The email boxes of Colorado lawmakers haven’t been pretty lately, unless you appreciate personal threats, F-bombs, and general references to some other reality where facts as we know them don’t exist.

But a shady email from the general manager of a newspaper? You’d never expect it.

But, as first reported by KRDO TV in an excellent piece, that’s what State Sen. Angela Giron received March 3, from Pueblo Chieftain General Manager Ray Stafford.

In his email, Stafford first introduced himself to Giron as the person “responsible for the entire newspaper, including the newsroom,” and then wrote: “Please do not vote for the current gun legislation. To vote for it would be an affront to the citizens of this state, Pueblo, and America.”

Stafford signed the letter with his title and the phase “And gun owner.” Yikes.

As General Manager of the newspaper, as opposed to, for example, the news editor, Stafford is entitled to his opinion and to express it freely, but to me, this private email undermines the Chieftain’s credibility as an impartial news source, raising the possibility that Stafford will use his influence to direct the newspaper’s journalism against Giron personally or to tilt coverage against gun safety legislation.

I mean, why send the letter privately and tell a State Senator specifically how much power you wield at the newspaper?

I described the letter to Kevin Z. Smith, who’s chairman of the Ethics Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists.

He said the position of “general manager” position can probably be equated to that of publisher, and newspaper publishers often try to “affect some kind of influence” in the community, by sitting on boards or expressing opinions.

There needs to be a “clear delineation between what the publisher is attempting to do” and “what the responsibility of the newsroom is, Smith told me. adding that “often times that’s where the line gets crossed.”

Smith: It’s hard when the General Manager says, openly, ‘I’m also in charge of the newsroom and news coverage.’ To me that says, ‘This paper is going to take a news-coverage stance that we’re not going to support any types of gun legislation.’ If that’s what I’m reading, between the lines, then that’s patently unfair and unethical.

When this happens, the newsroom will have to “work very hard” to regain credibility, Smith said.

Fred Brown, another former Society for Professional Journalists Ethics Committee Chair, said Smith’s opinion should have been expressed in public, possibly on the opinion page. Brown doesn’t think Stafford’s email was unethical, but Brown wrote,  “the vehicle chosen to deliver the sentiment does raise some flags. Why not do it publicly?”

For more on the ethics of this, see the New York Times ethics policy, for example, here.

So, the bottom line, from my perspective, is that this is an unseemly, shady way for a newspaperman to operate, bringing into question the neutrality of the Chieftain’s news department. Certainly, everyday readers of the Chieftain would look askance at it. Common sense says it’s wrong.

Stafford did not immediately respond to my telephone call seeking comment, but he told KRDO:

“You have a copy of my e-mail and it’s not threatening at all. In fact, I point out that that was my opinion and I certainly have a right to that opinion and it doesn’t matter what e-mail account I send it from. The fact is the e-mail doesn’t contain any kind of a threat whatsoever,” Stafford said.

An assistant publisher and vice president also told KRDO that the newspaper has published balanced stories on gun-safety legislation.

Still, Stafford owes the Chieftain’s readers an apology. He should assure them that he will not direct the newsroom to produce stories unfavorable to Giron or to gun-safety legislation.

Stafford would be doing his profession a favor if he acknowledged his mistake publicly. Journalism is taking enough hits as it is, without gun-owning general managers embarrassing themselves in public.

All the cars honking in front of the State Capitol on Monday became a symbol, in the media, of the angry opposition to gun-safety legislation.

I’m not the first to report this, but the idea for the honk-athon came from Michael “Brownie” Brown, who was doing a “heck’ve a job” during Hurricane Katrina, in George W. Bush’s humble opinion.

Last Thursday on his KHOW radio show and on his blog, Brownie first started encouraging listeners to drive by the State Capitol and lean on their horns:

We can spend all day Monday driving by…laying on that horn until it’s driving you crazy. I want to hear horns honking all day long at Colfax and Broadway…So are you in or not? I have no clue if this will work or not…but i think if all of you think about this, it’s a pretty easy thing to do….All i am suggesting is you drive around, you lay on your horn, you make as much noise as possible.

Brown then took his horn campaign deeper into the conservative echo chamber, apeearing on other talk shows and promoting it to his friends.

And his idea took off, as Brownie reported on his blog Monday:

Little did I realize how impactful that suggestion [of honking horns] would be for decent, ordinary citizens around the nation. First, the Daily Caller picked up the story. Then, Erick Erickson at Red State picked up the story. You can read those here and here. Both are great stories and I’m grateful for their coverage.

