March 4, 2015

Emily Got Her Gun, but her story is a lie.

Things are not looking good for NRA hero Emily Miller, Chief Investigative Reporter for WTTG Fox5 in Washington, DC. Yesterday Washington Post's media blogger, Erik Wemple, posted more information about Miller's bizarre "home invasion" story, which she turned into a newspaper series, "Emily Gets Her Gun," and book, "Emily Gets Her Gun...But Obama Wants to Take Yours" (the title alone should raise some flags), plus speaking engagements at pro-gun rallies (a clear violation of professional journalistic ethics).

Wemple obtained new, supplemental, police reports which casts even more doubt on the veracity of Emily Miller's sensationalist tale about the "15 scruffy young men standing around two pickup trucks", and the "the blood-shot-eyed guy" who "darted out, blocking the shot" when she claims she tried to take their picture. This is information that would certainly be helpful to the police (15 scruffy men, two pickup trucks, one man with bloodshot eyes) and would surely have been included in her report to the police, right?

No. In fact the report she gave to the police right after it happened tells a completely different story: it was not a "home invasion," the alleged burglar was not still in the house when she went in, there was only one man, driving a silver pickup truck, who said he was there to deliver firewood, and who gave her his business card. No other men and no other pickup truck was mentioned.

I'll leave it to you to read Wemple's column pointing out discrepancies and inconsistencies (linked above). There are still some unanswered questions (if the police had the landscaper's business card, what did they find out from him? Was it bogus? Why didn't Miller follow up on the information the police developed about her credit card usage?), so I hope he continues to investigate further.

I point all this out because this is typical, in my experience, of NRA sensationalist propaganda, designed to portray America as so dangerous and frightening that one must arm oneself or face death at the hands of fearsome thugs. Compare the police report to the NRA video. Compare the police report to the narrative Miller has since turned into a newspaper series, highly regarded by RKBA posters here. And yet, in my many years of dealing with pro-gunners, they often accuse pro-controllers of consistently lying, but their side is comprised of honest, law-abiding, Americans who would never lie. When it comes to politics, both sides of any contentious issue are quite capable of lying, and every fact and story should be approached with skepticism.