# The AR-15 and the Navy Yard shooting **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 22, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443 "2013-09-22T14:03:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/81 "2013-09-23T02:53:45Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > It is my memory that the reference to the AR-15 was first provided by authorities within the Navy Yard on Monday. The correction to that initial claim was provided on Tuesday. A cite would help. An AR-15 doesn’t remotely sound like a shotgun or look like a shotgun. > [@tomndebb](#): > > While there may or may not be a “desire” on the part of the nebulous “media” to connect certain weapons with crimes of violence, quoting the spokesperson of the Navy and police regarding the weapon used hardly seems out of line. agree ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/82 "2013-09-23T02:57:31Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Sounds like both versions made the news. Lets look at a quick google search: > > navy base shooting, shotgun - 2,930,000 results > navy base shooting, AR-15 - 11,900,000 results > > Looks to me like the AR-15 was the dominant version by a factor of 4 to 1. That’s very telling indeed. In fact, the term “navy base shooting, water pistol” returned 32,800,000 results. Clearly the media is trying to put water pistols in a bad light. The Super Soaker Thunderstorm must be outlawed! ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/83 "2013-09-23T03:15:50Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > That’s very telling indeed. In fact, the term “navy base shooting, water pistol” returned 32,800,000 results. Clearly the media is trying to put water pistols in a bad light. The Super Soaker Thunderstorm must be outlawed! _Navy base shooting abortion_ returns 54 million. The media is trying to outlaw clothes hangers! ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/84 "2013-09-23T03:40:26Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’m waiting for the next desperate question that can somehow show that the media played a vital role in the enactment of Virginia law, or in my being able to read Virginia law. What’s your source for the alleged fact that the shooter did not have an AR-15? This isn’t that hard. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/85 "2013-09-23T03:51:41Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > That’s very telling indeed. In fact, the term “navy base shooting, water pistol” returned 32,800,000 results. Clearly the media is trying to put water pistols in a bad light. The Super Soaker Thunderstorm must be outlawed! actually you need to bracket “water gun” because it’s 2 words and unrelated to each and it returns a much lower number but your point is taken. The base itself wasn’t easily searchable because it’s name wasn’t used in many of the articles. I tried this: “navy yard”,shooting,ar-15\_\_\_\_\_\_\_325,000,000 “navy yard”,shooting,shotgun\_\_\_\_\_233,000,000 “navy yard”,shooting,“water gun”\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_5,560 “navy yard”,shooting,abortion\_\_\_\_\_\_60,200,000 I concede your point. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/86 "2013-09-23T06:13:38Z")
What if its because nobody really cares whether or not it was an AR-15, or not? The Bushmaster gun was in the news, how many people would care if that were misidentified as an AR-15? Functionally, its not that different, it just has some appealing cosmetic touches, so it looks like what little Johnny Rambo wanted Santa to bring him for Christmas. Well, “appealing” to some people, Goddess alone knows why. Two groups of people are likely to know, people who like guns and people who don’t. By a total non-coincidence, they are also the people who are likely to care. Ballistophiliacs, gun grabbers, and just about nobody else. If somebody printed a picture of the crime scene, and identified a bird in the picture as a robin…and then some bird bugger calls up, all pissed off because it wasn’t a robin but a throat warbling greeb, and demands a correction…will he get one? No, because nobody cares. A minority of the public, pro and con, gives a fuck, far far too much of a fuck. The rest of the public is luke-warm, ambivalent. And if there is no conspiracy, is there at least someone making a decision? Someone saying “Well, we could report it like this so it makes big scary black guns more scary! Yeah, let’s do that!”? Well, OK. Who? Why? To curry favor with a huge and well funded pressure group? Like the GGA (Gun Grabbers of America), with their formidable funding and lobbyists? Who would be afraid of a piddling little bunch of nellies like the NRA? Did anyone make such a decision, is that what is implied here? Because conspiracy is right out, and if no one made such a conscious decision…what’s left? Outside of a lurking sense of persecution by shadowy figures moving in the gloom? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/87 "2013-09-23T15:11:06Z")
> [@Truman\_Burbank](#): > > What about\*\* this\*\* area? Doesn’t this damage your whole thesis rather badly? What makes this an exception? Apparently Fox News is part of the media that desperately wants to demonize the AR-15! No, it doesn’t. It simply shows that Fox republished AP content without much editorial intervention. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/88 "2013-09-23T15:37:57Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, it doesn’t. It simply shows that Fox republished AP content without much editorial intervention. Right. It’s all the other guys that are guilty of editorial intervention. Got it. Convenient. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/89 "2013-09-23T15:52:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, it doesn’t. It simply shows that Fox republished AP content without much editorial intervention. and this is a thread unto itself. This has always been a problem with the production of news. I say production because news is a money making venture and information was often second hand because of the cost. It wasn’t until the middle of the last century when technology caught up with it and the concept of researching news with some degree of independence. If a news story was big enough then a person could be dispatched to the location and report back. That took money which came from the revenue’s generated from selling the stories. But we’re now coming full circle with the life cycle of the product. For a variety of reasons the money isn’t there anymore and news organizations are now relying on each other again for stories. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/90 "2013-09-23T17:45:24Z")
> [@Truman\_Burbank](#): > > Right. It’s all the other guys that are guilty of editorial intervention. Got it. > Convenient. You’re not alone. There seem to be a few posters here that believe that the word “Convenient,” somehow constitutes a rebuttal in debate. It does not. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/91 "2013-09-23T18:07:07Z")
