In my five years as opinion editor at the Washington Times, I cannot claim that we never published an op-ed or column that wasn’t totally accurate. But we never knowingly did so, and we rejected many authors’ works for factual inaccuracy.
Opinion writers can and do interpret facts differently. But facts are facts and professionals at any publication ordinarily try to check submissions to avoid whatever is blatantly false.
Not all publications apparently do this today.
Last week, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., used the anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting to argue for stricter gun laws in a Washington Post op-ed. The Post has been a consistent critic of the Second Amendment and regularly calls for the sorts of laws the senator supports.
Duckworth and the editors who accepted her piece have every right to their opinions, but one has to wonder where the paper’s fact-checkers were when the piece crossed their desks. Duckworth alleged, for example, that any teenager can walk into a corner gun store and buy a semi-automatic rifle such as the AR-15 that liberals detest.
It is true that, in many states, an 18-year-old can purchase a rifle or shotgun, but she gives the impression that just any teenager can simply walk into a gun store and buy one. In fact, all purchasers, regardless of age, must submit to federal background checks before such purchases while complying with any additional rules imposed by various states.
In Duckworth’s home state, residents must undergo additional background checks and possess a state-issued firearm owner’s identification card to buy any gun. In fact, Illinois has some of the strictest gun control laws and regulations in the country.
The senator portrays herself as something of an expert on firearms because of her military background and her interest in reducing firearm violence, but she doesn’t seem to have any idea as to what is or isn’t legal in her own state or anywhere else.
What’s more, she suggests that the semi-automatic AR-15 is the same rifle she and others carried in Iraq and Afghanistan. It isn’t, and both she and the fact-checkers who should have gone over her piece should have known that this description is factually incorrect.
The AR-15 is the semi-automatic civilian version of the fully automatic “assault rifle” issued to active military personnel. It is the single best-selling long gun in the United States and it is widely used for hunting, rifle competition, and home defense. The purchase or possession of the fully automatic military version of the AR and similar firearms is restricted to a small handful of people who possess a special federal permit.
Duckworth claims that we need a “sensible conversation” on guns, but such a conversation must be based on facts. Duckworth begins her “conversation” by demonizing the National Rifle Association and giving readers a distorted view of the laws already in place to keep firearms out of the hands of prohibited persons as defined by state and federal law.
Add this to her claim that anyone can buy such a weapon at a gun show without a background check, and her piece gives a wildly inaccurate picture of the real world.
It is true that strictly private transactions do not require background checks in some states. But it is still a crime for a private seller to transfer a firearm to anyone he or she has reason to believe is prohibited from buying it. In Illinois, private sellers must ask if buyers have the same state- issued card required to purchase a gun in a gun store. And in virtually all states, sellers often require a potential buyer they don’t know to submit to a voluntary background check. Virginia’s government maintains a table at all gun shows and will run a background check on any prospective purchaser.
Duckworth’s staff might have and could have checked on all this. The Post’s editors might have, but they didn’t either. That really says it all.
David Keene is former president of the National Rifle Association, former chairman of the American Conservative Union, and a former managing associate at the Carmen Group.
