Are MSM Gun Articles Intentionally Stupid?

I'm going to copy an MSN.com page, with idiocy in red.

New laws are leading to surge in gun sales

Tommy "Hoss Fly" Atchison" looks for a gun to show, while Ray Scott checks out a .45 Magnum revolver Thursday at Tommy "Hoss Fly" Atchison Guns & Trades, Inc. in Midland, Texas.
lousy trigger discipline,and there's no such thing as a .45 magnum

“Stand Your Ground” laws, which have come under fire as a possible factor in the Florida shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, may be having another impact, too — helping fuel a surge in gun sales.

Gun buyers swamped retailers nationwide last year, prompting a record 16.4 million instant criminal background checks of potential owners, up 14.2 percent from 2010, according to FBI figures. While some buyers may not have followed through with gun purchases or may have been denied, others bought more than one, so background checks are considered a good proxy for sales in the industry.

On Wednesday, gun maker Sturm, Ruger & Co. announced the company was forced to temporarily suspend its acceptance of any new firearms orders due to a barrage of wholesale orders — more than 1 million in 2012 alone. Last year the company shipped a total of 1.1 million firearms. This massive push "exceeds our capacity to rapidly fulfill these orders," the Connecticut company said in a news release, adding that it expects to resume normal operations by the end of May.

While "no true stats" exist reflecting actual U.S. gun purchases, Ginger Coudens, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms pointed to a report the agency published last year citing a significant spike in gun manufacturing. According to the report, 5.5 million firearms were manufactured in 2009 (the most recent year for which such figures are available) — 1 million more than in 2008, and the highest number since at least 1986. A rise was seen in all four primary categories: pistols, revolvers, rifles and shotguns.

A Tarus .38 Special Revolver
that's a Taurus, not Tarus, and again, GET YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER

"There’s a reason: Because they’re selling. They aren’t just sitting on the shelf if they’re being manufactured," Coudens said.

Relaxed gun laws are likely a factor behind the boom in sales, although not the only reason and perhaps not the primary one, industry experts say.

Many point to fears stoked by gun-rights advocates that President Barack Obama, if elected to a second term, will push legislation to rein in gun ownership.

Wayne LaPierre, chief executive officer of the powerful National Rifle Association, told a meeting of conservatives last month that the president’s gun strategy is “crystal clear,” saying that Obama wants to “get re-elected and, with no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom, erase the Second Amendment.”

Jim Barrett, an analyst at CL King & Associates, an independent investment research firm who tracks the gun industry, said both the Obama factor and gun laws are at play.

“You have conceal-carry laws being enacted by more and more states. That tends to spark an immediate jump in gun ownership in those states,” he said.

“And the fact that Obama may get re-elected makes gun owners nervous,” Barrett added.

Conceal-carry permits are now allowed in 49 states (Illinois and Washington D.C. do not have conceal-carry laws), and “Stand Your Ground” laws are on the books in 21 states. In Florida, police have cited the state’s seven-year-old “Stand your Ground” law in deciding not to charge George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, 17, last month. The law says citizens do not have to retreat before using deadly force against attackers. The Justice Department and FBI now are investigating the killing, and a state grand jury is being convened.

Correlating state laws and gun sales is difficult, but in Utah and Texas — two states that have "Stand Your Ground" laws" — pre-purchase background checks rose by 84.5 percent and 19.3 percent respectively in 2011. In California and New York — two states that do not have "Stand Your Ground" laws — background checks rose by 10.9 and 12.6 percent respectively, according to the FBI."

The big spike in gun and ammunition sales has very little to do with Obama or any other politician and very little to do with any change in laws. It has everything to do with uncertainty and fear for what's next in a society gone batshit crazy. People are buying weapons just like they're buying extra food or batteries or taking out insurance or doing anything else to prepare for a shaky and perhaps frightening future.
The big rush to attack so called "stand your ground" laws, or the "castle doctrine" after that young man was murdered in Florida, is a massive red herring. It was murder, pure and simple. Anti gun forces over the years have always screamed that recognizing our inherent rights to self defense will result in wild west shootouts and blood in the streets but that's just plain fantasy. As a matter of fact the opposite is true - an armed society is a far more polite and safe society. Trying to tie in a lone jackass and his rotten decision to shoot a kid in cold blood with otherwise sane gun laws is idiotic desperation, stinking to high heaven of "see, I told you so".