Would you look at that handsome devil? How can this guy possibly be single?
A few months back, I spoke with a reporter from the Financial Times of England. The interview went well, but as always, I was a bit misquoted. Though the errors were not significant, and they did not distort my intent, they can be illustrative.
Ms. Fifield was a joy to speak with. She has her reservations on widespread gun ownership, but she was open and honest about them, and much to my delight, she was a great listener. She’s also one of the few people I’ve met who can still take notes in shorthand. We spoke at great length about the history, context, and implications of the 2nd Amendment.
As you can see from the article, she had a great deal of ground to cover, and the fact that she took trouble to get all the technical terminology correct shows marvelous attention to detail. It’s only natural that a few things get transposed.
In writing, I have a love for the complex-compound sentence. I consider it to the the English-language equivalent to the musical fugue in complexity and majesty. However, I don’t generally speak that way in person (unless I’m being deliberately pedantic-beware if I start doing that).
Consider this bit:
“A lot of it was a knee-jerk reaction because of the assault weapon ban in the early 1990s after President Clinton came in. A lot of people thought something like that was going to happen again,” he explains. “But over the past few years in general, there has been a huge influx of all sorts of shooters and a lot more people getting concealed carry permits and coming in for handguns.”
It’s a selection of a few isolated sentences from a much longer conversation. I certainly don’t say “a lot” that often, and the first section is completely independent from the second. I see the influx of new shooters to be a quite encouraging and positive development. Though some undoubtedly bought guns due to the Panic of 2009, it’s not the only driving force.
Likewise, this quote is a amalgamation of three separate points:
“When America was a frontier country, you needed your gun to put food on the table. Whenever you hear Americans talking about guns, they talk about independence and self-reliance. The second amendment is somewhat unique because it places the ultimate option for use of force in the hands of the citizen and not on the state.”
The part about self-reliance was one of the first things we discussed, while the notion of hunting for sustenance came about as an answer to historical views on firearms. The last part was part of a conversation regarding differences between the right to bear arms protected in our Bill of Rights and the somewhat feeble version accorded by the English Bill of Rights (I do wish that had been quoted at greater length).
So, is any of this disastrous? Not at all. Whenever I speak to the press in general, I’m very wary of The Agenda, and I do my best to choose my words carefully. We had real problems with this situation in the 1990’s, when every media contact with the gun culture seemed an effort to portray us as bigoted anarchists with an eye on overthrowing the government at the slightest provocation.
It took a long time to change that, and it’s one of the reasons I get concerned when I see folks in our camp throwing around reckless rhetoric. At the pen of a hostile journalist, that one guy with the crumbs in his beard and the Confederate flag t-shirt rambling about “watering the tree of liberty” could very easily be construed to represent our cause.
However, Ms. Fifield was very conscientious, and she showed a serious interest in getting her facts right. Even if no article about Kennesaw and the 2nd Amendment seems complete without referencing Dent Myers, he’s not presented here as a spokesperson for our cause. Responsible, sympathetic people are. The comparative crime statistics bolstering the argument are a great asset, and I thank Lieutenant Graydon for providing them.
That’s a great victory for our cause, especially considering the readership it’ll be reaching. Ms. Fifield has done us a great service with her article.
Oh, and ladies: great job showing trigger and muzzle discipline in the photographs. The guys could learn something from your example.