April 03, 2013 11:31 AM UTC

With Obama in town, will reporters please go the extra mile to correct GOP misinformation on guns?

• 8 Comments
• by: Jason Salzman

(Please? – promoted by Colorado Pols)

In an editorial Monday, titled "Sour Grapes in the Colorado Legislature," The Denver Post wondered whether the GOP's hard feelings over gun legislation was spilling over, tantrum-like, into opposition to funding the entire state governement.

The Post spotlighted Sen. Kent Lambert's March 28 assertion that lawmakers had "effectively banned gun ownership."

Labert's statement, The Post said, was "not supported by the facts."

It's not a very complicated fact check to make, but, still, it's worth 1) praising The Post for spotlighting out Lambert's misinformation and 2) pointing out again that Republican legislators, not just fee-wheeling talk-show hosts, have been repeatedly making stuff up about Colorado's gun bills, or exaggerating to such a wild degree it's an embarrassment to representative government.

For example, a week before making his statement that was corrected by The Post, Lambert went even further asking an eager KVOR radio host:

Lambert: And now, you know, with everybody having their guns confiscated or taken away here over the next couple years, almost completely overturning the Second Amendment, what’s going to happen to our crime rate?

Recall that at Denver University debate in January, State Sen. Randy Baumgardner tried to push the misinformation that "hammers and bats" killed more people in America last year than guns did (See video at 24:23.), even though a thinking person would require only a minute to know that's false.

Who can forget that State Rep. Kevin Priola, a Republican, during one debate at the Colorado Capitol, compared banning some ammunition magazines to putting Japanese-Americans in internment camps during WWII.

Then there was Rep. Kevin Lundberg, who said on the radio that in Colorado, it's getting "so close" to the point where he'll be having his gun pried away from his "cold, dead hands."

There are more examples like these, obviously, and reporters, generally, are looking the other way.

I'm hoping, with the President in town today, the media will have the dignity to call out Republican elected officials if they level this kind of hyperbole or misinformation.