Needs a few more years at school
A junior in print journalism, Matthew Werlein, proves he needs to spend some more time learning how to fact check:
These founding fathers had in mind that each individual had the right to own their rifles or pistols, and, while they never specifically clarified what type of arms these are, I really cannot fathom that AK-47s and semi-automatic machine guns were what they had in mind.
A semi-automatic is not a machine gun. A semi-automatic fires one round per pull of the trigger. A machine gun fires multiple rounds per pull of the trigger. Continuing with his idiocy:
However, and please someone correct me if I’m wrong here (I will, don’t worry – Ed.), I’ve never known a hunter who needed to use a machine gun to bag a deer.
So, that raises the question of why are we allowing citizens to buy them?
Citizens have been denied by an act of congress the right to purchase new machine guns since 1986. In almost every state, it is illegal to hunt with machine guns (even those made prior to 1986). But, as you said before genius, the amendment was about the founding fathers wanting us to repel invaders and not about hunting.
For example, I will use the case of the shootings Saturday in Brookfield.
The accused suspect, Terry Ratzmann, walked into the Sheraton Hotel and sprayed the crowd with his 9 mm gun, killing seven and injuring several more.
He shot 22 rounds in a matter of seconds.
Would he have been able to shoot off as many rounds as he did if he was using a rifle or a regular handgun?
Uhm, he used a regular handgun. You’re really not too bright are you, Mr. Werlein?
You can go there and leave a comment, if you want.
March 18th, 2005 at 10:13 am
It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
*crickets chirping*
March 20th, 2005 at 10:31 am
He may be studying journalism, but he is not practicing it. Journalists don’t interpret Constitutional law. They interview lawyers and law professors and quote them. That’s why his piece ran as an opinion piece.
The main question is why would this publication run such a weak opinion. The answer could be that they don’t know any better, or perhaps they do know better, and they were hoping to generate a lot of responses and let the whole episode serve to better inform their readers. There is nothing like a good airing of point-counterpoint to separate facts from myths and strong arguments from weak.
March 22nd, 2005 at 11:08 am
I saw a video a couple weeks back, maybe at Kim du Toit’s site, of a guy who fired off a 6-shot revolver in about 1 second. He could empty the pistol, reload with a speedloader, and empty the pistol a second time in about 3 seconds. What was this kid’s point again?