For anyone with any awareness of how the world works, it doesn’t take long to realize that, too often, the media twists the truth of a situation for their own purposes. Sometimes it’s just sensationalism so they can sell more advertising by attracting more eyeballs. Sometimes, though, it’s intentional misrepresentation for the purpose of pushing an agenda.
A recent story about an incident in Jackson, Mississippi might have you thinking that law-abiding gun owners are careless people who cause other people to be injured through that carelessness. Bob Irwin gives us details:
USA Today reports on 05-26-2017 in Jackson, Mississippi, Story Headline “She’s in jail after dropping purse — because gun inside it went off”
A 58 year old woman from Philadelphia, Mississippi was in Lakeland Family Medicine Center on the University of Mississippi Medical Center campus Thursday when she had a mishap.
The woman dropped her purse and the gun inside it discharged. Another woman waiting in a doctor’s office was wounded by the bullet. An ambulance transported the victim, whose name was not released, to the nearby hospital’s emergency room. Her wound to the leg is not believed to be life threatening.
Mississippi has one of the most permissive gun laws across the USA, allowing a person “constitutional carry” privileges of having a concealed firearm without a state-issued permit. However, the building where the incident occurred had signs outside forbidding firearms on the premises.
She was charged with three misdemeanors – possession of a stolen firearm, carrying a concealed weapon and simple assault according to the jail website. Campus police arrested the “shooter” and booked her into the Hinds County Detention Center.
Now, if you’re like many people who only read the first two or three paragraphs, you would think that it’s just that gun owners are careless and shootings like this probably happen all the time. And, hey, if gun owners are so careless, then they shouldn’t have guns, right?
But you finally get a few more details in the last two paragraphs: This wasn’t a legal gun owner (the gun was stolen). Beyond that, what the article doesn’t tell you is that the lady who was arrested was a convicted felon who isn’t legally allowed to have a gun. Oh, and she was in a building designated a gun-free zone (that obviously stopper her from carrying, didn’t it?).
In other words, this lady broke three laws that didn’t have anything to do with legal and responsible gun use.
So, USA Today implies that gun owners are the problem.
Unfortunately, I’m not surprised, and neither should you be surprised. This is why we all must remain vigilant to be responsible gun owners, to help other people become well trained responsible gun owners, and to also keep telling other people the truth about gun ownership: criminals are the problem. Not legal gun owners.