The error was never corrected, which is really the main point of the OP. They made a simple, easily correctable mistake. But then, when they got called on it, they couldn’t take the 2 minutes of due diligence to actually find the correct information. Instead, they very lazily and irresponsibly posted a correction that was even more wrong than their first report. It would be like if a newspaper said, “A police officer delivered a 0.4 pound, healthy baby boy in traffic yesterday…” And then, when a bunch of people call in or message the newspaper to point how their error, they update the article to say, “…delivered a 40 pound, healthy baby boy…”
Is it too much to ask that the newspaper take a minute to actually make a correction that… oh, I don’t know… “corrects” the error!?
Subject matter is irrelevant IMHO. Guns, babies, jets, cars, science… be a fucking journalist and take pride in the accuracy of your report.
That is a fair point. Major newspapers issue corrections and retractions; your average Internet dude (not referring to you, just the masses in general) tend to defend their errors, honest or otherwise, to the death. You don’t see the Washington Post doing that… so, chalk one big one up to the lamestream media, I guess.
But I think the agenda here is pretty transparent. Failure to issue accurate corrections on guns within the timeframe that gun rights advocates think is required – never mind if the correction is made somewhat later – is a sin for which punishment ought to be silence.
I mean, Wayne LaPierre can say, and I’m quoting, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” which is not factually correct, and nobody urges him to correct it… much less be silenced because of his errors, which are surely made in bad faith to boot.
As a good faith effort to acknowledge what a number of readers had noted in the comments, but not a “requirement.”
The only correction I see in the column is, “An earlier version of this post incorrectly described the type of pistol involved in a GVRO case.” I have no idea what other incorrect correction you’re talking about.
It depends on where you put your emphasis. If your opinion is that the details of which guns should be regulated, if any, is more important than children getting killed, then fine. Once we decide that something should be done, then we can work out the details.
I think we’re already in the “work out the details” stage. Some people think the “something” that should be done is ban guns. Others think it’s allowing teachers to CCW in school. That’s just two examples, there are almost as many ideas floating around out there as there are people.
If the proposal is to ban scary guns that bad people use to commit mass murder then there had better be language in proposed legislation specifying which exact firearms are banned.
Won’t you think of the children and come up with some specific language in a law that will prevent all future mass shooting!?
I’m annoyed that they didn’t make any real effort to verify the accuracy their correction before publishing it (the correction). Bear_Nenno laid out the annoyance of it quite well in post #41.
And if the White House had corrected that mis-statement and their correction was that he actually sold F-417’s to Norway, we’d have a vaguely comparable situation to this.
Anyway, I suppose if the 2Aer’s say that having children gunned down in schools is just the price that we pay for them having their toys to play with, I must admit that having a chuckle like that is worth other people’s lives being destroy or ended by gun violence.
That’s a stricter definition of due process than is used elsewhere in the criminal justice system, notably for arrests and arrest warrants. In neither of those cases does the individual get to have a judge review the information with the individual present and making submissions, before they can be arrested.
The general rule is that a police officer can arrest anyone they find committing a felony, and then take them before a judge for a bail hearing. Or, if they have grounds to believe X has committed a felony but don’t know where X is, the police can go before the judge and make an ex parte application for the arrest warrant. If X is arrested on the warrant, he gets to make his case to the judge at that point whether he should be released.
The point is that the criminal justice system already relies on the police being able to make on the spot determinations that can affect someone’s liberties, or make an ex parte application for a warrant. Both of those approaches are consistent with due process, and it’s difficult to imagine how the criminal justice system could work if the police had to go to a judge for such steps, and the target had a right to make submissions to the judge before he could be arrested. Post-arrest review is consistent with due process.
So too for someone who is currently posing a danger to others with firearms. Giving the police the power to reduce the risk immediately, provided they take the individual before a judge as quickly as possible, is consistent with due process.
I was going to note that there are two accepted variants of spelling of the present tense conjugation of the verb ‘to focus.’
More importantly, though, I was going to nullify Manson’s criticism by noting that nobody wishes to purchase* the points (major or minor) of Northern Piper’s post and, therefore, the issue of a discount is irrelevant. The Piper’s alternative spelling, however, does not obviate any of his points.
I (quite presumptively) speak on behalf of this board+ in thanking [the Straight Dope subscriber/contributor named] Hurricane Ditka# for bringing our attention to the fact that, yet again, the standards of quality journalism are slowly eroding, particularly when the drive to meet or beat deadlines (and other publications’ release times) is given precedence over the need for good copy-editing. Yes, in fact many publishers tend to minimize the role of copy- and content-editors in an effort to reduce budgets$ and the travesty of mentioning a weapon that shoots projectiles that are thinner than hypodermic needles completely destroys the credibility of the Washington Post in the journalism industry. On the other hand, [the Straight Dope subscriber/contributor named] Hurricane Ditka has provided a truly valuable service by pointing out the factual error so that those who might try to produce legislation related to firearms regulation will take more care in specifying real world products.
–G!
Sorry, some of us just aren’t buying it.
I feel it is unnecessary to thank the actual hurricane itself, whether or not it exists.
If you haven’t figured out by now that this post is an attempt at levity via facetiousness…well, shoot me with a .028mm handgun, I guess. How big would the actual projectile be, anyway?
$ That was the OP’s intention, was it not?
