I wonder if a more intelligent newspaper would sell in MN. One where they use real facts, research, and references rather than what they feel like making up that day. Hmmm, if only...

For those of us that didn't see the news . .. . What kind of gun did it end up being?

And we THOUGHT that Fox News was allegedly "fair & balanced"
I may have to use the term I discovered from the Leftists, "Faux News"

As Tina Fey (hubba hubba) likes to say, "And now, the fake news...."

They showed an AK47 and said "an assault rifle LIKE this one".

Assault is a verb.

I can assault you with any of my weapons, whether it's a pipe, knife, chair, firearm, or my goalie stick during a game.

The intentional misuse of language intended to deceive the public is becoming much too common in the media. After watching stories about guns, ever wonder just how much you are misled when reading or watching stories about topics you are much less informed about? You should be.

I almost puke just about every time I hear some medical story on KARE 11 that, while not outright lying, lies through what they DON'T tell you in the story.

If I can take a statement from my good friend M.L.K.. I have a DREAM that some day we will.......... quit saying assault weapons and call them what they are.......Urban Self Defense Weapons......now we can all live in peace my brother's......................................................Now with that said, I will be at Koscielski's gunshop on friday signing autographs.........Anyone that wish to put me in for the Nobel-Prize for Peace, You may do it now..Thank You .

I'll get right on this, 'cause I think you're at least as deserving as Mr. Arafat.

Wait a minute. . . . you mean they showwed a weapon with a caption or statement, " an assault weapon like this one" and for all we know the only thing the gun being shown might have in common with the weapon used in the assault (assault weapon) might be that they both have triggers, barrels, and used gunpowder rather than compressed air to drive the projectile. Might not have even been of the same caliber

Really?

They can't be serious can they?

That is like the news showwing a picture of a hispanic guy, as a carjacker. . . not knowwing who the carjacker is, or even for sure that he is Hispanic. . . just a dude that carjacks.

That is really outlandishly irresponsible

As I've been saying for years, ever since Dave Metheny retired, there's no reporter at the Strib who knows anything about guns, and only one (Conrad) who knows anything about gun issues.

(Conrad is personally, I think, anti-gun, but he's followed the issues at the Capitol thoroughly, and covers them fairly.)

The recent redesign of the Strib shows that they're not working to make the paper more like that. Instead, they're making it more like the City Pages in an attempt to capture more 18-35s who pick that up but don't pick up the Strib because it's too "boring".

I think real problem is that a lot of the coveted demographic (18-35) just don't read newspapers -- they watch TV news or read web headlines if they follow the news at all. This trend forces publishers to make the product more appealing to this demographic, and that means that long stories with facts are out, and short stories that deliver "punch" through quick conclusions are in. I also don't doubt that there's some deliberate desire (envy?) to subtly mimic City Pages' progressive/left editorial bent.

Saying this sounds more cynical than it really is, but TV is image-driven. In practice, that means that if they don't have a live, actual shot of something, they use whatever's in the files.

If the story mentions "assault weapons," some junior assistant news researcher tech starts salivating and goes to the file that says "assault weapons," and pulls out a really cool video of a guy shooting a full-auto AK. Undortunately, the video is of some Islamist nutjob protesting a cartoon, so he digs a little deeper and finds one of a local Class III enthusiast blazing away at a paper target. Bingo. So that's what they use with the story, editing out the paper target if at all possible.

The Dan Rather-Memogate story illustrates this principle, oddly enough. They needed a visual that would show how bad the President was, because an election was at stake, but shots of F-102s like Dubya flew would send the wrong message entirely. ("Look, He flew this cool delta-wing plane! Don't vote for him!") Wrong, wrong, wrong.

So the phony memo looked like a Godsend. There, written out clearly, was a condemnation they could show on network TV in a "news" story. It wasn't as good as a shot of Bush skulking around in a flight suit and not doing his duty, but it would have to do.

(Of course, if this were A and E or the History Channel, they'd have a grainy black-and-white shot of a Bush lookalike skulking around in a flightsuit and not doing his duty, but TV news has not yet reached that high level of re-creation.)

Newspapers by contrast are word-driven. Their job is much harder, They have to try to find out what actually happened -- which TV is not required to do, only to say what somebody said happened and keep a related image in front of the eyes -- and then they have to try to make sure they aren't unfair. Except to racists, gun nuts and Busharovians. Those you can be unfair to.

I note that the Strib story now desribes the gun as merely a "rifle" on first reference, when the paper is speaking institutionally, as it were. The description then shifts to "assault rifle" on second reference, attributing that to the cops.

Knowing the reporter slightly -- a fever-swamp lefty -- I am thinking that an intelligent editor whom I have in mind trimmed "assault" out of the first reference.

You mean to tell me ANYbody still reads the Star and Sickle?

I quit picking up that rag after i shot the cat. Didn't need it to line the litter box...

The FBI stats provide for Justifiable taking of life using all weapons. Rifles used by citizens were like 15, and LEOs were upper 20's.