Long but interesting

[358 winchester]

Volume 1, Issue 11 August 27, 2007
The Media Assault
on the Second Amendment
By David Niedrauer
When it comes to the right to bear arms – to accept personal responsibility to
defend home and family – the media are far from fair and balanced.
During the first seven months of 2007, the media waged an intermittent war
against the Second Amendment, using a variety of fallacious arguments to
make the pitch for gun control. This Eye on Culture report will begin by
detailing what the media reported on gun issues, and then point out essential
information the media failed to mention.
I. The Media Assault
A crime wave in the big cities, followed by the Virginia Tech tragedy in April,
gave the media plenty of ammunition for attacking the right to bear arms.
The three major broadcast networks ran at least 650 stories on gun
homicides from January through July. In a manner reminiscent of Michael
Moore, journalists sprinkled post-Virginia Tech news coverage with
comparisons between the United States and other countries that have
stricter gun control laws and less crime.
The media first broached the urban crime wave immediately following a
March 9 court decision, Parker v. District of Columbia, which struck down
D.C.’s handgun ban. ABC, NBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington
Post, and USA Today each ran at least one story on the crime wave between
March 9 and March 29.
On the March 10 NBC Nightly News, anchor John Seigenthaler tried to link
the crime wave and the decision: “A new study of major cities shows an
alarming rise in violence … This comes on the heels of a federal court
decision striking down a gun control law in Washington, D.C., on the grounds
it violated the constitutional right to bear arms.” A major problem:
Seigenthaler failed to acknowledge that the D.C. gun ban was in effect while
the crime wave was taking place.
Many media outlets recycled the crime wave story to bash guns again later in
the year. For example, on July 8, ABC World News Sunday ran a piece on
the crime wave, focusing on Philadelphia. ABC anchor Dan Harris laid blame
for Philadelphia’s crime problem at the feet of “rural lawmakers” in
Pennsylvania who support Second Amendment rights. While “rural
sensibilities continue to rule the gun debate,” said reporter David Kerley,
“cities like Philadelphia prepare for another night and another shooting
death.”
From July 24 through July 26, CBS Evening News ran a three-part series
called Battle Line: Philadelphia, which blamed guns and a shortage of
government anti-poverty spending for criminal activity in the inner city.
CBS quoted numerous gun control advocates like Miami Chief of Police John
Timoney: “[T]here’s been no national effort to deal with this -- with the guns
and the availability of guns, and any reasonable measures that have been
advocated have been defeated by Congress.” CBS failed to report that police
chiefs who support gun control are in the minority. A 2005 survey by the
National Association of Chiefs of Police found that 93.6 percent of chiefs and
sheriffs support “civilian gun ownership rights,” and 63.1 percent claimed
that concealed-weapons permits reduce violent crime. Not surprisingly, the
same survey reports that 93.2 percent say the news media is “not fair and
balanced.”
The Virginia Tech shootings on April 16 allowed the media to
accelerate massively their campaign against the Second Amendment (see
table). Journalists would eventually demonstrate their willingness to smear
their own country in order to promote gun control. Just as Michael Moore, in his movie Sicko, excoriated America’s private healthcare system by inaccurately comparing it
to socialized medicine in other countries, journalists blasted America’s
constitutional right to bear arms by pointing to countries that have stricter
gun laws and less crime.
On the day of the Virginia Tech tragedy, Armen Keteyian of CBS Evening
News used an anti-gun lobby’s rating as the standard by which to assess
Stories Discussing Gun Control, April 16-23
News Outlet Number of stories
CNN 24
Washington Post 20
CBS News 13
ABC News 10
New York Times 9
MSNBC 7
NBC News 6
Virginia: “[the state] recently earned a C minus rating by the Brady Center to
Prevent Gun Violence.”
The embattled university, Keteyian asserted, has desperately fought
Virginia’s “hunting culture” in order to “safeguard the student population.”
