U.S.A.– -(AmmoLand.com)- The mainstream media lies to us. They feed us propaganda. They don’t want us to know that gun ownership is widespread and that armed defense is common. I was at a conference for minor-media this weekend. There, an associate talked about being turned away from most of his local news stations because “we don’t run pro-gun stories. No self-defense.” Let me show you where the propaganda starts at the top.
Dr. John Lott looked at the five largest newspapers in the US. They ran a single self-defense story for every 1300 stories of criminal activity with a gun. (more here)
The good news, and there is some good news, is that we know better. We caught major US newspapers lying to us. We have data that comes from outside the media bubble. We can actually measure the amount of media distortion.
We use a firearm for defense far more often than the thugs use guns during a crime. We legally defend ourselves about four times more often than a criminal uses a gun to threaten or injure us (467 thousand criminal incidents vs 1.4-2.3 million defensive gun uses).
We can quantify the media exaggeration. Honest reporting would tell us when we were attacked and also tell us when we defended ourselves. That isn’t what we get from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, or the Wall Street Journal. Each time it occurs, these major US newspapers were over 5 thousand times more likely to run a story of victimization than defense. Distortions of that magnitude can’t be an accident. That censorship is the result of deliberate editorial policy.
That is serious. That biased reporting distorts public perception of violence and defense. It twists public policy, and it isn’t an accident. Media propaganda isn’t a fault, but a deliberate feature that was bought and paid for.
Anti-gun billionaires paid millions of dollars to twist the news. They ran “educational” conferences for the media on how to report self-defense as “gun violence”. They also pay propagandists to recommend movie and TV scripts that distort the truth about civilian self-defense.
You can prove it to yourself. We defend ourselves more often than the police, and ordinary citizens make fewer mistakes with a gun than the police. So, when was the last time you saw an honest portrayal of armed defense on the TV cop dramas where an ordinary person used a firearm responsibly? I couldn’t find a single one.
Media apologists have said that self-defense isn’t news. I disagree. The biased media buries armed defense stories even in incidents where armed citizens stopped mass murder. Again, the media was too busy lying about us and our neighbors to report the truth.
I’m reminded of the Chinese immigrant who said he never watched the news when he was in China because he knew the news was filled with lies. Again, let me close by sharing some good news. We’re walking away from the lying media. CNN lost half its viewers in the last year.
Find real news and listen past the lies.
About Rob Morse
The original article is posted here. Rob Morse writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily, at Second Call Defense, and on his SlowFacts blog. He hosts the Self Defense Gun Stories Podcast and co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast. Rob was an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.
No thinking person puts any confidence in the MSM. Like many 3rd world countries, the media is the propaganda tool of the Progressives. Those who agree with them believe everything they say. As long as there are no financial consequences nothing will change. We MUST stop supporting them, Hollywierd and the anti gun companies like Walmart etc.
IF they were to stop lying, the narrative would die…
You mean to say the PROPAGANDIST ARM of the CCP IS in a decline due to being CAUGHT — DISTORTING and/or LYING about the TRUTH?!?!?!? I wonder how many more millions of Americans will comprehend this FACT!
The problem started when the Communist Party infitrated our colleges. From that time on students were taught not how to think, but what to think, The result is the MSM bombarding the low information voters with their lies.
Now they have infiltrated our public schools, teaching things like CRT &
Gender bending, producing functional illiterates.
I don’t read newspapers , I refuse to watch national news due to thier lies and dishonest narratives. I refuse to be brainwashed or led down the road of deception by these dishonest communist propaganda machines . They have all taken on the role of the boy who cried wolf ! Zero credibility is thier legacy now !
The Bolsheviks and Maoists of the Progressive New Left, and that is the totality of the Progressive New Left cannot debate issues. They know it. They lose in reasoned debate. Their prescriptions for America do not measure up to any critical analysis. That is why they must engage in not so subtle propaganda and silencing campaigns to flood the population with false narratives. They have know this since their Weather Underground days and stick to this model of dominating the corporate media and educational channels. They cannot allow for alternative views and voices. This is exactly why they adopted Saul… Read more »
When Ted sold out CNN died.
UK Crown & Freemasonry manages & runs the UK/UN anti-gun agenda. Iconic “Pistol Barrel tied in a knot” statue lies proof of that known fact. Anybody ever seen any law to take it down ? Crickets chirping.. Progressive/liberals & tyrants will remove or destroy statues of American cultural history & never blink an eye or give reflective pause about events – platitudes about what that period or statue they destroyed represented or how it came to be. More importantly why are other statues of equal importance never give the whole truth about how they came to be or represent. Why… Read more »