MTP's David Gregory Does Journalism, Some Citizens Want His Arrest

Journalism

from the welcome-to-the-stupid-show dept

The ripple effects from the Sandy Hook tragedy continue to present themselves. When something so horrific occurs, it’s not difficult to understand over-the-top reactions, but that doesn’t mean those reactions shouldn’t be kept in check. We had folks rushing to blame videogames for what happened, despite all evidence to the contrary. We even saw how social media and media-media combined to rush to judgement on the wrong suspect and the wrong related Facebook “likes”. Now, one new ripple is that David Gregory is under investigation.

The moderator of Meet The Press found himself the subject of a D.C. Metro PD inquiry over his prop use of high-capacity rifle magazines during an interview with an NRA representative. The inquiry being one thing, there’s also a completely misguided White House petition floating around asking for the immediate arrest of Gregory.

David Gregory is not above the law; he is a journalist, and must be held accountable to the same law as every other person.

DC High Capacity Ammunition Magazines – D.C. Official Code 7-2506.01 (b) No person in the District shall possess, sell, or transfer any large capacity ammunition feeding device regardless of whether the device is attached to a firearm. For the purposes of this subsection, the term large capacity ammunition feeding device means a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

We The People demand that he be formally charged for violation of this law on “Meet The Press.”

I admit, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Let’s start with MTP’s use of the magazines as props. It turns out that the show’s producers might make the dean’s list for dumb this year. They did indeed get permission to use the props on the show, but they only got permission from the ATF, not local law enforcement, where those magazines are illegal. Stupid, but that kind of thing happens in show business, I suppose.

Now, dealing with the petition itself. It’s just pickles that someone from Boise, Idaho is so whole-heartedly concerned with Metro D.C. gun laws that they need to start a petition to get the White House involved. Either that, or people are having more of those over-the-top reactions to a tragedy I mentioned earlier. Not to mention, as the linked article notes, attempting to get the Obama administration involved in any of this is simply futile.

The drive to lock Gregory up still needs about 15,000 signers, but in the mean time, let’s clear this up. Although the White House could certainly apply political pressure to the D.C. government, it has no direct purview over the Metropolitan Police Department’s investigations. To boot, Gregory held up the magazine as an example of the kind of ammunition used in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., and in the wake of that carnage, President Obama has moved toward making gun control a key issue in his second term. So, yeah, demanding that the White House clap David Gregory in irons is kind of dumb. Let’s instead focus on the real villains, like CNN blabber Piers Morgan. A petition calling for his deportation back to the United Kingdom has garnered more than 82,000 signatures.

Now there’s a petition I can get behind.

Filed Under: david gregory, free speech, guns, journalism
Companies: nra