Gun Control: A Hostile San Francisco Chronicle Buries the Truth
Howard Nemerov
February 08, 2005
A recent San Francisco Chronicle article is an excellent example of how hostile reporters do what they can to sabotage any pro-gun rights message. (2)
The Pink Pistols is a gay organization with a focused mission: We are dedicated to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the sexual-minority community. (3) In their support of the right to self-defense, they are no different than any other pro-gun rights organization.
Self-defense as a natural right was promoted in the writings of Sir William Blackstone, a British parliamentarian credited with having a major influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. (4)
The San Francisco Chronicle has a history of promoting the gay community. It covers the annual Gay Pride parade. (5) The Chronicle has a section devoted to same-sex marriage. (6) It has a section devoted to gay and lesbian issues, which is where the article for todays discussion was found. (7)
The San Francisco Pink Pistols chapter meets monthly at Jackson Arms Shooting Range in South San Francisco to practice their goal of legal, safe, and responsible shooting. They were interviewed at the range by a reporter from the Chronicle to discuss their views on the proposed San Francisco gun ban. The article begins innocently enough, describing the Pink Pistols position on the ban:
I want to be liberated as a gay man, but I'm not willing to give up the rights I have, [a member] said. If they can take that away from you, what more can they do?
Their reason for the need to maintain the right of self-defense? No different than any other minority group:
Gay men and lesbians are at risk of becoming hate crime victims, the group's philosophy goes, and therefore community members should learn how to protect themselves with firearms.
Then the paper, with a long history of supporting gay rights, curiously veers from its historical direction. The article begins to focus upon refuting the Pink Pistols position on civil rights, beginning with a dissenting view from a gay supervisor.
According to the article, the Pink Pistols met in a low-budget indoor shooting range and practiced in a dingy shooting gallery. There is a stereotype of gay men being more fastidious about hygiene and more sensitive than heterosexual males, and this stereotype is partially promulgated by the media. The paper chose to use their own sacred-cow depiction of gay men to infer how the Pink Pistols are not normal gay men, because they would slum in a low-budget, dingy shooting gallery. It is also a curious choice of adjectives and nouns, since intravenous drug users congregate in dingy shooting galleries of a different sort. The intent here is to marginalize the Pink Pistols and devalue their message.
Also, remember that a writers true intent comes out in the concluding paragraphs of the article, which leave the most lasting impression with a reader. Here we find implied censure in the responses from the representatives from two local community organizations. Thus, anti-rights people got the prime real estate in this article. For example, lets examine the following quote:
Thom Lynch, the director of the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center, also is refusing to take sides, but he did have a few thoughts on the matter of gays and guns. It shows once again that we're not a monolithic group, he said.
In the perfect double-speak of a seasoned politician, Mr. Lynch apparently does not take sides while implying that the Pink Pistols are a splinter from the main body of gay activists which does not agree with their position on firearms. We know this by the judicious use of the word but, which is described by Oxford English Dictionary as a preposition meaning outside of; without; lacking. Thus, an important leader in the community is actually taking sides and stating that gun rights is an issue outside of the gay communitys agenda.
Conclusion
The Nazi leadership knew that in order to gain public support for exterminating organizations and populations that threatened its power, it had first to marginalize them. The Chronicle article was designed to show that the anointed superior leadership of the San Francisco gay community does not agree with the Pink Pistols position on the right to keep and bear arms, driving a wedge between the Pink Pistols and the rest of San Francisco .
When dealing with the media, gun-rights advocates had best remember to be extremely cautious, for we have already been tried by the press and found guilty.
Endnotes
(1) Goebbels on Propaganda, Speech at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb59.htm (2) Gay group defends right to arms: Pink Pistols oppose ballot issue backed by supervisors, Rona Marech, San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 2005.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/03/BAGMTB4NTL1.DTL (3) Pink Pistols Home Page.
http://www.pinkpistols.org/index2.html (4) Blackstones View of Natural Law and Its Influence on the Formation of American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Kent Schmidt, Oak Brook College of Law and Government Policy.
http://www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/cambridge/blackstone.html (5) SF Pride 2004 main page.
http://www.sfgate.com/sfpride/2004/ (6) The Battle Over Same-Sex Marriage, main page.
http://www.sfgate.com/samesexmarriage/ (7) Gay & Lesbian main page.
http://sfgate.com/eguide/gay/
