Thread: Diane Sawyer's Sensationalist Crap

Originally Posted by simonj

I honestly don't see what's so surprising about all of this.

The right-wing press have been doing extreme stories predicated on fear like this one for as long as there has been a right-wing press. They routinely distort facts and issues to prove their point and, more importantly, sell papers/get viewers.

And then on the occasions that someone on the left dares to do the same kind of thing for ,an opposite viewpoint any hint of an actual discussion on the subject is drowned by the cries of "LIBERAL-BIAS!!! LIBERAL-PANSY-WUSS-ATHEIST-UNPATRIOTIC-MEDIA!!!!".

Grow up. In this day and age news is based on fear. Whether it's coming from the right side or the left, they want you to be outraged and angry and, above all, afraid. If you haven't realised that yet then I urge you to not pay attention to the mainstream news sources at all.

I never said I was surprised or shocked about any of this; just annoyed. And yeah, I'd agree that right-leaning news organizations are just as prone to fearmongering as left-leaning ones. And I'm perfectly aware that the modern commercial news media is governed by a business model based on running stories that get people angry or frightened; but why does that fact mean that people shouldn't express their displeasure, and discuss the issue, when they see coverage that they feel misrepresents an issue they care about?

And I'm perfectly open to actual discussion of the topic; you should know that. I'm certainly not trying to quash discussion by yelling about liberal bias (and I'm an atheist myself). My rather lengthy OP was spent almost entirely on explaining why I thought the coverage was misleading; only at the very end did I mention "liberal bias", and then what I actually said was that I don't believe in a systemic liberal media bias but that I do see how programs like this lead people to believe in one.

Originally Posted by simonj

Well that's because it is. I'm pretty sure it refers to a separate type of weapon, such as your AKs and your M16s and your UZIs and stuff like that. Weapons whose prime function is to kill. Not ke a rifle for hunting or sport or a generic pistol for self-defence but weapons that exist solely to kill (whether that is how they are used is a separate matter altogether).

This doesn't make sense for a couple of reasons, though.

Firstly, I was saying that it's ridiculous to talk about "rifles and pistols and assault weapons", because all "assault weapons" ARE either rifles or pistols; they don't constitute a separate class of weapons distinct from rifles or pistols, no matter what their prime function is. Civilian AK clones and AR15 clones (what people often call "M16s") are rifles even if we accept that their prime function is to kill (more on that in a minute). A civilian version of an Uzi is either a rifle (albeit a pistol-caliber carbine) or a pistol, depending on whether it is fitted with a shoulder stock. So it simply doesn't make any sense to say "rifles and pistols and assault weapons". It's like saying "fruits and vegetables and apples".

Secondly, it is nonsensical to draw a distinction between "weapons whose prime function is to kill" and weapons whose prime function isn't to kill, and then claim that the former group of weapons are "assault weapons" while the latter group is not. A hunting rifle's prime function is to kill. The prime function of a self-defense handgun is certainly to kill, or to threaten/exercise lethal force. Yet you apparently exclude both hunting rifles and self-defense handguns from your definition of "assault weapon". The fact is that if you sit down and systematically classify guns according to whether or not their "prime function" is to kill (presumably meaning they were designed primarily for a role that includes killing), the resultant division is not going to line up at all with the division between so-called "assault weapons" and other weapons. You will find that there will be plenty of non-"assault weapons" that fall into the group of weapons designed primarily for killing, and plenty of "assault weapons" that fall into the group that wasn't designed primarily for killing (because the gun-control advocate's definition of "assault weapon" actually includes lots of sporting rifles that happen to look mean).

And what does it even mean for a weapon to "exist solely to kill?" Can you explain that characterization? I can understand how you might talk about a weapon's "prime function" being killing, if the weapon was designed for military use or self-defense or hunting (even then I think it's not a very good way to phrase it, but I at least know what it's supposed to mean). But I don't at all understand what it means for a weapon to "exist solely to kill".