NY Times Slams Appleseed Project - Appleseed Responds

That the New York Times Magazine did a hatchet job on the Appleseed Project does not surprise me. Reading the article, it doesn't take long to see the political bent of the author:

While Dailey has said Appleseed should be apolitical, the talk at this Appleseed boot camp and at several others I attended across the country over the course of a year contained pieces of a conversation that has unfolded behind the motley carnivals of the Tea Party movement: a serious deliberation on the right about the nature of the American founding and the limits of incivility.

Notice reference to the Tea Party movement as a "motley carnival." The angle to the article is that Appleseed is teaching armed resistance. This was all the Violence Policy Center needed to see to link to the article on their Twitter feed.

NYT on "Appleseed Project"--Mere Marksmen or More Militia Members?

One group the article's author (I refrain from calling him a reporter) spoke with stated the group "indoctrinates" participants. But when you view the accompanying video on the Time's web site, it seems to me the only indoctrination is teaching the American History that today's public schools fail to teach.

For their part, the Appleseed project has sent a Letter to the Editor and posted the rebuttal on their web site.

...we opened ourselves up and said our piece in trust that it would be conveyed by the press to its readers.

Sadly, today's article is not about us. It is not about the Appleseed Project. It is about militias and about anecdotal gun owners who are not members of our program. The constant focus on the militia movement, the Tea Party, and Mr. Faire are at the center of this article and as a result this article is not about us, since those things are not, and never have been the Appleseed Project.

...In its rush to cover the desired story, that is, scary militia groups, the NYT simply misses what is really important. Therein lies its disservice to both its readers and our program.

The Appleseed Project held in Chesterfield County here in Virginia several years ago and some of the folks hosting the clinic were also active in a local Friends of NRA Committee. VSSA helped promote the clinic on the VSSA web site. A quick look at the organization's web site demonstrates that Appleseed is particularly proud of their outreach to young shooters.

Just one more mainstream media take down on the shooting community.