Several weeks ago Mother Jones published a sensational article detailing alleged incidents were pro-Second Amendment advocates harassed anti-gun advocates. Despite the interviewees not furnishing proof that these incidents ever happened the way they described, the Mother Jones article painted gun owners as bullies and anti-gun advocates as helpless victims.
Leading off the article was a story about, as Mother Jones described, “A mom, gun owner, and Second Amendment supporter,” who was shot, became paralyzed and started working with Moms Demand Action. The woman, Jennifer Longdon, claimed that as she was in the airport leaving a protest of the annual National Rifle Associations meeting, a man saw footage of Longdon at the protest on one of the airports TV monitors, came over, and “spat in her face.”
According to the Mother Jones article, Longdon didn’t call security, but rather wheeled herself to a bathroom and washed herself off in time for her flight.
There is no independent confirmation that the incident ever occurred since Longdon declined to report the alleged assault to authorities, but it is possible to independently verify some of Longdon’s claims. Specifically, since all of the televisions in the airport were this incident allegedly happened are set to CNN, there would be a record that CNN aired a segment featuring Longdon.
There is no record of CNN covering the protest or of Jennifer Longdon appearing on air April 25th. Longdon’s tale of woe, perpetuated by Mother Jones, falls apart before ever getting to the alleged assault.
This is just the latest incident where it was discovered that Moms Demand Action made up stories to perpetuate their cause. Just days ago Moms Demand Action put out a press release containing a thoroughly debunked story about Jack in the Box employees hiding in a freezer out of fear of open carry protesters (debunked by the New York Times no less).
Reasonable people who have been assaulted, stalked and threatened, particularly by people who may be armed, report these incidents to the police, creating a paper trail. People making up stories to paint themselves as helpless victims often don’t make false reports to the police out of fear that they will be prosecuted for lying to authorities. Given the very serious nature of the incidents described by anti-gun activists and the near-uniform lack of reporting them to the police, it is not unreasonable to doubt the veracity of their tales of woe.
Mother Jones has yet to retract the article.
[about_joe]
2 comments