A truly grassroots 2nd Amendment Rally was held at the Arizona Capitol last Saturday.   Turnout estimates for “High Noon at the Capitol” have ranged from a crowd of 400 people at any given time, to more than 1,500 total based on the number of hand outs distributed.

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How did the local news stations report on the rally?

ABC15 ran a fair and straight forward story,  Hundreds gather for pro-gun rally at Arizona State Capitol.

A producer must have decided the story needed to be more dramatic and scary,  did some editing, then ran the story again.  The edits turned it into a “Gun Rights/Anti-Obama Rally” about “a small army, armed with hundreds of assault rifles, pistols, and shotguns took to the front lawn at the capitol today”.

ABC15 Reporter, Steve Kuzj, was a good guy and ran a fair story.  Please send him a thank you note if you get a chance.   Trusting in Mr. Kuzj’s good nature, Jacqueline elected to discuss gun rights, the Sandy Hook shootings, and what should be done to reduce violent murder.  The reporter was initially confused about the rally, since he had an announcement that claimed it was supposed to be an Anti-Amnesty rally.   He also noted that he would need an opposing view for “balance” in the story, but that there were no anti-rights people counter protesting.  Unfortunately,  the two or three anti-gun/anti-rights activists in Arizona were busy, so he had to use Facebook comments for balance.  It must have been challenging to find a few anti-gun quotes that didn’t include personal attacks, profanity, or delusional thinking.

KASZ FOX10 – Dozens rally at Capitol to protest gun control, Obama

KPHO CBS-5 did a drive-by hit-piece about an “Impeach Obama Rally”. When contacted by rally attendees about the deceptive story, KPHO adamantly argued that their story was correct.  Eventually, they provided a link to an ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration PAC) Facebook event page as the source for their story.   Unfortunately, nobody actually organized their national event and only 350 people even “Liked” the event page.  Even worse for KPHO, it appears the Washington based ALIPAC planned their event for 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM EST (9:00 to 11:00 Arizona time), while the 2nd Amendment Rally was from noon until 2:00 Arizona time.  Yes, a local news station “covered” the story of armed people at the capitol by looking at the wrong event page on Facebook and “constructing” the rest of the story.  On the KPHO Facebook page, they blamed the gun-rights rally organizers for the story.

it was presented to us as a rally to “Impeach Obama”. The initial information we received said nothing about gun rights. We expected a few dozen people and weren’t even sure we were going to cover it. It was a surprise to see all those people there and the biggest issue was the 2nd amendment. We would not have even known about the event except for 2 viewers who sent us the first info with links to an Impeach Obama Facebook page. No one involved in the gun rights issue bothered to tell us about the rally. Next time perhaps they will.

I guess KPHO doesn’t believe it is their job to publish accurate stories.

Check out Kevin’s 2nd Amendment Rally after action report at Misfires and Light Strikes.
Go read Skas 2nd Amendment Rally after action report over at Walls of the City.

Updated to add 2nd Amendment rally start and end time.