Media Bias Against Guns By The Toronto Star and CBC Marketplace

Over the years, I have developed a very dejected view towards the media's handling of anything firearms-related. A good day it would be if you can find a neutral reporting of guns. But alas, we live in a fairly socialistic country and as such, it should come as no surprise to see continued negative spin and even outright lies when it comes to reporting about guns. Recently, I saw two instances of this which gave me grave stomach upset.

First, the good ol' CBC, who, unfortunately, happened to give us two of our recent Governor-Generals, Michaelle Jean (current) and Andrienne Clarkson. No, I dislike them not because they are women, but because they are left-wing, tree-hugging nutjobs (and in Jean's case, she is a known sympathizer of Quebec separatism). Anyway, CBC, the station that tries to make itself "culturally relevant" by bringing you the not-very-funny and ridiculous-concepted Little Mosque on the Prairie, has shown again and again, its absolute willingness to all-out lie to advance its liberal agenda.

The latest attempt can be seen here in this CBC Marketplace report:

CBC Market Place "Report" on Replica Guns

The subject is replica guns.

Now, why does this matter to me? Well, due to this report, my local gunshop now no longer stocks air pistols (BB and pellet). Watch the report first and then keep reading here.

There are several issues with this documentary. One is that the CBC marketplace reporter and crew take several liberties to deliberately make guns look like they're some sort of evil, even though common sense will tell you a gun is just an inanimate piece of metal, an object. These are not in any chronological order, but my first and biggest issue is with the reporter. She has no clue that there are different classes of airguns. They just said that there are BB guns and airsoft guns. Obviously this is not true. So, based on what I know, I'll give you the facts.

Airguns are propelled in one of four ways: 1) by pumping air into the gun, compressing it. When the trigger is pulled, that air is released, pushing the projectile with it. 2) by compressing a spring, usually by breaking the barrel (most often on air rifles). When the trigger is pressed, the spring decompresses, pushing air out and the projectile with it. 3) CO2 gas cartridges, which is CO2 gas in a canister, either 12g or 88g. A pull of a trigger releases measured amounts of the gas which push the projectile out of the gun. 4) PCP, which I believe stands for pre-charged pneumatic (if it's different, contact me - it's late and I'm too lazy right now to look it up) which is pre-filled either with an airtank or manually pumping something like a bicycle pump to fill up the air tank. It's beyond the scope of this blog entry to discuss the pros and cons, but that's a general rule of the power plant options for airguns.

Airguns are broken down into many categories:

I don't consider airsoft a true airgun categorty, but airsoft shoots very light plastic projectiles and its velocity (how fast the projectile goes when leaving the barrel) is around 200 - 350FPS (feet per second). This is what people use for airsoft wars and airsoft guns are often marked by that ugly and tacky orange tip at the end of the gun. I am not into airsoft at all as you can probably tell by now.

BB guns shoot a small steel ball (BB) - they are ALWAYS under 500FPS. Their accuracy is not good because of the fact that they get shot out of smooth barrels. Mostly for plinking and backyard fun.

Pellet guns are lead pellets which have a front end and a skirted end, the front end can be any number of shapes including flat (wadcutter), round, pointed, and hollowpoint. Depending on the power of the gun, the use of the pellet can be anywhere from casual target shooting and plinking to competition target shooting to hunting. The CBC Marketplace report did not make this differentiation and also failed to mention that many pellet guns (a lot of rifles) require a firearms licence, as they shoot over 500FPS AND generate more than 4.2FPE (foot points energy).

By not making these distinctions, one who knows nothing about airguns can think of airsoft in the same vein as a pellet gun in the same vein as a BB gun. They are all different.

In the report they got this teenage guy to go into the store to buy a airgun (probably airsoft). He walks out with it and brandishes it in public. Law-abiding gun owners, whether firearms grade or not, do not do this. The CBC either does not realize, or does not care, that what that kid did is against the law. Yet the impression they want to leave is that anyone can go in and buy this and start shooting at people.

