May 23, 2013 09:13 AM UTC

Today In BS: How It Gets Spread (Even If You're Dead)

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• by: Colorado Pols

THURSDAY UPDATE #2: Media Matters weighs in with gusto:

Kopel is not a reputable source of information in the gun policy debate. [Pols emphasis] During a December 2012 appearance on CNN to discuss a high-profile shooting involving an NFL player, Kopel falsely claimed that there is no link between gun availability and homicide rates, even though that fact has been established by numerous studies. Kopel also exaggerated the level of violence in the United Kingdom, which has strict gun laws, compared to the United States, even though the United States far outpaces England — and all other high-income nations — in gun homicide and homicide rates generally.

A frequent contributor of feature stories to the NRA's magazine, America's 1st Freedom, Kopel promoted the conspiracy theory that the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty — a proposal to crack down on the supply of weapons to human rights abusers — could lead to the "total disarmament of freedom-loving people all over the world."

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THURSDAY UPDATE: The Poynter Institute has gotten wind of this story, and the involvement of Dave Kopel–who rather ironically has been visiting faculty at this nationally known journalism school.

Daniele Perazzi died in 2012. The “incident is devoid of any foundation and the news is completely fabricated,” the company said in a statement.

And the woman who contacted the station wasn’t an attorney, KDVR now says. But she wasn’t the only one flogging the story, KDVR reports: [Pols emphasis]

David Kopel, a nationally-recognized Second Amendment attorney with the Independence Institute in Denver, first told FOX31 Denver about the alleged incident Saturday. He referred us to Korrine Aguirre, who, it now appears, concocted an elaborate but false story.

Kopel has been visiting faculty at Poynter and recently spoke at a Poynter seminar on how to cover guns… [Pols emphasis]

We assume they will be asking Kopel to explain this incident in a future seminar.

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UPDATE: FOX 31 finally explains what happened here, and you'll never guess where they got it from:

David Kopel, a nationally-recognized Second Amendment attorney with the Independence Institute in Denver, [Pols emphasis] first told FOX31 Denver about the alleged incident Saturday. He referred us to Korrine Aguirre, who, it now appears, concocted an elaborate but false story…

Oh no, Dave Kopel! Better not put this one in your opening statement. And reporters, maybe keep this in mind next time you're inclined to take Kopel's word for something? He's not actually the reliable source he is widely credited to be, this just being the latest example.

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Last Saturday, reporter Hendrik Sybrandy of FOX 31 News dropped quite the bombshell:

An executive with a prominent gun manufacturer is on his way back to his native Italy after a taxi driver mistook him for a terrorist on Saturday.

Daniele Perazzi took a cab to the Colorado Gun Collectors Association trade show at the Denver Merchandise Mart around noon.

He had seven shotguns at the time and apparently the guns scared Perazzi’s cab driver who called police and told them he’d just dropped off a terrorist…

The story of the "arrest" of Daniele Perazzi, the president of the Italian firearms manufacturer Perazzi Shotguns, spread like wildfire across gun-rights friendly social media spaces, websites, and talk radio. The Independence Institute's Amy Oliver warned Twitter followers darkly:

There's just one little problem, as 9NEWS' Kyle Clark reported last night: none of it ever happened. 

The gun company, the Adams County Sheriff's Office, Taxis on Patrol and the Colorado Gun Collectors Association all claim the reported incident never happened.

The story has gone viral online and caused concern for gun rights supporters. 9NEWS has received numerous emails inquiring as to why the story isn't being broadly covered…

The Adams County Sheriff's Office, identified in the FOX31 report as the agency that "interrogated Perazzi," said they have no record of arresting, detaining or even contacting someone at the gun show. [Pols emphasis]

"We have no indication whatsoever that we were involved with this," Sgt. Paul Gregory said. "There is no indication that we arrested, detained or contacted anybody from Perazzi. The only knowledge that we had of this incident was from the FOX31 broadcast on Saturday."

Folks, not only was Daniele Perazzi not arrested on Saturday in Colorado, Daniele Perazzi wasn't even in the state of Colorado. In fact, Daniele Perazzi can't be found anywhere on this earth today, because according to a statement from the company, he died a year ago. 9NEWS tracked down the person who allegedly identified herself as Perazzi's "American attorney" to FOX 31, and she's, well, not an attorney. In short, it's all a hoax.

So yes, clearly FOX 31 has some explaining to do as to how this wholly fabricated story made it into their evening news. To us, though, this is just another example of countless falsehoods that have been uncritically spread by local media during the debate over gun safety in Colorado this year. As one example, 9NEWS' Kyle Clark, the same reporter laughing it up at FOX 31's expense today, himself was duped by the Independence Institute's Jon Caldara's absurd predictions that limiting magazine capacity would mean "guns in Colorado will never be able to get a magazine again." Clark's breathless prime-time report on that "possibility" looks silly in its own right now that the Attorney General's common-sense guidance on the new law is out, and Caldara's warning has been shown to be false–just as proponents of House Bill 1224 always said it would be.

The fact is, we don't know of any local media that should be proud of their gun debate coverage. From double standards for what they scrutinized to the subsidy of false claims about the bills, and even total paranoid BS fabricated out of whole cloth as you see above–they all dropped the ball. And the public interest was not served.