USA – -(Ammoland.com)- It has been several weeks since revelations that Katie Couric committed journalism malpractice by intentionally editing her “documentary” film Under the Gun to falsely portray gun rights supporters as being dumbstruck by a question about background checks.
Ammoland was first to break the story that the film’s director, Stephanie Soechtig, and producer, Joshua A. Kunau, may have committed several federal felonies during the making of the film by purchasing several firearms in direct violation of federal law.
The story quickly gained national attention, forcing Ms. Soechtig to issue a response, which as we explained, hardly absolves anyone of any wrongdoing.
In her response, Ms. Soechtig claims that all of the firearms involved were turned over to law enforcement and destroyed, having never left the state of Arizona. But as discussed by Alan Korwin over at The Federalist, her claim is highly suspect. For one, Arizona law requires firearms in the custody of law enforcement to be sold or traded to any firearm business authorized to receive and dispose of the firearm under federal and state law (A.R.S. § 12-945(B)), thereby specifically prohibiting the destruction of firearms in the custody of law enforcement. As a result, either Ms. Soechtig is lying, or an Arizona law enforcement agency willfully violated state law.
Furthermore, Arizona law requires any agency that takes property from a person to provide the person with a detailed receipt for the property. (A.R.S. § 12-944(A)). This means that Ms. Soechtig, Mr. Kunau, or someone else involved with the production of the film should have been given such a receipt, which would include a notice to the person on how to retrieve the property.
We ask Ms. Soechtig to produce this receipt, or at the very least to identify the law enforcement agency who allegedly received and destroyed the firearms. Seeing how Ms. Soechtig’s associates have already attempted to silence this story, we don’t expect a response anytime soon.