Wednesday, November 20, 2013

CA:Sophomoric Anti-Gun Article a Fun Read


The Greeks destroyed the Trojans

Jordyn Holman, a real life sophomore at the University of Southern California has written an anti-rights opinion article that is published in the Daily Trojan.  It is well worth reading, simply for the entertainment value.   The first delicious bit is the headline.  To be fair to Jordyn, it is possible that someone else wrote the headline.  Authors often have no control over headlines.   The headline is:
3-D printing of guns will harm society greatly
No evidence of the above is offered in the article.  I suspect that the headline writer is so immersed in a society that assumes the above is correct that they think no arguments are necessary.

Then the writer tries to take some sort of slap at Texans because  "Texans love their guns"  which is a little like trying to shame librarians by saying that they love books.  Most will simply take it as a compliment.

The article goes on to say that a 1911 pistol made by a 3-D printing company, Solid Concepts, which is based in *Texas!* "essentially feels and looks like an actual handgun."  This might be because it is an actual handgun.

The article goes on to conflate metal 3-D printing with plastic 3-D printing; confuses the timing of a State Department order against Defense Distributed which happened in May of 2013, as happening because of the Solid Concepts achievement  that was announced 10 days ago in November; and displays a truly amusing lack of understanding of economics, manufacturing, current law, and in general, reality.

If you want a chuckle, read the article and the comments afterward.  The commenters do an excellent job of teaching Jordyn some well deserved lessons.

I hope that Jordyn takes the lessons to heart.  After all, she bases the article on a CNN report, and she is a sophomore at USC majoring in print and digital journalism.    Using that source and in that environment, can we blame her for getting so much wrong?  I hope she learns that even in an opinion article, there should be some basis in fact in order to avoid looking like a complete fool.

All of us are ignorant about something.   All of us were young and ignorant at some point.   Sophomoric became an adjective for a reason. 

©2013 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch

I have been informed that Jordyn is a woman, and have changed the pronouns to reflect thast fact. 
3-D printing of guns will harm society greatly
3-D printing of guns will harm society greatly
3-D printing of guns will harm society greatly

No comments: