Media push agenda against 2nd Amendment while masquerading as objective.
The
media agenda against guns is nothing new. But recent mass shootings have
encouraged supposedly neutral journalists to push for gun regulation instead of
reporting the facts surrounding the tragedies.
One
thing the media seldom mention is that both the Newtown
and Aurora
shootings occurred in gun free zones. In the Clackamas Town Center Shooting in Oregon, however, a
gunman was stopped when someone with a concealed carry permit intervened. There
were only two casualties in this shooting which received little media
attention. If this incident was mentioned, the concealed carry part of the
story
was
almost completely ignored.
Some
journalists have gone after after the NRA, calling for them to labeled
“terrorist organizations” or lamented that they “yield too much power.” Others
simply attacked any pro-gun advocate they had on their program. Still, a few
went straight for the Constitution, with calls to “repeal the Second Amendment”
or revise it. Many tried to imagine a world without guns … forgetting that even
without guns, violence would still exist.
1. Donald Kaul Calls
to “Repeal Second Amendment”
The
most egregious case of anti-gun advocacy has got to Donald Kaul. Kaul, who
retired from writing a weekly column in The Des Moines Register in mid-2012,
came back after Newtown
to speak out,
taking
anti-gun advocacy to a whole new level.
He
had three solutions to the so called gun violence problem. The first of these
was to “repeal the Second Amendment” since the founders never intended for
private gun ownership as it is today.
After
that, he would like to “declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make
membership illegal.” He argued that this would make owning guns less desirable,
like how Communism was made illegal. Except… joining the Communist party was
never actually made illegal in the United States.
He
continued that he would like to “tie up Mitch McConnell and John Boehner” and
“drag them around.” Kaul seemed to think that a good way to end violence is
with more violence towards those with whom you disagree.
On
Jan. 4, 2013, Kaul
followed
up on his piece on lefty site AlterNet. In his feel-sorry-for-me piece, he
contemplated why people simply didn’t understand that his call to tie up
McConnell and Boehner was satirical. “I was using it as a metaphor for making
politicians pay a price for their inability to confront the gun lobby.”
But
that wasn’t all. He later explained that his suggestion to repeal the Second
Amendment was also satirical, to “point out that it’s being misinterpreted and
misused.” He then said how he was flabbergasted that NRA members might be upset
about his call to label the NRA as a terrorist organization. “I may now be closer
to believing the NRA is an organization of terrorists, however.”
Surprisingly,
people don’t like it when someone demonizes an entire organization.
2. Piers Morgan’s
Vendetta against Guns
Piers
Morgan never misses an opportunity to immediately politicize a tragedy and call
for gun control. Newtown
is no exception. The backlash against Morgan’s statements had been fierce this
time around, though, with a petition to the White House to have him
deported
back to England.
On
Dec. 19, 2012, Morgan claimed to respect the Constitution – including the
Second Amendment – but then called for
gun
control anyway. “If he didn’t have guns, none of those children would have
been shot,” he stated matter of factly. The previous day, on Dec. 18, Morgan
went
after a gun advocate on his show, calling him “an unbelievably stupid man”
and “dangerous.”
Morgan
is a legal resident of the United States,
who is originally from England.
He is host of CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight,” which replaced Larry King when he
retired in 2010. He is a British journalist, and studied journalism at Harlow College.
3. New York Paper Publishes Addresses of All
Local Gun Owners
Nothing
can be more helpful to a criminal than giving them an exact map of which homes
are armed and which ones aren’t… and that is exactly what the New York paper Journal News did in its Dec.
25 edition.
In
a protest against gun rights, the newspaper
published
all the addresses of those who owned guns, not thinking through the consequences
of such actions. Now, potential criminals are armed with valuable information
that puts people at risk.
On
Jan. 7, 2013, New York State Senator Greg Ball
went
on Huffington Post Live to discuss the Journal News escapade. He stated
that while gun permits are public record, this list does not include criminals
who may have illegally obtained guns in their possession. “We're talking about
people who obey the law.” He continued by saying that permits belong to “many
victims of domestic violence who got a permit to protect themselves.” He called
this map a “public safety nightmare.”
It
gets better. On Jan. 4, the Rockland County Times, another New York paper in the same area as Journal
News, reported that
25%
of the gun map was incorrect. “Rockland
residents have reported that the information on the gun map is sometimes more
than 20 years outdated.”
