Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/119207
4A Daily News ��� Tuesday, April 2, 2013 Opinion Tea Party policy abets reprehensible misrepresentation DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All letters must be signed and provide the writer���s home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. 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When asked afterLaMalfa last Monday the media wards whether he had any issues was not permitted to take video of with the media quoting him on his the question and answer session or responses, LaMalfa, who was interview the Congressman. autographing a ���Don���t Tread on Before the meeting started an event Me��� flag, said he liked to adhere to a group���s rules and organizer told KRCR declined further comNews Channel 7 ment. reporter Tracey Leong To me the Tea Party that media access would policy and LaMalfa���s be limited and no video adherence to it is reprewas allowed to be taken hensible representation during the group���s introon two levels. The poliduction of the Congresscy restrains the circulaman or during the question and critique of tion and answer period. speech and an elected The Redding Record official���s acceptance of it Searchlight tweeted is an affront to the people they were also asked to Richard supposedly. After sufdiscontinue their coverfering from 26 years of age of the event howevpartisan politicking by er the media was Wally Herger who handallowed to film the Conpicked him, Doug congressman���s presentatinues the behavior by tion. speaking only to friendly Organizers made audiences that are connumerous clarifications regarding their position in response cerned more with shielding their to media reports that they were ignorance and angry rhetoric from unable to report from the Q&A. public view than they are with The Record Searchlight tweeted healthy debate and ferreting out some of LaMalfa���s responses in the facts. Please consider the comfirst 25 minutes of the nearly two- mentary of Redding Tea Party darhour session but was asked by a ling Twana Clark in response to Tea Party member to stop or risk this Facebook post made by not being invited back to future KRCR reporter Mark Mester durmeetings. A Tea Party member ing the meeting - ���Doug LaMalfa later sat next to the reporter for the is at the Redding Tea Party meeting Mazzucchi Positive Point right now. My colleague, Tracey Leong is NOT allowed to talk to the Congressman or film him interacting with those that attend the meeting. What is up with that???��� Twana replies ���KRCR Channel 7 news has a track record of making the Tea Party look like crazy, zealots and moronic idiots who gather every week to discuss irrelevant topics and plan rallies of stupidity. They insult and spit in the face of the Tea Party which is comprised of at least 40% ww2, Korean and Vietnam vets and their families. Shame on them. She goes on to assert that KRCR lied on both the nightly news program and in the Facebook page. A recording of comments just before the Q&A session made available on Facebook bespeaks her misquoting and mischaracterizing Mark Mester���s post with Representative La Malfa chiming in ���You see what WE have to put up with ��� a lot of THESE people went to MSU (make stuff up).��� This kind of knee-jerk rhetoric polarizes the electorate and galvanizes opposition to the Tea Party and their preferred representatives. Might it be rancor towards KRCR stems from fact finding during the campaign that forced LaMalfa to retract his statement that abortions cause cancer and embarrassed Tea Party lemmings that believed such pap? In his folksy condescending way LaMalfa shared his impressions of the GOP political landscape and ongoing budget battles with Democrats. He told enthusiastic Tea Partiers he was inspired by Senator Rand Paul���s filibuster stance two weeks ago and was proud to be listed as part of the ���conservative cavalry.��� He said the country did not have the appetite for new gun control restrictions, and any future legislation would only affect law-abiding citizens. I question the legitimacy of these positions since the filibuster was nothing more than useless political theatre keeping the Senate from doing its business solving severe national problems, proposed gun control legislation requiring universal background checks is supported by a vast majority of Americans, and this legislation certainly affects nonlaw abiding citizens by making it more difficult for them to obtain weapons they are not allowed to possess. But of even greater concern is our member of Congress supports prior restraint of the distribution of speech to shield himself and his followers from public scrutiny, and his stereotyping of those with whom he disagrees as persons that ���make things up��� while his favored local Tea Party abets reprehensible representation. Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN ��� Dan Logue, 1550 Humboldt Road, Ste. 4, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR ��� Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR ��� Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 5583160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ��� Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS ��� Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 3930710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Truth about gun control measures, rights It may seem smug and selfassured for me to suggest that I am writing ���the truth��� on an issue about which those on the ���gun control��� side have little or nothing in agreement with the ���progun/2nd Amendment rights��� side. That���s true right there; arguments abound on everything from the meaning and intent of the 2nd amendment (truism: it is the amendment that ultimately secures all the others), to the efficacy of existing laws designed to keep citizens safe from gun violence. Everything about our Founding Documents bespoke the truth that government���the people aspiring to, placed in and using the reins of power, secured with official police and military might���is the only existential threat to the freedom and rights of ���We the people���.