Nearly every day, there’s a story somewhere about a brave mom/dad/grandpa/kid who uses a firearm to defend themselves, their loved ones and their property. Those stories almost never make it into the mainstream media bloodstream. They remain local stories, and some become blips on sites like this one, despite the fact that they are good news stories, they tend to end happily, and are counterintuitive to the current zeitgeist. All of these factors, one would think, would make these stories good human interest fodder for the human interest-driven media. Especially the stories involving women fighting off home intruders, and defending their kids. Doesn’t the media like a good story about an empowered woman taking charge? Yes, unless she takes charge with a gun, and is not being inserted into combat in Afghanistan.
The MRC has taken a look at how this happens. It’s no shocking secret. The MSM is tilting hard against the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
MRC analysts reviewed all 216 gun policy stories on the Big Three networks’ evening (ABC’s World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News) and morning show programs (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, NBC’s Today), beginning with the evening of the shooting through January 17, the morning after Obama made his speech surrounded by children who had sent him letters pushing for more gun control.
The results show staggering imbalance:
■ Stories advocating more gun control outnumbered stories opposing gun control by 99 to 12, or a ratio of 8 to 1.
■ Anti-gun soundbites were aired almost twice as frequently than pro-gun ones (228 to 134).
■ Gun control advocates appeared as guests on 26 occasions, compared to 7 times for gun rights advocates.
CBS has turned out to be the most strident in its anti-self-defense advocacy, going 22-1 against gun rights. Network evening newscasts have tilted 8-1 against guns, and the morning shows have tilted 9-1 against guns.
All of this is creating and feeding the hysteria we’re seeing, in which a school boy who makes a finger gun and says “Pow” faces the Inquisition. It’s certainly pushing feelings of a crisis that does not exist. Despite the recent headline-driving tragedies, gun violence overall is down and trending down, except in the heavy gun-control cities like Chicago, where gang violence has gotten out of control and Democrat Mayor Rahm Emanuel has no answer for it.
Well, that’s not entirely true. He has answers. They’re just dumb answers, like asking the gangs to play nice and putting the Nation of Islam’s Fruit of Islam, many of whom were recruited in prison themselves, on patrol, along with cracking down on millions of gun-owning Americans who have broken no laws. The mainstream media could point out how counterproductive and just plain batty these ideas are, but that wouldn’t serve their larger purpose, so they won’t.
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