A new survey of firearm experts reveals a consensus debunking the myths the gun lobby and conservative media use to try to infect the national dialogue on gun safety to create the appearance of legitimate debate.
The editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal concluded that a Nevada proposal to expand background checks on gun sales is unlikely to reduce gun violence, but their argument ignored how these measures stop dangerous individuals from obtaining guns.
On December 6, the Gazette-Journal published an editorial arguing that while the "sentiment" behind a likely 2016 initiative to expand criminal checks to most gun transfers in Nevada is "a good one," it would not prevent mass shootings like those in Aurora, CO, Newtown, CT, and Tucson, AZ and therefore "is unlikely to be effective" at reducing gun violence.
While the editorial focused heavily on the supposed non-effect of gun background checks in decreasing mass shootings, it glossed over the effectiveness of background checks in reducing the ability of violent criminals to obtain guns.
The primary purpose of a criminal background check on a gun sale is to stop people prohibited under federal or state law from obtaining firearms used in everyday gun violence. Since the early 1990s, the FBI-administered National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and state background checks systems have stopped more than two million gun sales to prohibited persons. Of more than one million federal denials processed by NICS since 1998, the majority of denials were for individuals convicted of felonies or serious misdemeanors. Status as a fugitive from justice or a having domestic violence conviction were the second and third most common reasons for a denial.
Las Vegas Review Journal contributor Sherman Frederick penned a column claiming that state legislators are pushing a new bill seeking to bolster sex education in Nevada because they believe "Nevada girls are easy."
After discussing one Hispanic legislator's support of comprehensive sex education, which Frederick assumes is just teaching students "how to put a Ziploc bag over a cucumber," Frederick determines that the argument the legislator is making is that Hispanic girls are "really, really easy":
As easy as Nevada girls are, you see, Nevada's Hispanic girls are really, really easy. That comes from the mouth of Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas. According to him, that's because Hispanic parents never talk to their children about sex. So government must do it.
Lest you think I am making this up, take a look at this excerpt from the Reno Gazette-Journal's Ray Hagar, who interviewed Kihuen about AB230, and Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, D-Las Vegas, who testified in favor of the bill and revealed that she got pregnant as a teen and had it aborted.
[...]
Instead, we have AB230. Social conservatives on one side. Liberals on the other. And wanna-be leaders unwittingly (I hope) contending that not only are Nevada girls easy, Nevada's Hispanic girls are really, really easy.
Frederick claimed that the "Nevada girls are easy" quote comes from a news report by Reno Gazette-Journal's Ray Hager. However, Hager said in a tweet "That's Sherm's quote. I, or anyone I've quoted, did not say that": (click to enlarge)
On MSNBC Live, anchor Kevin Corke falsely asserted that Sen. Barack Obama "said he doesn't have the, quote, 'experience to run a bureaucracy.' " Corke was apparently referring to a Reno Gazette-Journal article that reported, "Obama freely admits he doesn't have the experience to run a bureaucracy"; however, the newspaper did not quote Obama saying he lacks the "experience to run a bureaucracy."