I don’t know what else to title this post, so I’ll use Stephanie’s byline. No doubt she’s very proud of this piece.

I managed to miss it when it came out last week, but it’s full of, well, full of interesting points. I’m just going to note a few of them and comment quickly.

The piece’s title is “Gun dealer wants weapons on campus” and is about Eric Thompson, the online gun dealer whose shop was connected to sales to two major college campus shooters .

He had no reason not to sell a pistol to Seung-hui Cho, who walked from classroom to classroom at Virginia Tech last April, methodically firing 174 rounds. Nor did he have cause to question the sale of magazines and a holster to Steven Kazmierczak, who last month opened fire at Northern Illinois University.

It’s nice that Stephanie clears Mr. Thompson right up front. The fact that she doesn’t seem to have meant to clear him is confusing, but, then, most of Stephanie’s piece is fairly confusing.

Thompson’s firm, TGSCOM, runs more than 100 websites, each designed to appeal to a different segment of the gun market (and each calibrated to pop up high on Google searches). All told, he peddles 8,700 types of firearms, priced as low as $70 for a surplus rifle and as high as $8,800 for a shoulder-fired, semiautomatic, long-range rifle that takes jumbo .50-caliber bullets.

Ah, Mr. Thompson “peddles” guns. Now, I don’t know much about Stephanie, but I’m taking it for granted that she has had at least introductory education in writing. And, as such a skilled journalist, she knows that words matter. She knows, for instance, that “peddle” doesn’t exactly mean “sell,” but that it confers a decidedly negative connotation. That’s why she used “peddle” instead of “sell,” I’m confident in saying. Plus, Stephanie gets extra credit points for describing a rifle as a “shoulder-fired, semiautomatic, long-range rifle” and a bonus gold star for calling the .50 caliber bullets “jumbo.” They’re apparently larger than normal .50 caliber rounds.

Gun control advocates condemn online transactions as open to fraud, because convicted criminals can browse online, then pay someone with a clean record to place the order and pick up the firearm.

Shocking. Some people break the law when shopping online? Next thing you know, someone may buy beer or cigarettes at 7-11 for someone under age. Hopefully Stephanie’s next piece will be written to shed light on this dastardly practice.

He shrugs off such unfortunate transactions as part of doing business.

“I’m sure Wal-Mart has sold more weapons to killers than I have,” he says.

She not only doesn’t address his point, she doesn’t even start a new paragraph. Just hurry on to something else and hope that no one noticed that he’s undoubtedly right and that her ever-so-carefully constructed case against him just fell apart.

He argues too that allowing guns on campus could deter future shootings.

That perspective has caught on widely since the carnage at Virginia Tech. Most states long ago declared schools gun-free zones; only Utah allows concealed weapons at all public colleges.

And Stephanie then goes on to detail the long and bloody history of the many large-scale shootings at public colleges in Utah.

Just kidding.

She probably doesn’t want to mention the best-known mass shooting in Utah, in fact, because it happened at a shopping mall. You know, one of those so-called “gun-free zones” like at public colleges in states other than Utah. Whoops. So she just quotes Paul Helmke instead.

He also asks whether we can trust states to make sure that permit-holders are skilled shooters with solid safety training. In Florida, a Sun-Sentinel investigation found that more than 1,400 felons, including killers and child molesters, had been granted concealed-carry permits.

“The bottom-line problem is: We make it too easy in this country for dangerous people to buy guns,” Helmke says.

Whoops! Even when dodging uncomfortable facts that blow your position to smithereens, you’re in for a smithereen or two if you take Paul Helmke at face value. Those 1400 “felons” weren’t convicted, therefore weren’t actually felons, and so weren’t barred from getting their CCW permits. Their convictions were “withheld” by the courts. Simple as that. Helmke says that they were felons and Stephanie prints it, but don’t buy what they’re peddling.

Classic rock plays softly in Thompson’s call center as Alex Wallin sells guns.

He chats with a customer about night sights. He tells another caller the going price for an AK-47 assault rifle: $479.53.

What a deal! An AK-47 assault rifle for under $500. But a quick check shows that they’re not AK-47 assault rifles but semi-automatic AK-47 clones. We’ll give Stephanie a pass on not knowing the difference this time. After all, both AK-47s and semi-auto clones are very scary looking. Besides, she’s got gumption, and we like that.

For instance, she didn’t let the fact that she doesn’t know the difference between AK-47 assault rifles and semi-auto clones stop her from writing a piece in the LA Times about guns. Stephanie is unafraid of putting it out on the line. In fact, it seems like the only thing Stephanie is afraid of are scary-looking guns. Well, those and fact-checkers.

Other than a general disregard for logic or the facts, though, Stephanie’s piece was an informative one.

Tags: UT

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 7:59 am and is filed under CCW, Media, Schools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.