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发帖数: 8800 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 USANews 讨论区 】
发信人: lczlcz (lcz), 信区: USANews
标 题: Fake News: L.A. Cops/Media Tout Rocket Launcher Seizure That Wasn’t
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Wed Jan 9 17:54:55 2013, 美东)
January 8, 2013 by Warner Todd Huston
Chief Charlie Beck and L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa, Dec. 27, 2012
The L.A. Police Department had big news on December 27. They had seized a
pair of rocket launchers! This, of course, would have been shocking news if
only they really had found “rocket launchers” in the City of Angels.
As the L.A. Police Department’s “gun buyback program” came to a close,
Chief Charlie Beck had frightening news for his city. A pair of “rocket
launchers” had been turned in.
Chief Beck proudly paraded the pair of launcher tubes at a press conference
and gravely told those assembled, “Those are weapons of war, weapons of
death. These are not hunting guns. These are not target guns. … they have
no place in our great city.”
The media, of course, dutifully ran to press with the “news” of the
dangerous weapons of war found on the streets of L.A.
Such outlets as NBC News pounced on the story. Unsurprisingly, so did the L.
A. Times. Wire service UPI did, too. So did the The New York Daily News.
LA Weekly, was really in high dudgeon with writer Dennis Romero expressing
his outrage.
“Cops picked up two — count ‘em two — rocket launchers (!) (and not
one, as other outlets are reporting), an LAPD official with close knowledge
of the program told us. Holy hell why do people on our streets have military
grade rocket launchers?”
That might seem like a good question.
Only one problem. The story is pure puffery. These so-called “rocket
launchers” the L.A. Police recovered weren’t a danger to anyone. In fact,
at least one of them was never a danger to anyone.
It turns out both were one-use, AT-4 grenade launchers used by the U.S. Army
in anti-tank operations. Yes they are grenade launchers (not really “
rocket” launchers proper) but these tubes are pre-packaged weapons that can
be fired only one time and cannot be reloaded. They are one-shot only
weapons. So, yes, that means the tubes the police had were completely and
permanently harmless.
But even more absurdly, at least one of the tubes was a training piece and
never fired a grenade and never could have. It was a device used only for
showing young soldiers what such a weapon looks like. It is a hands-on
training tool that is 100% inert, un-fireable, safe as a plastic kid’s toy
gun.
As Paul Szoldra explains, “It is, quite literally, a long, green fiberglass
tube that does nothing.”
Further, these hunks of plastic can be bought at many military surplus
stores and have even turned up on ebay in the past.
What we really have here is the L.A. Police making a big story out of
nothing and a gaggle of Old Media lapdogs lapping up the fake story because
they haven’t a clue about the topic.
Instead of the media giving us scary stories of rocket launchers infesting
the streets of L.A., this story should have been reported as the L.A. Police
trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the citizenry and the media alike.
… But, wait… There’s MORE…
L.A. Police Have History of Seizing Fake ‘Rocket Launchers’
Chief Charlie Beck May, 2012
Above we reported that the Los Angeles Police Department made a big show of
having found “rocket launchers” during it most recent gun buyback program.
We pointed out that the so-called launchers were being misreported and the
police were illicitly using them as a scare tactic. But now we find that
this same Police Chief has done this before.
On December 27 L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck displayed a pair of what he
claimed were “weapons of war” turned in during his latest gun buyback
program. Chief Beck told the media that a pair of “rocket launchers”
turned up and he evidently wanted to scare his city and make waves in the
media about his success in getting these “weapons of death” off the
streets of L.A.
Of course, the “rocket launchers” Chief Beck showed the Old Media
establishment were nothing of the kind. Instead, what Beck waved about
during the December press conference were U.S. Army training devices that
were dummy devices. They are essentially prop pieces made to show young
soldiers what such anti-tank weapons look like and how they feel. These
training devices have never been able to fire anything nor could they be
made to do so.
After the press conference, the Old Media establishment dutifully posted
stories with scary headlines such as the L.A. Times’ piece, “LAPD
investigating rocket launchers taken at gun buyback.”
Dozens of other Old Media outlets followed suit with scary headlines and
many followed up with false stories, misreporting, and downright
scaremongering.
But upon looking into this story further, it appears that Chief Beck has
played this misleading game at least once before and with the exact same
device.
Back in May, Beck again paraded before the media with a “rocket launcher”
he claimed his department had received during a gun buyback program. That
piece, too, was clearly marked “trainer” and was incapable of ever firing
any rockets.
All this raises many questions. Did the police really ever get any such
devices in its gun buyback programs? Is this just a repeat tactic that Chief
Beck is using to scare the public and make it seem as if his program is
working? Does the Chief and his department understand at all that the
devices he keeps claiming are “rocket launchers” are really nothing but
harmless plastic tubes? Why do these “rocket launchers” keep showing up in
L.A. buyback programs but not anywhere else in the country? Finally, why
hasn’t the media called Chief Beck on his repeated fake rocket launcher
claim
Many questions abound about these faux “rocket launchers” that seem to
turn up every few months in Chief Beck’s gun buyback programs. |
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