…then why do its proponents think that it’s necessary to lie in its support?

One would think that a good cause would be able to stand on its own merits. So what should we think when a cause is so often supported through dishonesty? The latest is The Self-hating Gun Owner. The star of this little NYT fantasy is one Michael Kundu. Mr. Kundu, we are told, is an AR-15 owner who loathes guns. To fluff up his creds, we are further told that he’s no ordinary shooter; he’s “a master marksman from rural Washington”. It makes for quite a ripping yarn…

Mr. Kundu is a master marksman from rural Washington who owns pistols and assault rifles for self-defense, all while claiming to detest the presence of guns in his life and in the broader American culture.

“I’d love to see all guns destroyed,” he said. “But I’m not giving up mine first.”

Mr. Kundu, 48, who works for the federal government, is a conflicted gun owner, one of many such Americans whom researchers and social scientists are just beginning to study as a potentially moderating influence in the escalating gun debate.

In Mr. Kundu’s case, the conflict is that he enjoys competitive shooting even as he perceives danger in what he describes as a local arms race that he feels powerless to escape.

Out of “common sense,” he said, he needs to be as armed as his neighbors, some of whom he describes as troublemakers with assault rifles. “It is so discouraging, so paranoia-inducing,” he said. “It makes one feel as though you’ve got to be continually vigilant and defensive instead of living your life free.”

Other gun owners interviewed for this article expressed similar reservations, citing their enjoyment of hunting or of introducing family members to the sport while expressing support for stricter gun control legislation. Mr. Kundu, for instance, supports a ban on the kind of assault weapon that he owns, a rifle manufactured by Panther Arms.

It is these voices of ambivalence that policy makers say are likely to be drowned out by the passion at the extreme ends.

But there’s a trick to spinning a really good ripping yarn: Know when to say when. There comes a point when you’ve said way too much and someone’s gonna smell a rat. Pagunblog.com’s Sebastian smelled a rat and started digging…

Kundu claims to be a master marksman in Washington State. The governing body for that kind of shooting is the NRA or WSRPA. Most competitive shooters will have match results online somewhere, especially at that level. So I decided I would start digging. If he is truly ranked Master in high-power, someone should have heard of him, or shot with him, and there should be a record. When you do that kind of competition, and are ranked highly, you’ve shot with an awful lot of people in an awful lot of matches. I couldn’t find any match results indicating this guy is a serious competitor, but what I did find destroys the whole NYT narrative. Michael Kundu, who the New York Times claims is the new “middle ground” in the gun control debate, is neither an ordinary gun owner, or any kind of moderate voice.

This is not the first time Kundu has been in the media pitching himself as a self-hating, anti-hunting gun owner. CNN has taken the bait too. So who is Michael Kundu? Well, he was School Board President for Marysville School District who ended up in hot water in the past for writing a racist e-mail as a school board president. Also, as School Board President, he attempted to censor dissenting viewpoints on global warming from being discussed in schools.

So lemme get this straight: A profesheenul journalist couldn’t uncover what a mere blogger had no trouble at all locating. I sounds to me like there really wasn’t much of an interest in vetting Kundu’s story. Probably because it fit the narrative too well.