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March 06, 2013 12:13 PM UTC

Was the biplane's banner aimed at a debate on some other planet?

  • 21 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Is it so hard to report elementary facts, reporters? – promoted by Colorado Pols)

You’re feeling pretty good right now if you were one of the gun-rights activists who paid for the biplane that flew over the Colorado Capitol Monday carrying a banner: “Hick: Do Not Take our Guns.”

Local reporters ate up the banner, and a Google search turns up about 2,000 hits.

One problem: The banner was totally misleading, in the context of what was actually happening below the plane on the ground at the Capitol.

If you own a gun, you won’t lose it under the proposed legislation. And if you’re a law-abiding citizen, the bills won’t affect your ability to buy a gun.

As such, you’d think reporters who cited the banner would have pointed out, hey, its message doesn’t connect with reality in Colorado.

But just one story bothered to say that the banner was a sky-high form of manipulation.

As far as I can tell, only 9News’ political reporter Brandon Rittiman did the right thing and put the banner in context:

A constant drone of honking car horns could be heard from inside the governor's office, part of a demonstration against the gun control measures. A hired airplane flew over the Capital for hours towing a banner that read, "HICK: DO NOT TAKE OUR GUNS."

"There's a plane flying around that's saying, 'Hick, don't take our guns.' Well, here's the answer: we're not taking any guns," said the governor.

While nobody would have to give up a gun they currently own under the proposals, the protestors still see them as overly restrictive of the second amendment. [bigmedia emphasis]

Other reporters let the banner speak for itself. 

Associated Press reporters Ivan Moreno and Kristen Wyatt’s piece, which was picked up widely, including by the Washington Post, described some of the gun bills under consideration, but didn’t refute the implication of the banner:

A biplane flying above the Capitol Monday warned the governor, "HICK: DO NOT TAKE OUR GUNS!" Hickenlooper backs expanded background checks and has said he's considering a bill to limit ammunition magazines to 15 rounds. He hasn't indicated where he stands on other measures, including whether he supports a proposal that would hold sellers and owners of assault weapons liable for shootings by such firearms.

The Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels and Kurtis Lee reported:

The biplane flying over the Capitol carried a not-so-subtle message to the Democratic governor: "Hick, don't take our guns."

(To be fair, Post coverage described the gun bills in separate articles, but still.)

Television stories by Fox 31’s Kim Posey and 7News Anica Padilla reported the banner and provided no context.

If you’ve made it to this point in this blog post, you might be thinking that this isn’t such a big deal. A manipulative banner. What else is new?

But the response by reporters to the banner is emblematic of how gun-rights activists have managed to push their accusation of a gun-grab into the debate at the Capitol without being called out on it.

The don’t-take-my-gun banner isn’t an outright lie that can be corrected, but reporters should try harder to defend readers from the you’re-going-to-lose-your-gun spin that’s being pushed at the Capitol.

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21 thoughts on “Was the biplane’s banner aimed at a debate on some other planet?”

  1. You might not like this, Jason, but there is a large group of people who see these measures as steps toward gun confiscation. Democrat gun control bills this year might not do that, but what about next year?

    This pressure is meant to let everyone know we are serious about protecting constitutional rights. Don't take our guns! Don't even start down the slippery slope.

    1. You may not like this, Arap, but it's still a lie to imply that any of the actual propopsed legislation is legislation calling for the confiscation of guns. The banner is a lie, one among many lies pushed by the radical pro-gun lobby including that Obama or Democrats as a party have a secret plan to ban all guns.  If there is no proof and yet you state something as fact rather than as a concern you have that may or may not be accurate, you are a liar. Period.

      1. You're wrong, or at the very least you can't prove you are right. If you are willing to restrict part of a right that the Constitution says "shall not be infringed," who can trust you to stop?

          1. agop's from the chickenhawk generation, the conservative now crew that both dodged the draft while young, but loves their ability to get combat style weaponry as old fucks.

            The last thing generation chickenhawk wants to discuss is how the reason for the 2nd Amendment was literally to insure every citizen owned a fire arm, the flintlocks, the ball and powder generation strike plate weapon, neccessary to arm them when called up to serve in the militias. The United States didn't have a regular army for a while after the Revolutionary War, and the militias were essential.

            The bastardized version of the 2nd Amendment, omitting ""well regulated militia" allows males to be abject cowards while still getting to own "really neat shit like semi automatic weapons".

            That's just the truth of it..

            1. white, ignorant "get-off-my-lawn" chickenshits like AGOP can't separate Chuck Heston from Moses and seem to think gun ownership came down on stone tablets along with that other Word of God bullshit. 

              The same ignoranti are so cocksure of the original intent of the Constitution authors that they'll accuse any right-minded sane person of heresy to think otherwise.  Now one's gotta wonder just what our esteemed & rational founding fathers would have done if one or many of their fellow revolutionary minutemen had turned their muzzleloader on a school full of children and wiped out the hopeful future of a few young families.  Was it the real intent of the Constitutional authors to allow for the damn monthly bloodletting of innocent citizens?  

    2. You know … I like having police and firefighters as much as anyone.  But there are lots of people that see them as the next step towards martial law and incipient tyrrany.  Seizure of property, summary executions, forced labor, the works.  Sure, these so-called public servant might arrest criminals and put out fires this year, but what about next year?  Hmmmm?  What's to stop us from that slippery slope to tyrrany once we've started down this unsustainable path?

      The pressure is meant to let everyone know that just like opposing gun control, we need to get rid of these incipient jack-booted thugs among us, and live the way that Thomas Hobbes intended, in a natural state – solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.  But we won't start down no slippery slopes!  No way, no how.

  2. Because, "Governor Hickenlooper, We're Terrified That You're Going To Take Away Our Penile Self-Esteem Boosters And Quivering Old White Guy Pacifiers, Despite The Fact That There's No Evidence Indicating That It's Going to Happen" was too wordy?

      1. That's it in a nutshell. The right pushes a fear based world view and the most fearful among us eat it up. Fear of fill in the blank has been the central element of every GOP political campaign I can remember. Commies, gays, minorities,  America haters,  terrorist lovers, immigrants; whatever "other" is judged to be the most promising flavor of the month for scaring people into voting against their own interests. Now it's  "They're are coming to take away your guns" every time someone proposes the most modest, public poll approved common sense measure.

        The dirty little secret is that the GOP, the  supposed Daddy Party of tough on crime, strong defense, pro-military, constitution defending hard asses is really the party of paranoid wimps with exaggerated startle responses.

  3. Thanks for clarifying this matter for me: When I saw that small plane with its small banner flying near the Capitol, I thought it said "Rick" instead of "Hick."

  5. You know its odd, my roomate owns a gun and for months now we have both been waiting for Barack to come snatch up the gun and we just keep waiting.  The plane was a clever PR trick matched with the insistent horn honking, but like Hick said:  no one is coming for anyones guns.  

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