The Arrogance of Ignorance, the Ignorance of Arrogance

By Paul F. Coppin

The Dawson College tragedy, like all highly public events, and particularly those involving kids, galvanise otherwise quiet people into putting their thoughts and fears to paper. Letters to the editor and op-ed pieces flow like candy on Hallowe'en.

In the case of the Dawson College event, firearms owners across Canada flooded media outlets with letters and emails, hoping to offset the inevitable backlash simply because they were firearms owners, not because they had any connection to the events in Montreal. They knew they would not soon be disappointed; some lessons were indeed learned from the Ecole Polytechnique shootings in 1989.

The victims had hardly been removed from the crime scene before anti-firearms advocates, fragile politicians and ponderous media drones began their assessment of all of the things that were wrong with society and government that could have caused this horrible event. The shopping list of usuals such as education, parenting, video games, mass media, and disaffection were quickly offered up, and just as quickly tossed as imponderable. It became apparent that the obvious problem was socio-pathology, and guns. And since socio-pathology has too many syllables and requires an education to actually understand, reductio ad absurdum, the problem must be guns.

The media discussion about guns got off on a bad footing right at the beginning, with more than one national paper claiming one of the firearms, the Beretta Storm, was an automatic. Conjuring up Rambo-esque visions of the perpetrator spraying Montreal from a gun welded to the hip (according to the Coalition for Gun Control's website, this is how you use one), politicians and columnists began calling for the banning of all automatic firearms. Had any of them done their homework, they would have known that Canada has had them banned for a long time. In any case, had they done their homework, they would have learned that the Beretta Storm is not an automatic, and cannot be easily made into one.

Media outlets can be cut a little slack as news is breaking. Certainly, like the fog of war, the fog of media is thickest when everyone is scrambling to find out what's going on, and who cares the most.

But days later, when the event has settled, and the facts have mostly emerged, one might expect that journalistic and editorial integrity would tighten up, and accuracy in reporting and editing would rise to a level demanded by principles of fairness and balance.

And yet, this is not happening. Contract writers such as Janet Bagnell of the Montreal Gazette are given free reign, without benefit of knowledge of the subject, to denigrate the readers who write to correct their assertions (and I am only using Janet as an example, she is far from unique). From the writings of many columnists and editorialists, especially those who have taken a position calling for bans of this and that, it is clear that even a modicum of knowledge about Canada's gun laws is lacking. Many still do not know, or understand, or even care about, the difference between licensing and registration. Worse still, there is an appalling lack of knowledge about firearms themselves. To someone who actually knows something about firearms, the media ping-pong game over the idea of banning semi-automatics is absurd. Promoting public policy based on ignorance is hardly a responsible position for ostensibly responsible journalists.

But the height of editorial arrogance is achieved when the op-eds written by supposed intellectuals begin to appear. Pompous writing by individuals who have no particular academic credentials in the subject, but who do have a personal viewpoint. Predictably, their discourse starts with a concocted absolute and then argues that their viewpoint is the only valid one, ending with a reference to their station in life, as if it validates their personal opinion. That someone is a Management specialist, an Information Technology specialist, or professor, hardly elevates their opinion to the level of "authority" in a discussion unrelated to their specialty. Never have I, nor anyone I know, having submitted a well-reasoned and researched letter to the editor, been asked what I do for a living, to validate the opinion expressed.

It is small wonder that there is so much angst in the Parliamentary press gallery and mainstream media in general these days. The jig is up. Enough of the masses have now been sufficiently educated to recognise the smell of fresh horse-pucky when they encounter it.