Due to some unusual work circumstances, I was cut off from the news and only found out about the shooting from my friends via email and various social networking media. Owing to my line of work and my hobbies, a good number of my friends are firearms aficionados. Initial reports from my friends were that it was 3 shooters, one of whom had an AR-15. Guess which one of those basic facts was corrected more quickly and more emphatically. I really don’t give a shit what weapon was used, but I did care about the number of shooters because I had to work at the Pentagon the next day and there’s a huge difference between workplace violence and a terrorist attack in terms of me being able to get into the building to do my job. So imagine my annoyance when my friends are falling all over themselves to exonerate the exalted AR-15. So many of them, upon hearing about the latest mass shooting, immediately think about how it will affect their guns. It’s annoying. This very thread is annoying. The media issued corrections, I was listening to NPR the next day and they had the specifics sorted out. It’s really not a big deal, is it? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/92 "2013-09-23T18:12:28Z")
Well, that’s just what a gun-grabber would say, isn’t it? You’ve already confessed to listening to NPR… ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/93 "2013-09-23T18:15:30Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > This very thread is annoying. The media issued corrections, I was listening to NPR the next day and they had the specifics sorted out. It’s really not a big deal, is it? Yes. This very thread is annoying. **Bricker** was trying to make some obscure point, about liberals being better (or worse, hard to tell) informed about some insignificant point in the recent news about a very terrible event. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/94 "2013-09-23T18:25:55Z")
Furthermore, look how much hay is [STILL being made](http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20130922/PERSONNEL01/309220005/Background-checks-under-scrutiny-after-Navy-Yard-shooting) about the shooter’s security clearance, not just by the media but by legislators and people who, you know, actually matter. Anyone who knows dick-all about working for the DoD knows what’s involved with getting a Secret clearance, and knows that the fact that dude had one is all but irrelevant. But nobody’s falling all over themselves to point that out about the media coverage. In fact, a couple of the ultra-libertarian types I was hanging out with that day used this as an example of “Yet Another Thing the Government Can’t Get Right, Those Stupid Morons.” I had to ruin their little party there by explaining to them how it actually works. Apparently getting the story right only matters if it’s about bang-sticks. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/95 "2013-09-23T18:31:49Z")
It is my understanding that the process was contracted out to a for profit, private enterprise type company. Which worked so well with Blackwater, what could possibly go wrong? OK, so maybe they cut a few corners to boost the ol’ bottom line, but hey! That’s the American way! ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/96 "2013-09-23T18:33:18Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > It was reported as such, [once even reporting the shooter used an AR-15 shotgun](http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/17/video-piers-morgan-and-the-scourge-of-the-ar-15-shotgun-or-something/), which of course doesn’t exist. I’ve got a Saiga that would probably fool some people and I think they are now making uppers in shotgun gauges. > [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > This should be your takeaway, Bricker. > > I have been ‘the media’ as you are ‘the law’. I have both covered politics and owned media firms (two newspapers). The assumption of some grand ‘media conspiracy’ is bullshit and you’re old enough to know that. The need to connect poor coverage - done under tremendous stress at breakneck speed - to ones political opponents is prima facie evidence of arguing in bad faith no matter which side does it. Just like explosions tend to be protrayed as terrorism until we find out the facts, shooting massacres tends to involve an AR-15 until we find out the facts. It just sensationalism. It used to be the same with rape and black men. > [@Magiver](#): > > It was a secret military over/under version used for hunting quail and deer at the same time. Unfortunately they called it the queer gun and it was discontinued for politically correct reasons. I’ve seen an AR-15 over a Mossberg 12 gauge. Its supposed to be for door breaching or some shit like that, I think its just a really heavy gun that noone will ever use in real life (like most of my guns). > [@elucidator](#): > > The primary reason “the media” make such mistakes is the competition. They have nothing to sell that the other guy doesn’t have except for more specific information, sooner. The competition is for eyeballs, which means money. > > There is no advantage, none whatsoever, for them to alienate the ballistophiliac community. Its sensationalism, MSNBC and FOX both feed into it (from different perspectives). > [@Magiver](#): > > There is no political bias in the media because it’s a money venture? HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa… > > I’ll have butter and jam on that biscuit. Its like FoxNews only exists when they are wrong about shit and they don’t exist the other 5% of the time. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/97 "2013-09-23T18:36:32Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > It is my understanding that the process was contracted out to a for profit, private enterprise type company. Which worked so well with Blackwater, what could possibly go wrong? OK, so maybe they cut a few corners to boost the ol’ bottom line, but hey! That’s the American way! Yeah, don’t get me started on how those companies work. Cutting corners isn’t one of them though, at least not as far as I’ve seen. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/98 "2013-09-23T18:40:21Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > You’re not alone. There seem to be a few posters here that believe that the word “Convenient,” somehow constitutes a rebuttal in debate. > > It does not. You are just as free as any of us to project whatever interpretation you’d like. If some media organizations reporting reflects their bias and intent to demonize the AR-15 stuff, and somehow you \*just know \*that when Fox News does the **same** thing, it doesn’t reflect the \*\*same \*\*intent, fine. That doesn’t constitue anything like evidence, of course, it’s just projecting your view of the world. Not really any debate possible, at that point, seems to me. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/99 "2013-09-23T18:43:46Z")
Still like to hear how this was possible without any conspiracy. Did a whole bunch of media honchos all decide at the same time, without communication: “Hey! Things are kinda dull around here, lets piss off the NRA! That’ll liven things up a bit!” ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443/100 "2013-09-23T19:17:22Z")
BTW, here’s Fox reporting the AR-15 under its own byline: > **[Fox News Flash | Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/category/media/fox-news-flash)** > > Fox News Flash keeps you up to date on the news being made and opinions being given across all of Fox News’ platforms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ar-15-and-the-navy-yard-shooting/669443.md?page=6)