Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Hsieh PJM OpEd: Media Underplays Successful Defensive Gun Use

PJMedia has just published my latest OpEd, "Media Underplays Successful Defensive Gun Use".

My theme is that American journalists should report the whole truth about defensive gun use by law-abiding citizens rather than burying that fact.

Here is the opening:
On February 28, 2012, an angry 28-year-old gunman entered a medical office building in Colorado Springs and took three women hostage. After a three-hour standoff, the police shot him, and he died later that evening at a local hospital. The hostages were unharmed.
Yet the two largest newspapers in the state took two very different approaches in reporting the heroic actions of one of the clinic physicians, Dr. Jeff Ferguson, a legally armed civilian...
(Read the full text of "Media Underplays Successful Defensive Gun Use".)

On a personal note: The recent murders in Aurora, CO, were unspeakably evil, and my thoughts are with the victims and their families.  Some of the wounded are at the hospitals where I work and the doctors and medical staff are doing everything they can for them.  I want to offer my best thoughts for the patients' successful recoveries.