It was just a couple days ago that I was talking about how the Washington Post’s own internal Fact Checker blog debunked the “silencers are ineffective and dangerous” claim made by gun control groups and the Washington Post’s own editorial board. Now it seems that the New York Times is jumping on board the “silencers help bad guys” train with their latest anti-silencer editorial using the exact same logic that the Washington Post just finished debunking.
From the Times:
The annual tally of 30,000-plus gun deaths accounts for just a tiny fraction of the total shots fired, most of which miss their targets but terrorize neighborhoods. Amid the lethal cacophony, the police in more than 90 cities here and abroad seek to reach the scene of the latest gun troubles more quickly by using an audio detection system called ShotSpotter, which triangulates the sound of gunfire onto computer maps. Police officers in major cities hail these precise early alarms of where the latest shooting is.
In short, their protestation is that silencer would make it harder for police and others to spot mass shooters and track them down. The Washington Post did a fantastic job of showing just how ill informed about firearms technology and the realities of physics someone would need to be in order for that to make sense, but I think the Chief Executive of ShotSpotter (the technology specifically cited as the panacea for gun violence in the article which would be thwarted by silencers) put it in a far more succinct manner:
“In regard to gun silencers, it is more accurate to call them suppressors, as they suppress the impulsive sound of gunfire, not wholly eliminate it,” said Ralph Clark, the chief executive of ShotSpotter. “We have successfully if not inadvertently detected confirmed suppressed gunfire within our existing deployments.
Although we have not formally tested the theoretical impact to our system, we intend to do some targeted testing in the near future. We believe we will have various options ranging from increasing our sensor array density to developing software/firmware to address the detection of suppressed gunfire if it were to become a widespread issue.”
The New York Times is once again wrong on the facts about firearms, silencers, and the impact of potential legislation on “gun violence.” They are disseminating the very definition of “fake news” that they claim to despise, yet have no issue with that because it advances their own agenda.
It’s an editorial. Editorials should never be mistaken for news; but sadly they often are.
There is no less obligation for op eds to be factually correct than [what passes for] news [these days]. Especially from a [formerly] august publication like the New York Times.
USA Today put my op eds through the fact checker wringer. FWIW.
Got links?
And how about you submitting an op-ed to the NYT?
Hahahaha! That’s funny
An editorial is an opinion; that’s why they are printed on the Opinions page.
Opinions are like, well, let’s say everyone has one. One of the problems with opinions is that they are often based on “facts” that are wrong.
In order for an opinion to be valid, it at least needs to be based on facts. For example, I might say, “Since water is wet (a fact), any water on any moon of Saturn must also be wet (not a fact).” If I express this as a fact, it can easily be disproved. If I express it as an opinion, it can still easily be disproved; that is, the opinion can easily be shown to be wrong.
That newspapers (even the “Paper of Record”) print editorials (opinions) that are easily disproved doesn’t speak well of their editorial staff (the editors who check stories for facts).
I read the NYT daily email, and notice that their “stories” are far too often editorials (opinions); their idea of “reporting the news” is to put a slant decidedly towards the political left on it.
Fer too often, on Facebook, I need to correct links from some of my friends who are also on the left. They don’t like it.
Yes, editorials are statements of opinion, that is a given. That said, an editorial that proclaims the earth to be flat is plainly all wet, which is a pretty good description of the firearms related editorializing one has unfortunately come to expect from the N.Y. TImes
In the past the press could keep their lies straight among themselves. Not so much anymore.
In other news… the sky is blue and water is wet.
Journalistic integrity died along with John, Martin, and Robert.
Umm guys you do realize that using a silencer on a gun being fired for “celebratory ” gun fire makes absolutely zero sense right ? The whole purpose of celebratory gun fire is to make noise !
It still does make noise, a lot of noise in fact. Louder than a rock concert.
That said, it does reduce the possibility of damage to those closest to the ceremonial rifle.
The fastest way to reduce gun deaths is to provide suicide pills to anyone over the age of 21 who wants them. Many gun suicides are persons with painful terminal illnesses who will be dead in a matter of months anyway.
Huh? While I know of at least one person who fits that bill and there are surely others, I find myself thinking “citation, please…”
Because the 20,000 suicides they talk about would have been prevented by shot spotter.
……….well at least maybe cut down on smell because of decay anyways. other than that,yup.
The New York Times does not know how guns work
Why does the NYT link TTAG provides go to this crap link?
http://www.viglink.com/shop/merchants
Instead of:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/opinion/echoes-of-gunfire-hurt-tender-nra-ears.html?_r=0
“Amid the lethal cacophony…”
Dang. Someone has the gift of prose and is clearly a person with one of them there fancypants college edumacations! I couldn’t possibly argue with such phraseology.
90% of handguns, the preferred weapon of thugs, do not have a threaded barrel so cannot use a suppressor.
The few that do and can use a suppressor make the gun no longer concealable in most cases.
“…which triangulates the sound of gunfire onto computer maps. Police officers in major cities hail these precise early alarms of where the latest shooting is”
Bitch, please. Everyone and their brother already knows which neighborhood 95% of the illegal gun fire is illegally occurring during illegal acts.
Shotspotter is like having an expensive sensor to find your ass to locate where the shit is coming from.
any mention of Australia or Europe’s lax suppressor regs?
The stupid ass wipes. Like gang bangers are going to be using silencers and that’s going screw up the shot finding system the cops purportedly have. Even if a gang banger stole a gun with a silencer I highly doubt they would want quieten their shots.
These “newspapers” have no more business weighing in on silencers than I have to interject my comments in their food and entertainment section. They’re loud mouth idiots and will always be. Remember the Colorado state congresswoman who was in charge of writing legislation about high capacity magazines and didn’t even know what one was? Ha!
The N.Y. TImes would neither recognize nor print the truth about anything related to firearms, no matter how strained the relationship. At one time, The Times was perhaps a respectable newspaper, alas that was a very long time ago.