Some people write off radio, but Brownie’s stunt shows how conservative talk shows can launch an idea or an action, using the media connectons and pseudo “celebrity” qualities of the hosts, as well as the networks of their fringe audiences.

You’re feeling pretty good right now if you were one of the gun-rights activists who paid for the biplane that flew over the Colorado Capitol Monday carrying a banner: “Hick: Do Not Take our Guns.”

Local reporters ate up the banner, and a Google search turns up about 2,000 hits.

One problem: The banner is totally misleading, in the context of what is actually happening below the plane on the ground at the Capitol.

If you own a gun, you won’t lose it under the proposed legislation. And if you’re a law-abiding citizen, the bills won’t affect your ability to buy a gun.

As such, you’d think reporters who cited the banner would have pointed out, hey, its message doesn’t connect with reality in Colorado.

But just one story bothered to say that the banner was a sky-high form of manipulation.

As far as I can tell, only 9News’ political reporter Brandon Rittiman did the right thing and put the banner in context:

A constant drone of honking car horns could be heard from inside the governor’s office, part of a demonstration against the gun control measures. A hired airplane flew over the Capital for hours towing a banner that read, “HICK: DO NOT TAKE OUR GUNS.”

“There’s a plane flying around that’s saying, ‘Hick, don’t take our guns.’ Well, here’s the answer: we’re not taking any guns,” said the governor.

While nobody would have to give up a gun they currently own under the proposals, the protestors still see them as overly restrictive of the second amendment. [bigmedia emphasis]

Other reporters let the banner speak for itself.

Associated Press reporters Ivan Moreno and Kristen Wyatt’s piece, which was picked up widely, including by the Washington Post, described some of the gun bills under consideration, but didn’t refute the implication of the banner:

A biplane flying above the Capitol Monday warned the governor, “HICK: DO NOT TAKE OUR GUNS!” Hickenlooper backs expanded background checks and has said he’s considering a bill to limit ammunition magazines to 15 rounds. He hasn’t indicated where he stands on other measures, including whether he supports a proposal that would hold sellers and owners of assault weapons liable for shootings by such firearms.

The Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels and Kurtis Lee reported:

The biplane flying over the Capitol carried a not-so-subtle message to the Democratic governor: “Hick, don’t take our guns.”

(To be fair, Post coverage described the gun bills in separate articles, but still.)

Television stories by Fox 31’s Kim Posey and 7News Anica Padilla reported the banner and provided no context.

If you’ve made it to this point in this blog post, you might be thinking that this isn’t such a big deal. A manipulative banner. What else is new?

But the response by reporters to the banner is emblematic of how gun-rights activists have managed to push their accusation of a gun-grab into the debate at the Capitol without being called out on it.

The don’t-take-my-gun banner isn’t an outright lie that can be corrected, but reporters should try harder to defend readers from the you’re-going-to-lose-your-gun spin that’s being pushed at the Capitol.

Even before the bill requiring universal background checks on gun purchases clears the State Legislature, as expected, the head of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, Dudley Brown, is promising to challenge the law in court.

No surprise there from an organization that puts “no compromise” atop its website. But it deserves reporting because of the sweeping impact that Brown says he lawsuit could have.

Brown says his organization will use a legal strategy that would not only overturn the would-be universal-background-check law, but also the existing Colorado Brady Act, which requires limited background checks. So all background checks would be eliminated.

Brown made these comments on KFKA radio’s Scooter McGee show last week:

Scooter (@13:20): Unfortunately, the fight is not working. They are going to pass this. Conservatives are now saying, well, even if it passes, it won’t work in the courts. Well even if it goes–

Brown: I disagree. Look, I was quoted in the McDonald decision by the United States Supreme Court, directly quoted by Justice Alito in the majority decision. I will tell ya that some of those decisions, unfortunately, both Heller and MacDonald, justify gun control. You’ve been told a lie, if you think that Heller or MacDonald, are going to overturn any of these bills. I don’t believe they are. Is it possible that we could overturn the expansion of Brady in the universal background checks because of Article II, Section 13, that says ‘the right of no person to keep and bear arms shall be called in question?’ Well, we’re going to try. But it’s not just going to just repeal that bill. It’s going to repeal the entire Colorado Brady Act, if it’s actually successful. Because we don’t believe that you should be required to go through a background check. The truth is, the NRA isn’t going to supoort us on that. They never have. They’ve actually been in favor of Brady checks–and expand Brady checks, including mental health provisions. And here’s a news flash to you, Scooter, if they have mental health provisions, you’ll never be able to pass a Brady check, because they will call you crazy.

