Debate erupts over armed journalists after Paris attack :: 01/10/2015

Something of an Internet snit has erupted over the idea of journalists carrying guns in the wake of the bloody attack in Paris, and a story in Wednesday’s Washington Examiner quoting author Emily Miller and opinion columnist Jed Babbin seemed to spark the debate.

Here’s what Babbin said in the article that Miller found so offensive: “Arming untrained journalists is as bad an idea as arming teachers. Neither is, by experience, training or temperament, capable of bearing arms and using them responsibly. Pistol packing reporters, even in news rooms, is an awesomely bad idea.”

Miller’s post about this on her Facebook page has garnered scores of responses. Babbin’s own Facebook post has gotten far fewer reactions.

------------------------------------

BULLETIN: French news media, CNBC, CBS and other news agencies are reporting that the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo massacre have been killed by French authorities. Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi are the suspected killers of a dozen people on Wednesday.

------------------------------------

Miller, author of “Emily Gets Her Gun, But Obama Wants to Take Yours,” has applied for a carry permit in the District of Columbia, where she now works as an investigative reporter for the local Fox News affiliate. The Paris attack, she said, has “opened the eyes of a lot of journalists” about being targeted for what they do.

In retrospect, what Babbin said might need to be tempered a bit, but that bit about “experience, training or temperament” isn’t entirely off base. This column is acquainted with several other journalists. Some have experience with firearms, others do not, and there was one who didn’t seem comfortable being in the same room.

However, a lot of people think arming teachers is a pretty good idea. “Pistol packing reporters” anywhere is not that bad an idea; no worse, say, than a police chief who has accidentally shot himself twice, according to this report, or another police chief who shot his wife, according to this report.

It is too late to ask the journalists at Charlie Hebdo who were gunned down earlier this week if any of them might have wanted a gun handy when their assassins barged in and opened fire. The notion that a reporter could get killed on the job is nothing new. Mark Kellogg, with the Bismarck Tribune, became somewhat famous for being killed on the job more than a century ago. He was with George Armstrong Custer at the Little Bighorn.

Many journalists have been killed in the field. That’s the risk one takes trying to get the news, which often involves violence of one degree or another. What happened in Paris this week was something different, because the victims were killed in their news office, along with one policeman inside, and another Paris cop on the street.

Miller was quoted by the Washington Examiner about her pending carry application, which is apparently languishing on Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s desk. She told the newspaper, “The one thing she doesn't want is for me to be killed after she rejected my application.”

Several weeks ago, this column sent inquiries to various Evergreen State newspapers, seeking information on whether any members of their respective editorial boards were gun owners. Only a couple replied.

Some might wonder whether journalists should be concerned about their safety. Some people in the media might balk at the notion of working armed. But Massad Ayoob, himself an accomplished firearms journalist and author, as well as being one of the preeminent American firearms and self-defense instructors, was also quoted in the Examiner story, observing that journalists “are supposed to make enemies” because they reveal things that other people want to conceal.

Criminals, and now terrorists, don’t make appointments. Violent crime does not happen on a pre-arranged schedule. Paris has been a stark lesson, and various experts have been suggesting to various news agencies that there are now concerns about “copycat” types of attacks, and that could happen anywhere.

Instead of just reporting stories, the press has now become part of the story. If this attack changes how the press tells the story, or does its job overall, then the terrorists will have won.