4. Bob Costas Blames
Murder/Suicide on Guns
After
the tragic murder/suicide of a Kansas City Chiefs football player and his
girlfriend, NBC’s Bob Costas wondered during halftime whether these two people
would
still be alive if the football player had not owned a gun. “If Jovan
Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today,”
he stated. According to Costas, guns are the problem, period. There are no
other ways to kill someone and there were no other factors contributing to this
tragedy.
5. Soledad O’Brien Doesn’t Understand Gun
Ownership
Soledad
O’Brien is no stranger to stating her liberal opinions as opposed to balanced
journalism, but after the Newtown
shootings, she really lost it. On Dec. 17, O’Brien
attacked
pro-gun proponent and author John Lott. “Your position completely boggles me,”
she gasped. A few days later, on Dec. 20, O’Brien expounded on her confusion by
promoting
a ban on hand guns. “Is going to the assault weapons far enough?” she
pondered. “Does this … open up a conversation toward limiting handguns?”
6. David Gregory
Promotes President Obama’s Gun Control Speech
NBC
could never find anything wrong with anything President Obama had ever said,
even when it comes to calling for gun control at a candle light memorial. In
fact, NBC’s David Gregory went along and helped
politicize
the tragedy on Dec. 21, 2012. Gregory included many sound bites of the
President’s call for gun control, but failed to interview any gun advocates. He
then concluded his segment with: “The politics, it's just so hard to hear about
people in so much pain as we go into the holidays. But it's all over that area,
and we all feel it.”
On
Dec. 23, while interviewing Wayne La Pierre of the NRA, Gregory
produced
a high capacity magazine as a prop, which is in violation of D.C. gun laws.
This caused an investigation by the D.C. Metropolitan Police, who stated that
they had
denied
NBC permission to use the magazine as a prop when they were asked. No word
yet on whether charges will be filed.
7. Don Lemon’s Anti-Gun
Tirade
On
Dec. 17, 2012, CNN anchor Don Lemon went on a
tirade
against guns, calling for them only to be in the hands of law enforcement. “We
need to get guns and bullets and automatic weapons off the streets,” he
declared on his program. But what Lemon failed to consider is that in a time of
crisis, it can take law enforcement minutes to get to a crime scene. A law
abiding citizen with a concealed carry permit could, in fact, neutralize a
situation sooner, like with the
Clackamas
Town Center shooting in Oregon.
8. Dylan Byers is Sad
Gun Control Talk Didn’t Survive Christmas
In
his Jan. 2 post on his blog for Politico, Dylan Byers
lamented
about how the gun control talk had dropped off before Christmas. “This time was
supposed to be different,” he wrote. He listed possible diversion for the
subject, like Christmas or the fiscal cliff, but to Byers, this just isn’t
acceptable. He then pondered as to whether it was possible for the discussion
to heat up again post-holidays. “Barring a post-holiday resurgence – which is
certainly possible – the gun control discussion has once again gone the way of
… the gun control discussion.”
9. Bill Plante Slants
Debate with Four Gun Control Liberals to One Gun Advocate
On
Dec. 17, Bill Plante
played
sound bites about guns on CBS’s “This Morning” that included four gun
control advocates versus one pro gun viewpoint. After playing bites from
staunch gun control supporters Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Representative Carolyn
McCarthy and President Obama in succession, Plante showed a short clip from
Texas Representative Louie Gohmert.
After
the clip of Gohmert defending the rights of gun owners, Plante commented on the
politics of gun control calling them “toxic.” He then stated that “gun rights
groups, like the National Rifle Association, wield tremendous influence.”
10. NBC’s Nancy
Snyderman “Sick” Over “Guns and Violence” in Political Ad
On
the Feb. 16, 2012
edition
of NBC’s “Today,” Chief Medical Editor Nancy Snyderman went after then-presidential
candidate Rick Santorum for a satirical political ad that depicted Mitt Romney
firing a mud-filled paint ball gun at a cutout of Santorum. “I’m sick of guns.
I’m sick of violence. I’m sick of it all. And I know it’s tongue-in-cheek … I
don’t like it.” Although Snyderman’s comment predates the recent shootings, it
shows how anti-gun more journalists really are. No word yet about how Snyderman
feels about Tarantino’s latest film, “Django Unchained.”
