Yesterday, a video was circulated that appeared to show a group of gun right supporters at a hearing in Connecticut heckling the parent of one of the Newtown shooting victims. Naturally, every pro-gun control media outlet under the sun picked the story up and ran with it. And why not? For the anti-2A crowd, that kind of behavior is manna from heaven, an easy cudgel to use to make gun owners look like cruel bullies. Just one problem: there was no heckling. The video was intentionally edited to paint the People of the Gun in the most negative light possible . . .
And — surprise! — there haven’t been any retractions that I can find.
David Frum tweeted, “What horrible human being heckles a grieving parent in such a way?”
Gawker picked up the story and ran with it, no retraction or update was issued.
CT Post was all over it. No retraction was issued.
And naturally Piers Morgan was as sensationalist as one can be: “SICKENING: Sandy Hook father Neil Heslin heckled as he pleads for ban on assault weapon that killed his son Jesse”
The HuffPo ran the headline”Neil Heslin, Father Of Newtown Victim, Heckled By Pro-Gun Activists.” There was no update to the story.
MSNBC cried, “Emotional father of Sandy Hook victim heckled by gun nuts”.
But Twitchy, has the real story:
Except no. Not really. MSNBC is propping up its story with a blatantly edited video. In fact, Heslin was not heckled. Gun rights advocates in the audience indeed voiced their support for the Second Amendment — after he asked why anyone would need “assault-style weapons or high-capacity clips.” You’d never know based on the MSNBC version, which completely cut out the footage of Heslin’s question.
Twitchy went the extra mile to actually investigate the story instead of simply repeating the party line and found the original footage:
So it turns out that the father of the murdered child wasn’t really heckled. He just asked a question and engaged in dialogue with the audience. And he wasn’t upset at all when the session was over. Even the Washington Post agrees:
Man invites comment from audience; audience replies with comment; man comes away unperturbed. Does that qualify as a moment of heckling? Have a look at the definition of the term: “Interrupt (a public speaker) with derisive or aggressive comments or abuse.”
Since Heslin invited feedback, the audience response cannot qualify as an interruption. On that front alone, there is simply no heckling here. And there’s further evidence: After the back and forth, Heslin didn’t appear one bit bothered by the interaction. He said, “Anyway, we’re all entitled to our own opinion, and I respect their opinions and thoughts, but I wish they’d respect mine and give it a little bit of thought.”
He wasn’t heckled. But that doesn’t fit the narrative that gun owners are nuts and bullies. So this is what we’re up against. No tactic, no matter how dishonest, disingenuous or despicable, is too over-the-top when it comes to the larger goal of demonizing gun owners and de-legitimizing civilian firearms ownership. Got that?
Sigh.
Any time I hear Piers Morgan say “now wait a minute” I get aggitated. This man portends to be a journalist, but cannot help smothering his guests with his own opinions. He’s an overbearing brute of a character that has no business working for a news network.
A journalist asks a questions and waits for a response. He doesn’t interrupt (repeatedly) a person responding to his questions because he doesn’t like where he thinks the response is headed.
Chump oh I mean Chief Johnson….Anti 2A. He is the facist that will be comming to get your guns
Somehow I don’t think anybody who has signed
will be invited to a beer summit anytime soon.
Hey ChuckN: we throw the beer summit and invite those 1100 Men as the guest’s of Honor!!
Problem solved and the Beer Summit is a go!!!
🙂
Which is why the counter argument needs to be repealing the NFA and GCA so worst case is we don’t lose any more ground. And every increase in control in one state needs to be met with more freedom in another.
Hearing some good things from the Senate hearings today.
He’s asking for a towel to wipe the blood off his hands, and they’re just sitting there, staring.
Personally I’d rather get a Mac 10 or an Uzi if I was dropping that much money.
soap opera
I was surprised that this video and the resulting outrage didn’t appear on Newsvine, where there have been a lot f threads on guns and gun rights (negative mostly, with valiant defenses of the 2A)
I live in IL(the real IL not Chicago area) and just breezing through the bill left me pleased overall. I have some issues with it but considering what we had before I cant complain too much. Pluse being a HDveteran from the infantry i wouldnt have to take any classes or qual. on the range, saving me a couple bucks!
I puke in my mouth every time I see that limey subversive, apologies to all of English decent. But then again the mayor is “American” and the UK did drive Morgan out of Jolly ‘Ol England. Even formed a petition not to take him back. Spot On, chaps.
Awesome welcome aboard.
Something has happened.
I thought this was about the Alabama murder / kidnapping when I saw it.
Madman murders bus driver and kidnaps six (6) year old child at random.
He asked a serious and thoughtful question to the crowd and got a respectful and intelligent answer. No heckling.
By the way Yahoo has a story on its front page questioning the validity of the heckling claim and how eager the left wing gun grabbers were to use it. Hopefully it gets picked up
Could Yahoo’s sudden discovery of honesty in journalism be a reason for their showing a profit for the first time in years?
Fire/Police responders check in with dispatch ON ARRIVAL at the scene. And when they ENTER the building. Those times ought to be public information. Why aren’t they available?
The human memory is very UNRELIABLE in high stress situations. In particular the participants sense of time goes all to Hell. That’s why the dispatch tapes are the only source of objectively verifiable data.