David exposes Goliath

David exposes Goliath

By John Boch

When I was in school, I was taught that newspaper reporters and editors were wise and learned individuals to be respected.  They were experts at the use of the English language and generally unbiased and unemotional in their reporting of the news. 

Today, thanks to the “new” media, we better understand how biased the major media is in its reporting of news.

We’ve heard of the disgraceful work of Jayson Blair at the New York Times.  “All the news that’s fit to print,” trumpets the Times everyday in the little box on the front page.  Looking back, I guess that includes the news that Blair fabricated

Nevertheless, I still believed editors, in particular were somehow more intelligent and above the fray.  Little did I know that an everyday working guy like me would soon discover the raw anger and juvenile intellect of an editor of a major metropolitan newspaper.

Here’s how it unfolded.  A couple of weeks ago I read an ugly story by a Chicago Tribune editor, Mr. Charles Madigan, that lamented how he had to pry his mother’s personal defense handgun from her cold, dead hands as she refused to let him take it while she was alive.  I was appalled.  This author implied that his own mother was a stupid old woman, devoid of common sense, who stubbornly maintained her foolish view that a personal defense gun that fit her hands would protect her from hooligans who might look upon her as an easy mark.

I wrote him a very nice note, not expecting much in reply, but keenly aware that if I wrote like a rube, my words might be used to by this big-city newspaperman to paint gun owners with the old “they are just stupid rednecks” brush.

“His response further reinforces to me – in a very personal sense – how the elitists in media view all of us, the unwashed masses, as fools.”

So I wrote in a stoic, intelligent manner expressing my position that this man’s mother knew far more than he gave her credit for and that he was a bigot for being closed-minded in his decision-making when it came to gun ownership.  “With choices come consequences,” I wrote the man who I initially thought was an intelligent and learned man who sought the truth in his work.

What I got back astounded me. 

Here it is in all it’s glory, warts and all:

well john, you don’t know me at all and yet you feel
you have the right to be offensive! what a guy. well,
here’s right back at you, you fool. when was the last
time you used a firearm for protection? i have known
people with houses full of firearms who have never
faced any demonstrable threat.
they wre just sitting there waiting to be stolen, which in
some cases, they were. i have also known people who
shot themselves, people who shot their wives and then
themselves, and people who shot innocent bypassers
because they were afraid of some perceived threat that
didn’t exist. you are plugged so full of propaganda you
don’t know the truth anymore. i recommend the centers
for disease control morbid. and mortality statistics,
which will show you that it is wise to have a gun if you
are, say, a drug dealer looking to expand or protect
territory (is that it, are you a drug dealer?
is that why you need weapons?) a policeman with a
legitimate need for a sidearm or a hunter trained in the
use of weapons for hunting. i think you should limit
your future communications to like minded people who
will agree with everything you say. i wrote that article
out of respect for my mother and concern that she had
been robbed by a GUN DEALER, you fool! that was
the only criminal threat she faced in her life that i can
discern.
don’t lecture me, go lecture the gun business you seem
to love so deeply about developing some ethical
behavior. bye. and i do mean bye. madigan.

I’ve received better written, more articulate hate mail from eighth graders.  Then it dawned on me:  this guy isn’t anything special. He’s just a boorish, not-so-intelligent elitist with a hot temper and thin skin. 

He deems me a fool, just like his own mother.

While my first note caused him a temper tantrum, my reply to his inarticulate electronic message surely resulted in spilled coffee either before or after he screeched out a Howard Dean Scream™.

His crude personal missive demonstrates how angry and defensive he gets when his urban-dependency, emotions-based beliefs and demagoguery are confronted with science and reason. 

I pointed out that the emperor has no clothes and he didn’t like it one bit.

Through my correspondence with Mr. Madigan, the big-shot Chicago Tribune Editor, I now better understand why the Tribune’s circulation is falling.  His response further reinforces to me – in a very personal sense – how the elitists in media view all of us, the unwashed masses, as fools.

Let them cling to that notion.  It will be their undoing.

Yes, my pen is mightier than the sword.

Until the excrement hits the rotating blades, that is.  That’s why I’ve got that 12-gauge in the trunk.

Reprinted from September 2005 issue of GunNews