Scooter: News to you, Dudley?

Brown: So will they me. So will they Kevin Blake, who is listening. So they will most gun owners.

Scooter: They are going to do it to all of us, and that is ultimately the crux of this…

I’m hoping McGee treats his conservative audience to a conversation with the NRA about its legal plans if the background-checks bill passes, and he invites Brown to keep things interesting.

In an article Tuesday, The Denver Post described the gun safety debate in the State House this way:

Monday’s discussion in the House, while far shorter than the 12-hour debate Friday, was distinguished by speeches that quoted “Hamlet,” invoked images of Japanese internment camps and cited the example of Mahatma Gandhi — in this case in favor of gun rights.

If you read this, you were probably wondering what distingished speeches referenced “Japanese internment camps.” I mean, you can guess what was said about Hamlet, but what could possibly be the connection between guns and internment camps?

The article didn’t say, but it turns out that Rep. Kevin Priola compared the rounding up and jailing of Japanese Americans during WWII to proposed legislation prohibiting large-capacity ammunition magazines:

Priola stated:

Priola: When American men and women were killed, and the public’s anger was so strong that they asked politicians to do something, ‘We must do something for public safety. It’s about public safety. And we must do something.’ But after the threat has passed, and time had healed wounds, we reflected on what we had done. Had actually taken away freedom from those American citizens, and with hindsight we can now be remorseful. What am I speaking of? Think about it. The Japanese interns. In 1941 and 42, Americans were asking politicians: ‘This group over here. They are a threat to public safety. We must remove them from the coasts because they’ll sabotage ships and they’ll blow up our navy ships.”

Speaker: Rep. Priola, can we keep it on House Bill 1224.

As I read this, Priola is equating the “freedom” you lose when a wave of bigotry lands you in jail to the “freedom” lost when concerns about gun safety spawn legislation banning large-capacity magazines, when you still have your small-capacity ones plus you still have your guns (notto mention your actual freedom).

Priola’s position is, objectively, so extreme that The Post should reported his full remarks.

You’d think KHOW’s Peter Boyles, who’s probably the leading birther talk-show host in America, would at least stop and say ‘thank you’ when a State Senator tips his hat to Boyles’ relentless efforts to expose President Obama’s Social Security number as phony.

Boyles had his chance Tuesday, when State Sen. Greg Brophy told Boyles on air that media corporations “shut down” the debate about Obama’s Social Security number because such a debate might be “toooo disruptive” and cause the media companies to make less money.

Boyles @17:10: I don’t know if you’ve seen this, Come and Take It. It’s a wonderful video by this guy coming up Steve Vaus. He’s won some Grammy’s and he’s done this video. They can’t get anybody to let him buy time, including the company I work for, won’t let him buy time. So we put him up. We put him on the air… It’s interesting, as he’s pointed out, the big media corps, they are as afraid of the President, or in bed with these guys because they are looking for bailouts, so they don’t want any problems. But the same stations that would not take Vaus’ ad will take ads from the people with Gabby Giffords. Does that make any sense to you as an elected official?

Brophy: Of course it doesn’t. But I guess, on the one hand, they just want what’s good for business. They’re not ideological. That’s why they shut down all that talk about, that you worked so hard on, the President’s Social Security number. Exact same thing. Let’s not talk about the stuff that might be toooo disruptive because, ‘we all got to make some money here.’

If I’m Boyles, and I hear this from Brophy, I’m thinking, “Ah ha! I’ve got a fellow birther on the phone. And he’s a State Senator! I should ask some questions and test the depth of his birtherness.”

But Boyles, who ranks as Colorado’s number one birther, according to Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard, let it slide by, without asking Brophy if he thinks the origin of Obama’s SS number is a legitimate issue that truly deserves more media scrutiny.

So I did Boyles’ work for him and asked the amiable Brophy, a Republican from Wray, whether he thought Obama’s Social Security number is fake.

“Call Boyles and ask him,” he responded. “He did extensive work on it.”

Questioned further, Brophy wrote: “Peter makes a great case, and I have not heard a rebuttal. Do you have a good one.”

