Anti-gun sentiment in NWH

An article in this morning's Northwest Herald illustrated the anti-gun sentiment prevalent with so many newspapers. The article, on page 3A under State Briefs, reported the shooting death of a 28-year-old woman in Joliet, Ill., while her 8-year-old daughter was in the back seat of her parked car.

The woman's car was parked in a Joliet driveway early Tuesday morning, when, as the article stated, "two men approached the vehicle and fired nine shots from an automatic handgun."

Well, there's a lot wrong with that sentence.

Did the "two men" fire the nine shots? One would have had to fire some, but not all, of the nine rounds and then hand the gun to the second man, who would have fired the remainder of the nine rounds.

Or did two men approach, and (only) one fired nine rounds?

But the part that got me was the adjective used to describe the handgun - an "automatic" handgun.

Have Joliet police already identified the gun that was fired? I suspect the reporter meant to write "semi-automatic" handgun, so why didn't an editor catch the error and correct it?

Most readers here know the difference between an automatic and a semi-automatic. If you don't, 'fess up and someone or I will explain it to you.

Did the reporter sensationalize the story by writing that the "... girl watched from the back seat ..."? Was the girl asleep? Whose driveway?

There is obviously a whole lot more to the story, yet the Northwest Herald gave it only 3 1/2 column inches.

Were the assailants known to the mother or recognized by the child?

Was there an order of protection, or was this a case of "wrong time, wrong place"?