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January/February 1994 | Contents
Chronicle How the Hip-Shooting Press Reports on Guns
by Scott Baltic
Baltic is a Chicago journalist.
* In a profile of a Philippine narcotics cop, the Chicago Tribune referred to his famous revolver, BatasN (Equalizer). The accompanying photo, however, showed him holding a semiautomatic, not a revolver, and the article later described him putting in "a fresh clip," not possible with a revolver.
* On National Public Radio's Weekend Edition, a piece on violent crime and children stated: "Military manuals usually rank the AK as the most terribly powerful personal weapon in the world." Really? The AK-47's short 7.62 x 39mm round is substantially less powerful than the rounds fired by U.S. small arms in World War II and Korea.
* In a feature about teens with guns, New York magazine described a "sawed-off, double-barrel, twelve-gauge pump shotgun." There is no such animal. The photo shows a sawed-off pump shotgun; the author probably mistook the tubular magazine for a second barrel.
Though inaccuracies of all kinds can creep into copy, firearms seem to cause journalists an inordinate amount of trouble. Often it is the conventions of measuring size that trip up editors. Internal Medicine News & Cardiology News, in an article about abortion doctors arming themselves, referred to a "38 mm" weapon. Since the size, or caliber, of a gun is measured by the diameter of the barrel, in inches or millimeters, and since 38 millimeters is about an inch and a half, somebody ought to have realized that was too large. The writer meant ".38 caliber," meaning a gun with a barrel diameter that is .38 of an inch. Similarly, Outside magazine mentioned a guard at an African game park carrying "a .458-millimeter rifle." This time the weapon's bore would be impossibly small, roughly the size of a hypodermic syringe. The writer presumably meant ".458-caliber rifle," indicating a bore of .458 of an inch.
Reporters often muddle political debate about gun control by failing to define such terms as semiautomatic and automatic weapons, and assault rifles. For the record, a semiautomatic weapon reloads its chamber after each shot; one pull of the trigger fires one round. An automatic weapon keeps firing as long as the user keeps the trigger pulled. A true military assault rifle can fire both semiautomatically and automatically. But the term assault rifle is sometimes loosely used to mean either a so-called military style semiautomatic rifle, one that has an external magazine and, often, a pistol grip, or any semiautomatic rifle. People with different agendas define the term in different ways.
Sometimes editorial writers fail to pay attention to their paper's own accurate reporting about firearms. Last June, in a story headed BOTH SIDES SAY TRENTON'S BAN ON ASSAULT RIFLES HAS LITTLE EFFECT ON CRIME, The New York Times's Iver Peterson reported that assault weapons had been used in only a tiny fraction of New Jersey crimes since May 1991, when the state outlawed them and required police to keep track. Three days later, in an editorial, the paper asserted that assault rifles "are the weapons of choice these days among gangs and drug dealers."
Fortunately, journalists' ignorance about guns is correctable. A useful handbook for newsroom libraries is Armed and Dangerous: A Writer's Guide to Weapons, by Michael Newton. Part of the Writer's Digest Books Howdunit Series, it includes an index, a bibliography, and a useful and accurate glossary. In addition, the National Rifle Association's public affairs line (202-828-6326) handles technical inquiries.
The widely used Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual is less reliable, although the 1993 edition is an improvement over earlier editions; its "Weapons" entry is still incorrect, incomplete, and/or misleading in several ways. The brief "Firearms" listing in The Washington Post Deskbook on Style, on the other hand, is clear and accurate, and an impending update of U.S. News & World Report's stylebook will include a discussion of semiautomatic versus automatic. About a year ago, editors at The New York Times grew so tired of mistakes regarding firearms that they drew up a pamphlet on the subject. The six-page "Guide to Guns & Ammunition" notes that, while many people find the subject of firearms tedious or repellent, "neither ignorance nor revulsion will keep it out of the paper . . . so we might as well get it right."
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