Aiming For The Editor's Job

First a thanks goes to the AJC for their reporting on the Jordan-Bowman-Jordan shootout where they indicate which participants had weapons carry licenses. It is start. Not a very good start but a start nonetheless.

The article published in Sunday's AJC falls far short of acceptable journalism and unfortunately does little to support the AJC agenda. It is clearly written as an opinion piece so the former may be forgiven but the latter does a disservice to far too many people.

The article has a very low information density--too many words for so few facts. We are told that the visiting Jordan had not only a weapon but a carry license. We are also told that he is visiting from Illinois. This immediately raises a number of questions our editorializing author fails to answer. First, the Georgia Department of Public Safety indicates that Georgia does not have reciprocity with Illinois. The article suggests the surviving Jordan might well have been violating Georgia Law. Or maybe not. Perhaps the gun was secured in his vehicle in a manner that does not require a GWCL. This raises questions about timing of events. Perhaps he has a license from another state with which Georgia does have a reciprocal agreement (some states issues carry licenses to non-residents). Not reporting this is simply poor journalism.

But it gets worse.

The article's author cannot resist tossing his own flash-bang into the officer's open grave. He reports an eyewitness account: "When she was at the door, she dropped the N-Bomb. After that Officer Jordan was out of niceness" and all further confrontations occurred outside the restaurant. The author insinuates that situation was under control with the belligerents leaving the WaHo and that it was the officer who escalated what had become a defused situation. Because of a racial epithet. He further characterizes the brother's firing on Bowman an act of vengeance. Was all this really necessary to advance the AJC's agenda?

The only thing it appears we can all agree on (and no thanks to this article) is that a gun, no matter who says you can have it, doesn't fix stupid. Neither does a pen.