Also, that part about finding airsoft plastic BBs all over the street. Yeah, that was as much of a plant as I have ever seen. So all the sudden they are talking, look down and lo and behold, there are airsoft BBs strewn all over the street. Yeah right. Why would CBC lie about this? The same reason as another instance you saw and are about to read my assessment.

That lady reporter blatantly lied when she went to shoot that airsoft gun in Port Perry. First, it was an airsoft gun - I can tell by the report / sound of the gun not to mention by looking at it. Even if you argue it was a BB or pellet gun, what she did with it is impossible. Upon shooting it, she gave a recoil with her hands and said "Geez Louise!". Like, what-the-hell-ever, lady. Neither BB or pellet or airsoft guns recoil - they don't make air pistols shooting over 500FPS so whatever she shot can not and did not recoil. The only gun that I have felt recoil that was an airgun was a Gamo Hunter Extreme, which shoots...1400FPS. That is a firearms grade airgun, and even then, the recoil was so, so mild (it's really just the spring decompressing). Air pistols don't recoil, sorry.

Now, where this affects me. My favourite outdoors store, Le Baron - their gunshop immediately pulled all of their air pistols from their shelves because the CBC showed several pages of their catalog selling pages and pages of air pistols. What they neglected to show is that it is explictly stated that permits are required for certain models of airguns. Also, LeBaron's policy, not shown in CBC Marketplace is to visually inspect and record ID information for all airgun and ammo purchases (even if it is not firearms grade). I have been in the gunshop and seen them turn down people due to lack of ID. So that 14-year-old kid in the Marketplace story who went into some shady store in Vancouver to get an airsoft gun, he wouldn't have had that easy of a time at LeBaron.

Now, I'll focus on the Toronto Star. They recently had a series of reports about guns in Toronto (guess it was to capitalize on some of the hoopla surrounding last week's Toronto's Sportsmen Show, which also is a topic in and of itself for another time and another day). I'm not sure what their goal was, but if you look at the first article, it had this gunshop owner pointed out a side-by-side (SXS) shotgun in the direction of the camera. The average person who is not conversant with guns may look at that and not think good things. I think that was the star's point. But if you look carefully, you'll see that the gunshop owner has the action broken (hinge) and is obviously checking the gun - he's not deliberately pointing it at the cameraman. The gun is totally safe. Second, he has a plethora of other guns all under glass shelving behind him - I hope that that is a detail that is not lost on people - law abiding gun owners go above and beyond to ensure that their guns are locked up to meet and exceed legal standards.

I wonder about the Star's true intentions in publishing a map of which area / jurisdiction owns the most guns in the Toronto area, including exact numbers of guns owned, whether the gun owners are hunters or merely target shooters and whether the per capita ownership of guns in that area has been increasing or decreasing over time (trending). I fail to see what point of providing this information is, other than to give potential criminals a shopping list of where to find the most guns. I won't discuss the exact specifics, but I do want to make a very clear point, and I don't care how it sounds:

The two highest places with the highest gun ownership rates are heavily populated with people of European descent. I would bet my bottom dollar that these areas are very, very low crime areas (and this would be in line with John Lott's theory in More Guns, Less Crime).

Conversely, the two areas with the smallest percentage of legal gun ownership are...(drumroll) the Jane and Finch corridor area, and Rexdale, both heavily Black-populated areas and high crime areas. This again is consistent with U.S. statistics of big cities who have large urban African-American populations, greater crime, and the lowest rates of gun ownerships. If any demographic needs to have more law-abiding gun owners, it is in these areas. This also proves once again that gun control does not work - anywhere you look, places that have more guns by law abiding citizens have less crime and places where guns are either frowned upon or banned outright, crime is very high (and to no one's surprise, gun crime, with use of illegally obtained guns).

Of course, the Toronto Star would never produce any type of crime statistics based on race or culture. They would be afraid to make minorities look bad. Yet it's OK to give out the locations and the types of guns that law-abiding gun owners have. The Star recently offered my wife and I a free subscription and didn't even ask if we wanted it. That paper is not good enough for me to wipe me arse with, much less read.