"Journalists increasingly are being targeted in conflict largely because they have lost, in the eyes of certain elements, their status as neutral observers. If they bear arms they reinforce this misguided belief by placing themselves on one side or another," said the INSI director, Rodney Pinder.
"A journalist with a gun says 'some people in the situation I'm covering are my enemies and I am prepared to kill them if necessary'. That is not the position of a neutral civilian."
Pinder, of course, is the same genius who once observed "To be a killer of a journalist is a relatively safe operation." That he's out there making it even safer doesn't seem to sway him much.
I'm just glad our own domestic journalist, Geraldo Rivera, saw the wisdom of carrying a gun in Afghanistan and then came back and used his influence to advocate the same right to armed defense for the rest of us.
What? He just believes in himself being armed and still supports disarming the masses?
Never mind.
[Via Cryptic Subterranean]