I referred Brophy to Snopes and media fact checkers.

Conservative talk radio is reverberating with misrepresentation, confusion, and falsehoods about the gun safety legislation moving through the State Legislature.

Now would be a good time for fact-based listeners to call into these fear-based shows to straighten out the hype-based hosts and their back-scratching guests.

For example, Sen. Kevin Lundberg said the following on KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show Feb. 11:

“You know, I remember decades ago, somebody said, ‘I will not give up my gun rights, you know, until you pry my cold dead hands away from it.’  We all thought, ‘Well, That will never happen.’ Well, boy, we are so close, so close to that.”

I hope Sen. Lundberg isn’t digging a bunker in preparation for his own death in a final righteous gun battle, which he believes to be “so close.”

In reality, no proposed bill in the Colorado Legislature would make it illegal for Lundberg to own a gun. Ditto for any law-abiding Republican talk-show host, despite the cries you’re hearing on the airwaves.

Lundberg continued:

“PBS NewsHour asked me: ‘Can’t you find a middle ground?’  And my answer was, ‘Yeah, it’s what we have in place now.  We have a concealed/carry law. We don’t have a Vermont-style carry, where every citizen is allowed to carry, just by virtue of being a legal citizen.  But So we have a permit system.’  Okay.  I can accept that as being a middle ground.  But the Left believes the only solution is pretty much a total ban on everything.  And so they’re just going for everything they can get.  It’s a very, very extreme position.”

Heading toward similar extremes, House Minority Leader Mark Waller told KHOW’s Michael Brown Wed.:

“And there’s no evidence that universal background checks, in any way, enhance public safety.”

No evidence? Zero?

Last month, the Washington Post’s Brad Plumer interviewed a University of Chicago Professor who studied the issue in-depth and concluded that universal background checks would likely enhance public safety, by requiring checks on the gun buyers who aren’t currently required to get them (up to 40% of gun purchases. The NRA believes the figure is 10%, but, still, Ludwig’s argument, below, still holds up.)

Ludwig cited studies in the late 1980s showing that 80% of people who committed a crime with a handgun acquired it from an unlicensed gun dealer and therefore didn’t have a background check.

“Most people who own guns are middle-class, law-abiding citizens,” he says. “If you tell them to do a background check, I think they’ll do it voluntarily.” And for those who prefer to evade the law, the government might have to provide more resources for police to do undercover gun buys on the secondary market—in order to ensure compliance. “That’s never going to be perfect, but anything you can do to tighten the secondary market will help.”

That’s fact-based, common sense. It makes a good starting point for a reasonable discussion on costs and benefits of background checks.

Waller’s and Lundberg’s hyperbole sends us in the opposite direction and should be called out by talk-radio hosts–or you, if you listen in.

Denver Attorney Randy Corporon is one of those Tea Party activists who thinks Republicans are losing elections because, as he said on the radio recently, they’ve “gotten away from the conservative values that make Republicans win.”

If that’s true, then why not talk about “conservative values” until you turn red, and Colorado reddens up right along with you?

Maybe it’s because Republicans are listening to consultants who tell them to shut up about what they really believe.

When he arrived at the Legislature, freshman State Rep. Justin Everett was told not “to go to meetings, and not fill out surveys, and not really take strong stances on anything,” Everett told Corporon last month on KLZ radio’s Grassroots Radio Colorado.

“Obviously, I didn’t do that,” Everett said on the radio in January, saying essentially that he won’t be silenced and pointing to issues he discussed right there on Grassroots Radio Colorado as proof that he will continue to speak out. (Apparently, other GOP lawmakers whose legislation was featured in a Denver Post article over the weekend, won’t back down either.)

You’d think the good folks on Grassroots Radio Colorado would want to know who told Everett to tone it down at the Legislature, because it sounds like the Grassroots Radio Colorado hosts are the ones whom Republicans are trying to keep guys like Everett from chatting with. But the question wasn’t raised, so I asked Everett who told him to avoid meetings, not take strong positions, etc.

“I think it was some of the consultants that were hired,” he wrote, adding that he filled out every survey he had time for, and attended every meeting he could possibly make.

“I’m not going to turn my back on Tea Party people,” he said in one interview during the campaign, during which he certainly came out with some strong positions against, for example, providing grade-grade school education to undocumented children.

