Tag: Associated Press

Disinformation on “Assault” Gun Ban

According to The Associated Press,

While manufacturers look for a boom in business as people buy up previously banned weapons like AK-47s, Uzis and TEC-9s, police chiefs warn of an upsurge in crime.

Actually, even under the “assault” weapons ban, you could legally buy a fully automatic AK-47 in the United States provided you wanted to jump through a bunch of red tape.

And if all you wanted was the semi-automatic version of the AK-47, you could essentially buy that too. There are a number of AK-47 semiautomatic knockoffs that, with minor cosmetic changes to comply with the “assault weapons” ban, went on sale immediately after the ban (the major changes that were made were removal of pistol grips and ability to mount a bayonet).

The Associated Press also falsely claims that,

Just over a year after the San Francisco shootings, President Bill Clinton signed Feinstein’s bill into law. It banned the sale of 19 specific semiautomatic weapons and ammunition clips of 10 rounds or more.

Wrong! The law banned the manufacture or sale of new ammunition clips of 10 rounds or more. It did not effect the sale of such clips that were manufactured before the law went into effect. The main effect was that the price of larger ammunition clips increased during the period the law was in effect, but they were still widely available for sale (in fact, manufacturers of such clips dramatically increased production of larger clips before the ban went into effect precisely for this reason).

Source:

Assault weapons ban to expire Monday. Associated Press, September 13, 2004.

Another Associated Press Lie — About the Guvernator This Time

A number of sites, including WizBang are pointing out another lie from the Associated Press, this time one that relies on a major distortion of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech at the Republican National Convention.

According to the Associated Press, Schwarznegger couldn’t have seen Soviet tanks as a boy as he claimed,

Austrian historians are challenging California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for telling the Republican National Convention that he saw Soviet tanks in his homeland as a child and that he left a “Socialist” country when he moved away in 1968.

Recalling that the Soviets once occupied part of Austria in the aftermath of World War II, Schwarzenegger told the convention on Tuesday: “I saw tanks in the streets. I saw communism with my own eyes.”

Historians, however, are questioning Schwarzenegger’s version of postwar history — if not his enduring popularity among Austrians who admire him for rising from a penniless immigrant to the highest official in America’s most populous state.

“It’s a fact — as a child he could not have seen a Soviet tank in Styria,” the southeastern province where Schwarzenegger was born and raised, historian Stefan Karner told the Vienna newspaper Kurier.

But Schwarzenegger was quite clear in his speech that he saw tanks when he visited the Soviet-occupied part of Austria, not in his hometown which was not under Soviet occupation,

When I was a boy, the Soviets occupied part of Austria. I saw their tanks in the streets. I saw communism with my own eyes. I remember the fear we had when we had to cross into the Soviet sector.

The Associated Press can’t be bothered to include the “I remember the fear we had when we had to cross into the Soviet sector” line from the speech. Thank goodness we have major media organizations to act as gatekeepers and filter out unimportant information before it reaches the masses.

Source:

Historians dispute Schwarzenegger’s convention comments. Associated Press, September 3, 2004.

Catching the Associated Press in a Lie

It’s kind of amusing to listen to some of the recent carping by major media folks about blogs and then see the Associated Press run a story like this,

President Bush on Friday wished Bill Clinton “best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery.” “He’s is in our thoughts and prayers,” Bush said at a campaign rally. Bush’s audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them.

The problem for the Associated Press is that this part of Bush’s speech was carried by Fox News and there is clearly no booing at all. After Bush says Clinton is “in our thoughts and prayers,” the crowd applauds and shouts encouragement, but there are clearly no audible boos.

Later, the Associated Press came out with a new version of the story ommitting the nonsense about the boos, but the old version is still on hundreds of web sites that subscribe to the Associated Press feed. For example, at Salon.Com the story is headlined Audience boos as Bush offers best wishes for Clinton’s recovery.

Common Sense Down 23 Percent at Associated Press

Here’s the headline on an Associated Press story about minority applications to the University of Michigan,

Minority applications to U-M decline 23 percent

Here’s the first paragraph of the accompanying story,

Seven months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the University of Michigan’s undergraduate affirmative action policy, the number of applications from blacks, Hispanis and American Indians is down 23 percent from the same time last year.

Oh that evil Supreme Court — without it killing affirmative action, minorities would be applying in droves to the University of Michigan. Well, maybe not since the information that you need to evaluate how significant this decline is gets buried in the fifth paragaraph,

Overall, applications for this fall’s incoming freshman class are down 18 percent, according to the preliminary data compiled Feb. 5 and released to The Associated Press Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

That’s right — the decline in minority applications is just barely lagging overall applications. The Associated Press conveniently leaves out any hint of what the absolute numbers were for both groups over the two years so we could do some additional analysis.

Why are applications so low across the board? Because we have a huge budget deficit here in Michigan and universities are responding with huge tuition increases at the same time that the state has been forced to cut back on the amount of financial aid they can offer low-income students. At the same time, there has been a huge level of manufacturing job loss in this state, causing some people to move to other states where job prospects are better.