��� One group, or ���faction��� as our Framers were known to state, can only wield a limited tyranny over another group; when the state acts to protect the life, liberty and property of the subjugated group (minorities and former slaves, for example), it acts righteously. When government acts to restrict the inherent rights and freedoms enumerated in the Constitution, as well as those held by people under Nature���s God, itemized or not, that same Constitution provides the means ���to alter or abolish it.��� In assembling the 50 plus articles I���ve collected on the gun control/rights issue, I find a compelling and gripping narrative that touches many larger issues confronting our nation���media bias, dishonest use of statistics, ineffective but popular legal measures, selective polling, abuse of authori- ty and disregard for the rights of the law-abiding���suggesting themes and a series. So, I will devote columns to the task of informing, shedding light and making passionate arguments for the benefit of readers; it may threaten some on the liberal side. Those who believe that if something makes sense to them, is well-intentioned, and can be postulated to save lives then we, who obey laws and respect other���s rights, should be willing to accept inconveniences and restrictions. I believe we should not, but you make up your own mind. I���ll start with the obvious: barely a day goes by without the media keeping the issue in our papers, news sources and aggregators like Yahoo News. March 22, Daily News (AP) headlined ���Gun control advocates press Dems on expanding background checks.��� On March 24, Yahoo News (AP) carried ���Both sides of gun debate make public appeals; New York���s Bloomberg, NRA chief spar on gun control, say it���s up to public now to press Senate.��� The first article is little more than a process story touting the Democrat line on the issue as it pulls on our heartstrings over the murdered children of Newtown: ������calling it [background checks] the best way for lawmakers to salvage a meaningful response to December���s elementary school massacre.��� Response, yes; a measure that would have prevented the massacre, no! Oh, the drama and suspense over what Harry Reid, Majority Leader, will do, decide and calculate. After all, the piece informs us, ���Background checks are designed to keep guns from crim- my view, that ���universal backinals, people with serious mental ground checks are ���a dishonest premise.��� For example, problems and others ��� mental health records (and) President Barack are exempt from dataObama and other supbases and criminals porters say the system won���t submit to the helps keep dangerous checks. Background people from getting guns checks, he said, are a and should be expanded ���speed bump��� in the to virtually all firearms system that ���slows transactions.��� down the law-abiding I call this biased and and does nothing for unbalanced: In an article anybody else. The conveying thinly veiled shooters in Tucson, in cheerleading for Obama Aurora, in Newtown, and Democrat talking Don they���re not going to be points, it is left to the end of the last paragraph to Polson checked, they���re unrecognizable.������ Then the read ���The National Rifle revealed Association and other The way AP writer by using her ignorance the opponents say the term ���military-style checks are easily avoidI see it assault rifles,��� an inaced by criminals who get curate, misleading and their weapons illegally, and say expanding them would be pejorative description of what, in a step toward a government reg- the hands of lawful citizens, are istry of firearms owners���which righteous home defense and sport is forbidden by federal law.��� AP shooting tools. Suggesting measures that simultaneously immerses the reader in the Democrat narrative, would have actually prevented buries a tiny bit of the NRA side, some of the gun killings, then tells readers that one of the ���LaPierre said the NRA supports a bill to get the records of those NRA concerns is irrelevant. The lengthier AP story in adjudicated mentally incompetent Yahoo News really did a better job and dangerous into the existing of covering ���Both sides ������ background check system for gun although it sandwiched the NRA���s dealers, better enforcement of fedLaPierre between Bloomberg���s eral gun laws, beefed up penalties gun control arguments and Col- for illegal third-party purchases orado Democratic Gov. John (and) gun trafficking ��� (and) Hickenlooper���s signing laws for armed security guards in schools expanded background checks and as well.��� More on useless checks banning magazines over 15 and laws next week. rounds. They apparently couldn���t Don Polson has called Red close the piece without weighting it 33 lines for gun control, 22 lines Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at for the NRA. LaPierre argued, accurately in donplsn@yahoo.com.