The News Media Pushes Gun Control

By Rob Morse

Louisiana- (Ammoland.com)- We already know that Liberal Democrats want to take our guns.  They said so in their presidential debate.  Have you noticed that the mainstream media also wants you disarmed? 

Yes, you!  You unwashed masses who don’t work in downtown New York, Los Angeles or Atlanta, you can not be trusted with a piece of steel and plastic.  Gun owners frighten the media elites.  That is why the media makes up stories about us.

Massacres sell advertising, but the main stream news media didn’t tell us about the many armed citizens who stopped mass shootings.  The talking heads won’t let the truth get in the way of headlines about murdered children.

• The Chicago Tribune said single moms give guns to mass murderers.
• CNN ran an editorial saying “We don’t need guns on campus to protect students. Handguns and modern rifles should be banned.”
• The Washington Post claimed ”Conservatives all over the world are aghast at our nation’s permissive attitude toward guns.”
• The Huffington Post trumpets “..outlaw the possession of semi-automatic weapons!”
• The New York Magazine claimed that other countries craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings.

That isn’t fair and balanced news.  The media didn’t tell us that violent crime has fallen while gun ownership has soared.  The media didn’t mention that Americans think carrying a concealed weapon makes all of us safer rather than less safe, and that we fear gun control more than mass murder.  The media stayed silent about all those facts because they don’t match the story they want to tell.  There is no sizzle in those bits of news.

Once we look behind the sizzle, there are several reasons the media lies to us.   The first is that money talks.  Our eyes linger on the TV screen when we see the flashing lights of police cars and pictures of sobbing parents.  The commercial media loves a good tragedy to gain viewers and boost advertising revenue.

The second reason to demonize gun owners is fear.  The mainstream media is elite educated and broadly ignorant of America’s gun culture.  The media doesn’t own guns and doesn’t go to parties with people who do.  Gun owners like us frighten them.

There is a cultural gap, and we don’t look, act, or talk like the newsies.  The New York City media doesn’t own a car, but the rest of America drives them selves to work and their kids to school.  We fix our own meals, take care of our own yard, and even wash our own clothes.  If we have a “gated community” it is to keep the animals on our property rather than to keep strangers out.  We don’t have hired security for our apartment complex.

The last thing we want to do is outsource our security.  We’ll protect our families and our neighbors, thank you.

Contrast that with most journalists and their clients.  Sometimes a media company rents armed security by the hour for a corporate event.  To the media, gun owners are hired help.

Gun owners are not much use to the mainstream media.  The media needs simple sound bite solutions that grab viewer’s attention.  Politicians can and do give those sound bites to the media, but they don’t have real solutions.  Those are the sad facts about violence in America.

In fact, suicide kills more than drug gangs.. who kill more than all police and honest civilians combined.  Meanwhile, a dozen black people are killed by black thugs every night.  They die in America’s Democrat controlled cities.  The media is silent because those black deaths indict liberal politicians.  No, the politician’s sweet sounding lie works for the media.. until the next school shooting.

The media never told us about the many times an ordinary citizen stopped mass murder.  That headline won’t hold your attention and keep you from changing the channel.  That headline won’t get politicians elected.  Roll the video about the car chase instead.

Violence is caused by many old problems, and we’ve slowly made them worse.  Politicians poisoned our economy and disassembled our mental health system.  Cultural leaders broke our families.  Journalists turned killers into celebrities.. and so spawned copycat killers.  Murdering sociopaths flock to gun-free zones, and the politicians prescribe more gun-free zones as a cure.

We have small solutions at best.  We should take those small steps one at a time and start the repairs to our country from there.  Too bad those small solutions will never make headlines.
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About Rob Morse: Rob writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily and on his SlowFacts blog.   He co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast.  He is also an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.