New York Times Inadvertently Makes NRA's Point About Concealed Carry Reciprocity

As I noted last week, the New York Times led off the bad reporting on the NRA Annual Meeting with a whopper of a lie concerning whether attendees could carry firearms at the event.

Spoiler: They could

The Blaze's Jason Howerton interviewed attendees to get a rough sense of how many were packing heat.

But in an effort to determine just how wrong the editorial board was, TheBlaze surveyed 72 people at the NRA's annual meeting in Nashville on Saturday. We asked them two simple questions: “Are you a concealed carry permit holder? If so, are you packing?”

Out of the 72 people surveyed, 62 said they were concealed carry permit holders. Of those 62, 32 people — over 50 percent of the permit holders — revealed they were carrying firearms at the convention. Many of the concealed carry permit holders who weren't carrying told TheBlaze they only decided not to carry because they were attending the Alan Jackson concert at Bridgestone Arena. (emphasis added)

The Times' correction to their erroneous piece stated:

Carrying is prohibited at one of the main convention venues, not all of them.

As noted by Howerton, the venue mentioned in the Times' correction was the Bridgestone Arena, and the sole NRA event that took place there was the Alan Jackson concert.

Rather than being an example of Teh Hypocrisy!!11! as the Times originally framed the ridiculous lie fed to them by Shannon Watts, there are a few good points to be made in favor of the good guys with guns.

First, permit holders obey the law. And in doing so, they're required to make detailed plans of places they want to visit, choosing whether or not to carry based on their destination(s). Some attendees wanted to both carry and see Alan Jackson; they were forced to choose one or the other.

Second, the left and the New York Times (but I repeat myself) have very different views on, say, a private business like a bakery being forced to participate in a gay wedding ceremony and a private business like Bridgestone Arena being forced to recognize a customer's second amendment right to keep and bear arms. So spare me the charge of hypocrisy, clowns.

And finally, while it is acceptable for Bridgestone Arena to declare itself a gun-free zone and have me summarily avoid it, it's quite a different matter for a state like New Jersey to do the same thing in a post-McDonald v. City of Chicago world.

It is long past time that national concealed carry reciprocity, which would treat a carry permit like a driver's license, became the law of the land. Thanks, New York Times, for highlighting the problem.

posted by Andy at 03:51 PM

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