NBC anchor Brian Williams heaped praise on Britain’s gun ban on the April
17 Nightly News: “Britain outlawed handguns, and anyone caught with one
faces a minimum prison sentence of five years. They are so opposed to guns
here that not even police officers on routine patrol carry them. Now gun
violence is rare.” Williams ignored several salient facts: by tradition, British
“bobbies” have rarely carried firearms; Britain has a growing problem with
knife violence; and other nations where gun ownership is common enjoy low
rates of gun violence. For example, Switzerland, which has very low crime
rates, actually issues assault rifles to all adult males for militia service. (See
the next section, The Media’s Omissions, for more on the pitfalls of comparing
nations.)
Two days after the Virginia Tech massacre, the Washington Post was also
taking lines from the Michael Moore playbook, attacking not only the Second
Amendment, but American foreign policy. Nations around the world, reported
the Post, “used the university attack to condemn what they depicted as U.S.
policies to arm friends, attack enemies and rely on violence rather than
dialogue to settle disputes.”
The New York Times took aim at a target closer to home. “It is the gun lobby’s
incessant efforts to weaken the gun laws that make a tragedy like the one at
Virginia Tech possible,” screeched the Gray Lady in an April 26 editorial.
II. The Media’s Omissions
In their zeal to repeal the Second Amendment, the media failed to inform
their audience of at least four powerful arguments against gun control.
1. Comparisons between countries are not useful. Unfortunately,
direct comparisons between countries based solely on crime rates and gun
laws tell very little about whether gun control actually works. Social
scientists believe that gun control is only one of many factors that influence
rates of violence.
The National Academy of Sciences cautioned in a 2004 report, Firearms and
Violence: A Critical Review, that, “It is difficult to gauge the value of [gun
control] measures because social and economic factors behind criminal acts
are often complex and interwoven, and the efforts are narrow in scope.”1
As Brian Williams compared the U.S. and Britain to promote gun control, a
pro-gun analyst could easily cherry pick countries to “prove” that gun control
doesn’t work. New Zealand, with very limited gun restrictions, has an
annual gun homicide rate of 0.18 per 100,000 population.2 South Africa,
where the Firearm Control Act of 2000 licenses firearms to virtually no one,3
has a rate of 74.57.
A 1998 Library of Congress report concluded, “From available statistics,
among 27 countries surveyed, it is difficult to find a correlation between the
existence of strict firearms regulations and a lower incidence of gun-related
crimes.”4
2. Guns are frequently used to stop crimes. Between January 1 and
August 1, the media almost completely failed to report on an issue most
relevant to the Second Amendment debate: the legitimate use of guns in self
defense. To the Founding Fathers, the right to bear arms for self protection
was essential if citizens were to be truly free. Alexander Hamilton addressed the
“original right of self defense” in Federalist 28. Under a “confederacy” that protects
the right to bear arms, wrote Hamilton, “the people, without exaggeration, may be
said to be entirely the masters of their own fate.”5 In other words, to have
the ability to accept responsibility for defending themselves, rather than
having to rely exclusively on the government. Hamilton knew what he was
talking about: guns are often used to stop criminals. According to a 1997
1 Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. Committee on Law and Justice. 2004. The National Academies Press.
August 5, 2007. < http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309091241 >.
2 Nationmaster.com. < http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr..._pop-rate-per-
100-000-pop >.
3 “Gun deaths down by half in SA.” August 19, 2006. Independent Online.
<http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_i...1008950C223116 >.
4 Qutd. In NRA Fact Sheets. < http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=78 >.
5 Hamilton, Alexander. The Federalist Papers. # 28.
Armed Self Defense Versus Armed
Murder Stories, January 1-August 1, 2007
Network Self-
Defense
Murder
ABC 1 178
