-By Warner Todd Huston
The story of David Gregory’s Meet the Press rifle magazine stunt is getting a bit more complicated. A new report says that NBC was actually told that waiving the 30-round magazine on TV would not be against the law.
The report says that law enforcement officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) were contacted by staffers from Meet the Press asking whether or not using the 30-round rifle magazine on the air, in the Washington D.C. studios, would be a violation of the law.
After the inquiry by NBC, the ATF contacted the D.C. police and report that the police told them that as long as the rifle magazine was empty, it would not be a violation of the city’s strict gun-ban laws.
D.C. police, however, are now saying quite then opposite.
D.C. police released a statement today, saying “NBC contacted the Metropolitan Police Dept. inquiring if they could utilize a high capacity magazine for this segment. NBC was informed that possession of a high capacity magazine is not permissible and the request was denied.”
It seems that NBC got some conflicting advice.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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