How to Gesture

Liberal Media

Yesterday, I talked about three different papers reporting on one story, the tragic story of a young man shooting his father to death.

I still find it interesting that only one report, of print and broadcast media accounts indicate that the three men who captured the young suspect reported that they were armed. That account, in the Star Tribune, seemed to me to be worded in such a way as to almost be sinister. That people would actually have guns and use them as a means of self-defense.

What the article did fail to indicate was whether these three men hold concealed weapon carry permits in Minnesota. Now, that information is not public information. I can't go to the Pine County Sheriff's Office or the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension or Department of Public Safety and ask if these guys are permit holders.

One of the gentlemen's has a brother in law who called into a local talk-radio show, Garage Logic, hosted on am1500 KSTP, and said that his BIL is indeed a permit holder.

The Star Tribune, as I mentioned, is no friend of the gun or the gun owner. They were quite opposed to the reform of Minnesota's Concealed Carry Law, which occured last year, and opined this year for it's repeal.

In this instance, where the law seems to have worked perfectly, will they indicate so in their paper? And, still, why did The Duluth News Tribune and Saint Paul's Pioneer Press not mention that these guys detained the young lad with guns? They made it sound like they went up to the boy casually and just had a conversation. Was their use of guns so vile to them that they refused to print it?

There's a sad story today here in Minnesota. A young man has killed his father. After a search of several hours, the boy was found walking along a rural road, and was not initially apprehended by police, but rather by a few guys working in an auto-body shop who saw him walking along the road. Having listened to a police scanner during the day, they knew a search was on, and after seeing the boy and asking who he was and if he had a gun, they detained him and called the sheriff's department.

I'm a guy who likes to know what is going on around the state, so each morning I read a few different newspaper sites: The Duluth News Tribune, The Saint Cloud Times, The Star Tribune, and The St. Paul Pioneer Press, just to name a few.

Each paper (except the St. Cloud Times which doesn't have a story on it) reports it a little differently, and there was one notable difference this morning.

What bothers me is knowing that The Star Tribune is no friend of guns or gun owners. Did their reporters just do a better job of asking questions than the other two stories? Or is there an agenda at work here?

Granted, believing that a kid who may have just committed patricide is coming down the road and may be armed, I would likely arm myself too.

But the wording of the Star Tribune account, and then mentioning in the story at least three times where two other noted papers didn't mention the fact that the body shop guys were armed at all causes me to wonder. Even a television account of the story, which I watched last night, gave no indication of the body shop workers having guns themselves.