NBC News asked D.C. police for permission to use a high-capacity ammunition clip as a prop on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” show, a request District authorities said Wednesday they denied.
But host David Gregory appears to have used one anyway — and then displayed it on national television. Now D.C. police say they’re investigating whether the District’s gun laws were violated in the incident.
In the Sunday morning show, Gregory conducted a lengthy interview with National Rifle Association chief executive Wayne LaPierre about issues related to the Dec. 14 massacre in Newtown, Conn. In the segment, which is posted on the MSNBC Web site, Gregory uses what appears to be a magazine as a prop as he poses a question to LaPierre.
“Here’s a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets,” Gregory says. “Now, isn’t it possible that if we got rid of these” — he then sets it down, and picks up a smaller one — “if we replaced them and said, ‘Well, you can only have a magazine that carries five bullets or 10 bullets,’ isn’t it just possible that we could reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?”
“I don’t believe that’s going to make one difference,” LaPierre says in response.
The District’s code says that “No person in the District shall possess, sell, or transfer any large capacity ammunition feeding device” whether or not it is attached to a firearm.
This strikes me as aggressively stupid. A good point is in danger of being lost, because David Gregory simply had to have a prop. Seriously, does knowing what a 30-round clip looks like inform your opinion in any way? And, even if it did, wtf is wrong with a photograph?
It’s a good thing the subject wasn’t chemical weapons or he’d have been waving a vial of ricin around.
