In the past week, Raw Story and The Nation have both published accounts meant to discredit the idea that armed citizens are capable of stopping mass shootings. (This ignores the fact that they demonstrably do stop them.) But as The Truth About Guns reports, both stories relied heavily on the words of so-called Navy SEAL Stephen Benson—who, if he truly exists, appears to have “exaggerated” his credentials.
The fact that no SEAL can be located by that name was not enough to convince either publication to withdraw the original stories, although both edited out Benson’s essential testimony. It just goes to show that anti-gun journalists love to hear evidence that backs up their beliefs, and they tend not to be too discerning about whether said evidence is true.
