The OC Register misquoted me ["I'm afraid of terrorists but am more afraid of a government that can't protect us," he said.] at the TEA party in San Juan Capistrano. Actually I said: “I’m afraid of terrorists but I’m more afraid of a government strong enough to protect us from terrorists.” Context was gun rights, America's best homeland security.
This isn't the first time i've been misquoted by journalists, but this misquote was completely different and totally changed the meaning i tried to convey, and i repeated my statement twice to the reporter so i have a hard time believing my words were not intentionally reconstructed by someone in the chain (for some reason, maybe an innocuous one like saving space?).
Perhaps these meaning-morphing misquotes are more common than we realize, like defensive gun uses (DGU's)–aggregate numbers of which are hard to accept until it actually happens to you.
My own Defensive Gun Use, in February, was epiphanic in this regard as, in spite of the dozens who witnessed me draw my pistol to defend against a crazed Muslim student threatening to kill, at my locked-down office building in Laguna Hills, the whole incident was completely ignored by the Register and did not even make the Register's "police blotter" – what is going on in the press rooms?