Everett said on the radio Jan. 11: “We’re going to go through this battle every two years, about, ‘Yeah, we need to move to the Left, further left, further left.’ And then of course, there will be those of us who will push back. ‘Actually, we need to move further right,’ because it seems that we’re always compromising with the Democrats, much to their side, and that’s how we end up with $17 trillion deficits, and you know, our Constitution basically being used as toilet paper.”

The Constitution as toilet paper? Ouch.

“And all those [state legislative] races that were supposedly competitive races ended up not being competitive races because our candidates just weren’t taking strong stances, on anything,” Everett told Corporon, who was a guest host on Grassroots Radio Colorado.

Everett’s comment about being advised not to fill out surveys might explain why so few Republicans bothered to fill out The Denver Post’s 2012 candidate survey, which had basic questions about candidates’ stances on key issues, during the last election. Do GOP candidates plan on ignoring The Post’s basic voter guide again? (Hint: If I’m The Denver Post, I might want to check on this.)

Everett, by the way, filled out The Post’s survey, and my guess is he’ll do it again. Listen for him on Grassroots Radio Colorado.

The good folks on Grassroots Radio Colorado have a strong opinion on gun safety issues. They like to bounce it off guests like Sen. Vicki Marble, who bounces it right back at them.

From there, it goes out over the radio, where it ricochets off canyon walls or wherever it’s heard. And then it returns into the studio from the mouths of callers, who utter similar if not identical sounds to hosts Jason Worley and Ken Clark.

The obvious way to add excitement and air to this closed loop would be to bring in fresh ideas that don’t match the sounds bouncig around the KLZ offices.

To do this, bring in someone to counter folks like Marble, who appeared on the show Tuesday.

Here’s what Marble had to say about gun safety:

Marble: Pretty soon, we’re going to be left with a pea shooter if we don’t take a stand…

I can honestly say, the bottom line on gun control, it’s advocating for criminals! That’s basically what gun control is. It’s criminal advocacy. Because it’s taking away the gun rights from law-abiding citizens and leaving us defenseless. And the criminals! It’s going to be open season for them…

And the bottom line. You know, all the gun laws they make are not going to stop crime. All the guns that they have made so far have not stopped crime and drugs. Basically, our jails are full, and crime is doing a pretty good business.

In reality, none of the gun safety proposals in the State Legislature would reduce the talk-show crowd to arming themselves with pea shooters and microphones, if they’re law-abiding citizens. Nothing would stop citizens in good standing from buying a gun or owning one. Defenseless? What?

For the sake of safety and decency, why have a one-sided conversation about guns, even on conservative talk radio?

Republicans sitting on the State House’s Health Insurance and Environment Committee apparently didn’t hear the post-election groaning of Josh Penry, Rob Witwer and others as they begged Republicans to be more inclusive and tolerant.

They voted 6-5 (party line) today against killing a measure that would have banned nearly all abortions in Colorado, with no exception for a woman raped by her father, for example.

Reporters groping for evidence of a post-election move to the middle by Colorado Republicans should look elsewhere. In fact, this legislation shifts the Colorado GOP further to the right on abortion than it’s been in years.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Humphrey, was apparently the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation Colorado has seen since 2007, when Sen. Kent Lambert and Scott Renfroe sponsored a similar abortion ban modeled after a South Dakota measure. Doug Lamborn’s attempts to ban late-term abortion in the late 1990’s and early 00’s look moderate by comparison to Humphrey’s bill today.

Still, Republicans Conti, Humphrey, Joshi, Landgraf, and Stephens voted against killing Humphrey’s legislation, with Conti voting both ways by joining Democrats (McCann, Schafer, Fields, Ginal, Primavera, Young) in also voting against passage.

Reporters should track down Rep. Kathleen Conti and get her thinking on the measure, because voting both ways might constitute a more inclusive tack and be a sign of a both-ways moderation strategy that’s in the works.

As it is, in the absence of Republicans inside or outside the Capitol speaking out against the abortion ban, and with the party-line GOP support of the measure in committee, reporters have to wonder if there’s any real passion for change among Colorado Republicans, even among those advocating for it.

Why aren’t Penry and Witwer organizing a news conference, for example, denouncing Rep. Humphrey’s bill, crying out for GOP inclusiveness, and pointing to a poll just released by Project New America and Keating Research showing that 62 percent of Colorado voters agree that, ‘A woman should be allowed to have an abortion based on her personal values and her doctor’s advice.’

As it is, reporters should cover the absence of news conferences like that one.