http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200609/CUL20060906a.html
Gun Group Wants 'Equal Time' From Boston Globe
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
September 06, 2006
(CNSNews.com) - A trade association for the firearms industry is pressing the Boston Globe to give it "equal time," after the newspaper ran a 1,550-word editorial hailing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's lawsuits against various gun dealers.
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the Boston Globe has twice dismissed industry attempts to respond to a "diatribe" that was "chockfull of misrepresentations and inaccuracies."
The Boston Globe commentary, which ran Aug. 27, called Mayor Bloomberg's approach to stopping the flow of guns "ingenious."
Bloomberg, in an effort to dry up the supply of guns on New York City streets, sent private investigators into five states (Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) to catch gun dealers making illegal sales.
But as the New York Sun noted on Aug. 28, more than three months after the sting operation began, Bloomberg is refusing to turn over the evidence to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a federal agency he has dismissed as inept.
According to the New York Sun, the ATF is now investigating not only the gun dealers targeted by the Bloomberg administration -- but the mayor's own investigators as well.
"Regardless of where you stand on the issue of guns and Second Amendment rights, the mayor's plan is a foolhardy one," the National Shooting Sports Foundation said in a letter to the Boston Globe. "His tactics have been deemed reckless for interfering with as many as 18 ongoing criminal investigations, in the process jeopardizing the lives of law enforcement officers and others."
The NSSF noted that the Justice Department also is investigating Mayor Bloomberg's actions and that law enforcement advocates have criticized them.
"The fact that the Boston Globe...twice dismissed our industry's reasonable request for equal time is as outrageous as it is telling," the NSSF wrote to the Boston Globe's editorial pages editor.
"To have been offered a letter to the editor as a "fair" alternative to [the opinion piece] demonstrates the difference between your newspaper and papers that are genuinely interested in providing their readers with balanced news coverage."
The NSSF said readers are entitled to hear both sides of the important topic.
The letter is signed by Ted Novin, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
