{"id":357,"date":"2018-06-12T13:03:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T13:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/2018\/06\/12\/was-this-intended-or-unintended\/"},"modified":"2019-08-16T18:29:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T18:29:06","slug":"was-this-intended-or-unintended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/?p=357","title":{"rendered":"Was This Intended Or Unintended?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:7292,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.wsj.com\\\/graphics\\\/how-killers-bought-guns&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20230525204141\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.wsj.com\\\/graphics\\\/how-killers-bought-guns\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-17 21:01:08&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-26 16:30:37&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-26 16:30:37&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>\nWhere you place paragraphs in a story makes a difference and can lead to different interpretations of your argument. Today&#8217;s Wall Street Journal provides an excellent example of it in a story on the flaws of the FBI&#8217;s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The story is in the Southeast paper edition of the Journal but does not appear online. The only thing online is an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/graphics\/how-killers-bought-guns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">infographic <\/a>on the failures of the system.<\/p>\n<p>Consider this paragraph.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p>\n<i>And then there are private sales. Background checks aren&#8217;t always required when sales are made by private sellers, those people who make only occasional guns sales from private collections.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It was immediately followed by this paragraph.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p>\n<i>Several mass-shooters have purchased guns they shouldn&#8217;t have been able to buy.&nbsp;<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The story by Ashby Jones then goes on to give examples of how both the Virginia Tech mass-murderer and the Sutherland Spring First Baptist mass-murderer were able to obtain their weapons, though prohibited persons, after passing a FBI NICS check. The story does detail how the Virginia court and the US Air Force had failed to submit the records for inclusion in the FBI&#8217;s databases.<\/p>\n<p>By placing the second paragraph immediately after the paragraph on private sales, the reader is at first led to believe that the mass-murderers obtained their firearms from a private seller which we know was not the case.<\/p>\n<p>If that second paragraph had added &#8220;due to the failure to submit disqualifying records to the NICS database&#8221; or &#8220;even though they passed background checks&#8221;, then it would be understood that the killers obtained their firearms due to a failure of the system and not due to the negligence or greed of a private seller.<\/p>\n<p>Is this a case of unintended juxtaposition? Is it a case of tight editing for brevity in the second paragraph? Or is it, more problematically, a case of using the structure of the story to convey an argument for so-called universal background checks.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know but I do know that the wrong impression is initially given by the structure of the story.<\/p>\n<p>If this came from the New York Times or the Washington Post I would say it was intended to mislead. Since the Wall Street Journal tends to be more neutral on firearms issues, I could go either way. Nonetheless, this is a case of the mainstream media, intentionally or unintentionally, pushing the narrative for universal background checks which is wrong.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Where you place paragraphs in a story makes a difference and can lead to different interpretations of your argument.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[918,919,46,576],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-narrative","tag-nics-checks","tag-universal-background-checks","tag-wall-street-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11480,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/11480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}