NBC 1 228
CBS 0 244
survey by the United States Journal of Criminal Law, more than 2.5 million
people use a gun in self defense each year.6
This essential fact never saw the light of day in the mainstream media. From
January through July, armed self defense almost never made it into the news
(see table). While the three major TV networks broadcast at least 650 stories
about gun homicides, CMI was able to find only two stories about guns used
by citizens to defend themselves. John Stossel, anchor of ABC’s 20/20,
referred to two cases of armed self defense on the May 4 show. NBC’s Today
show of April 23 featured former Miss America Venus Ramey, 82, who chased
an intruder off her property with a shotgun.
The major networks also failed to mention a highly relevant incident, the
2002 shooting at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia. After
killing three people, a gunman was forced to surrender by two armed
students. Virginia Tech, in contrast, did not allow students to be armed, so
nobody was able to stop Seung-Hui Cho on that fateful day in Norris Hall.
3. Most guns used in crimes are illegally acquired. Like it or not,
banning guns only takes them out of the hands of law-abiding citizens,
making it easier for people with no respect for the law to attack their victims.
The National Academy of Sciences concluded in its report, Firearms and
Violence, that only 21 percent of the guns used to commit crimes in this
country are bought legally. In countries with strict gun control laws, the
proportion can drop well below 10 percent.7 Legally purchased guns are
rarely used to commit crimes, but every time a gun ban is passed, responsible
citizens lose the capacity to defend themselves and their families.
4. Gun control laws have no proven effect. At worst, gun control laws
leave law-abiding citizens defenseless before rapacious criminals, and at best,
they may not affect violence at all.
The Firearms and Violence study surveyed local gun control policies around
the nation, including more than 80 education programs designed to prevent
violence in children, but could not find any that actually reduced gun
violence.
6 Kleck G, Gertz M. “The illegitimacy of one-sided speculation: getting the defensive gun use estimate down.”
Journal of Criminal Law. 1997;87:1446-1461. Quoted. In Kleck, Gary. August 8, 2007.
<http://www.guncite.com/kleckjama01.html#11>.
7 10 percent in Australia, according to the British Journal of Criminology. “Buyback has no effect on murder rate.” October 24,
2006. Sydney Morning Herald. August 8, 2007. < http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...on-murderrate/
2006/10/23/1161455665717.html >. In Germany, with one of the strictest gun policies in the world, the percentage falls to 0.004
percent. “Germany reevaluates gun laws after school shooting.” November 23, 2006. Deutsche Welle. August 8, 2007.
<http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...245918,00.html >.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published one of the
most comprehensive surveys of gun control laws ever in 2003. The survey
looked at bans on firearms, restrictions on firearms, waiting periods and
licensing, zero tolerance laws in schools, childhood access prevention laws
and combinations of all of these. The result? “The Task Force found
insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms
laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes.”8
Why do the media repeatedly make the same faulty assumptions and
advance the same shopworn arguments for expensive and intrusive gun
control policies that have no proven effect on crime, and render law-abiding
citizens helpless to defend themselves?
In a word, ideology. The argument for gun control has always been based
more on utopian visions than empirical facts. That, and the left simply does
not trust an armed citizenry.
The media’s incessant attacks on the Second Amendment demonstrate
clearly their liberal bias against gun ownership.
David Niedrauer recently completed an internship at the Culture and Media
Institute.
8 “First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws.” Findings from the Task Force on
Community Preventive Services. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 3 Oct. 2003. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 8
Aug. 2007. < http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm >.

