NRA vs FactCheck: Round 2

To complement my post about FactChecks lack of factchecking, the NRA-ILA has issued their own response to the latest hit-piece by Annenberg Politicals director.

A new story by Brooks Jackson on the FactCheck.org website once again shows that FactCheck cherry-picks “facts” to suit its anti-NRA, anti-gun, anti-self-defense agenda—an agenda that the American people do not share.

The story claims an NRA advertisement on Barack Obama’s votes against a pro-self-defense bill is misleading because (Jackson claims) Obama did not vote for a “general repeal of the right of self defense.”

Of course, that’s not what the ad said. The ad referred to a case where Wilmette, Ill., homeowner Hale DeMar was prosecuted for owning a handgun—a fact that was only discovered after he used the gun in lawful self-defense against a masked criminal who (as FactCheck points out) was breaking into DeMar’s home for the second time in two days. In fact, burglar Morio Billings was a career criminal—a fugitive from justice with prior convictions in three states and six arrests just that year, hoping to steal enough money for some “blow and crack.” After his capture, he told police he “didn’t care if anyone was home.” And eleven days after serving his sentence for the DeMar break-in, burglar Billings was arrested yet again.

But Obama supported Wilmette’s ability to prosecute DeMar...

Even more outrageously, the supposedly neutral Jackson tries to blame the whole situation on the victim, rather than on the repeat offender who invaded his home. Jackson blames the victim for not getting his locks changed quickly enough after the first break-in, and for moving to confront the intruder before the intruder reached the children in the bedroom. But as DeMar himself asked in a newspaper op-ed, “What is one to do when a criminal proceeds, undeterred by a 90-pound German shepherd, a security alarm system and a property lit up like an outdoor stadium?”

Read the rest here.

They ask the question: "Do Brooks Jackson and FactCheck have an intrinsic bias against gun owners? "

I wouldn't say against gun owners as a whole as they have done some pieces against gun control claims, but Mr. Jackson certainly has an intrinsic bias against the NRA. He's made that perfectly clear. It would only cause further harm to FactChecks reputation of impartiality by allowing him to continue writing on the subject. But I'm sure that won't stop them.