime between 1996 and 2000." Three dealers are here in Memphis.

There have already been a lot of analyses of the methodology and logic of the study. You can go to Say Uncle and he has lots of links there. What struck me immediately was the report's admission that the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) and the Justice Department have been completely lax in enforcement of already-existing laws. That seems to be the place to start, in the vein of Project Exile.

This post, however, is to document a television news reporter's incredible report on the day the story broke. Wednesday, January 14th, FOX13 reporter Allyson Finch did a "stand up" for the morning news show, "Good Morning Memphis." She was in front of the Guns'n'Ammo store, which was closed at that hour, which had been identified in the AGS report as one of three Memphis-area stores to be associated with a lot of crime guns.

Finch started her 6:30AM report by saying "This is a fake gun" and holding up a HUGE pistol, in her free hand. It seemed to me, who isn't knowledgable about guns, to be a .45. It was a monster. She had her finger on the trigger as she waved it about! Not only that, but she pointed it at her chest. I was floored. She quickly went on to say that she hadn't bought the "gun" at Guns'n'Ammo, but if she had it might have been used in a crime mentioned in the report. It was a bad, lame effort to grab viewer attention at the expense of accuracy and clarity. It was sloppy reporting of the laziest, most tawdry sort.

I was startled to see Finch's behavior. If you hadn't caught that quick mention of it being a fake gun, you would have seen Finch violating all sorts of fundamentals of gun safety. Even I, who has only gone shooting once, immediately recognised her violations. It was stunning.

So I watched the 7AM part of the show to see what happened next, even though it made me late for work. In this report, she started the story differently. It wasn't until a few seconds later that she then held up the gun, finger still on trigger. She clearly called it a fake, saying it was from the FOX13 prop department (!). But she again repeated the whole, "I didn't buy it here, but if I did..." bit before concluding the report. She wasn't as wild in her waving this time and she did clearly explain the fake gun, but she was still violating basic gun safety.

I called the station later that morning from work. I got to talk to the morning news director, who was solicitous and interested. I explained that I wasn't even a gun owner, nor did I belong to either pro- or anti-gun groups, but that even I knew enough about guns to be stunned by what Finch had done. I told him how irresponsible it was. He agreed to talk to Finch and thanked me for calling. I got the sense that even though he was polite, he wasn't too worried by the whole thing.

I'm still amazed by the whole thing. It was yet another example of reporters covering stories over which they have little or no knowledge or expertise. She was blithely irresponsible and utterly ignorant of it. It was scary to think of kids seeing her behave this way all for the sake of theatrics. (Which I told the news director. That seemed to get his attention.)

You know, at the least she could have had a trigger-lock on the thing. No one seemed to have even thought of that.