[Shooter45]

Good reading. Thanks for the post.

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by 358 winchester

In a word, ideology. The argument for gun control has always been based more on utopian visions than empirical facts. That, and the left simply does not trust an armed citizenry.

The above is all of it in a nutshell, Ron. The liberals envision a utopia, and all they will end up with is an Orwellian existence as it was invisioned in Orwell's novel, 1984. The greatest threat to their plans is an armed citizenry. And what is worse, they'll realize their vision unless we, those of us who prefer freedom to enslavement, take back control of our own country from the fools to whom the Constitution is an outdated document.

[358 winchester]

Well it is good to know that I am not the only one that see what is happening.
Stock up with food and ammo we MAY one day need it

[Bruce FLinch]

Great Post, Ron!

[Marlin T]

How sad, but then again what do you expect from a bunch of liberals!

Thanks 358

[Marlin T]

This whole story is not, nor it should be of suprise. No matter how sad it really is. I found this, although it is from 2001 I don't think a lot has changed.

-- In 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976, at least four-fifths of the media elite voted Democratic, according to a survey conducted by social scientists S. Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman for their book, The Media Elite. Even George McGovern, the Democrats’ 1972 presidential nominee and one of the most liberal candidates to ever seek the White House, won 81% of journalists’ votes.
-- When U.S. News & World Report’s Kenneth Walsh polled his fellow White House reporters about their votes in the five presidential elections from 1976 to 1992, he found 86% of the votes went to Democratic candidates vs. only 12% for Republicans. As Walsh relayed in his 1996 book, Feeding the Beast, none of the reporters he questioned voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984, the year Reagan won a 49-state landslide over Democrat Walter Mondale.
-- Bill Clinton was the overwhelming choice of nearly 90% of Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents surveyed by the Freedom Forum after the 1992 presidential election. As for Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America, most of these same journalists (59%) dismissed it as a campaign ploy; only three percent believed the Contract was "a serious campaign reform proposal."
-- In 1996, the American Society of Newspaper Editors surveyed more than 1,000 reporters at newspapers across the country. A wide majority (61%) identified themselves as "Democrat or liberal" or leaning in that direction, while barely one in six (15%) used "Republican or conservative" to describe their views. That closely matched a 1985 Los Angeles Times survey of 2,700 journalists, which found three times as many self-identified liberals as conservatives (55% to 17%) in U.S. newsrooms.
-- The 1985 L. A. Times survey also showed that most reporters hold doctrinaire liberal views on most major political, social and economic issues. Huge majorities said they were for legalized abortion (82%), against increased defense spending (80%), in favor of more gun control (78%), and, during those tense days of the Cold War, favored a so-called "nuclear freeze" which would ban all future nuclear missile deployments (84%).
Ideally, journalists’ liberal views wouldn’t contaminate the content of their news stories, but the world isn’t perfect. Since 1987, the Media Research Center has documented countless instances — all presented in detail on the MRC’s Web site — when reporters’ liberal thinking has led them to denigrate conservative policy positions while promoting causes and ideas associated with the left. Now, visitors to MRC’s Web site can review for themselves 25 years of survey research confirming the liberal beliefs of most journalists. -- Rich Noyes
http://www.mediaresearch.org/reality...1/20010814.asp

[Marlin T]

But it you think that is bad enough there is nothing fair and balanced in our schools as with the >MEDIA<.
You might find this interesting, and verifies what I said before. Lib vs conservative agenda.

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 29, 2005; Page C01
College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.

By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.

The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.

"What's most striking is how few conservatives there are in any field," said Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study. "There was no field we studied in which there were more conservatives than liberals or more Republicans than Democrats. It's a very homogenous environment, not just in the places you'd expect to be dominated by liberals."

For the rest of the story click >THIS<

So not only are we have firearms seen as evil by the press, it is also being taught that they are evil in the school system.

[strayshot]

Originally Posted by Marlin T

How sad, but then again what do you expect from a bunch of liberals!

Problem is..I don't entirely trust Republicans either.. all politicians can be bought and sold. Certainly the Dems are far worse, but the whole system needs an overhaul.

[358 winchester]

but the whole system needs an overhaul.

That my friend is an understatement if there every was one.
Our entire Federal, State and Local systems need to be overhauled.
I haven't seen a single politicians that does what the folks in his district want them to do. As soon as they get into office they start looking for the money and the hell with what we the people want or need. I would like to see them all pay social security like the rest of the working man. I also think they should have the same retirement as any other government employee or service man and nothing more!!!!!!!!!!!!
But then I expect them to come get me one day soon and lock me up for stock piling beans & ammo only "I ain't going peacefully"