Updated August 24, 2017
Fisk means fact check, and fisking is
the act of documenting specific statements as factually incorrect and
publishing the proof, which normally consists of relevant documents
directly contradicting the erroneous statement.
On Second Opinion Blog is an excellent
example of fisking. It commenced on January 25, 2009 to fisk, or fact
check, the Second Amendment related arguments relied upon as
authoritative by supporters of gun control. The specific statements
that require fisking are those of the fifteen professional historians
who backed up Justice Stevens' 2008 District of Columbia vs Heller
Supreme Court dissent arguing that the Second Amendment was not
intended to protect individual rights.
The initial On Second Opinion article was
appropriately titled, Root Causes Of Never-Ending Second Amendment Dispute Part 1, and the series ran to twenty-four
fiskings. That there is any dispute today about Second Amendment
history and intent is largely attributable to the fifteen mistaken academics
who signed the Heller brief written by historian Jack Rakove of
Stanford. Sixteen numbered errors of fact are documented in the Root
Causes series along with extensive information essential for proper
interpretation ignored by the historians and directly contradicting
their Heller brief assertions.
At the top of this page is a link,
Fisking Index Page, which provides direct access to each of the
twenty-four articles in the Root Causes Of Never-Ending Second
Amendment Dispute series. There are also other series listed, and one, Justice Stevens' Train Wreck Of American History,
includes fisking of Justice Stevens' dissent itself. The historians'
error problems carry right over into the Stevens dissent. Every
relevant aspect of the historians' Heller brief and Justice Stevens'
Heller dissent are based upon fallacious conflation, historical
error, and misinterpretation.
The truth is out there - right here.
Find out the documented facts of Second Amendment history. See if
your belief system is factually founded and can withstand fisking, or if it has no relationship
to reality whatsoever, like the Heller historians and Justice Stevens, and you have been
brainwashed.