Each year I teach a unit explaining the various ways in which the Legacy Media warps and distorts the truth. Obviously, an integral part of that unit explains how the media shapes the news by the way it reports–through liberal bias–and also by what it chooses not to report.
One of the most recent examples of this bias is media treatment of NBC’s reporter, the execrable David Gregory. The facts are familiar. In a December 23rd on-air attempt to harry NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, Gregory held up a ubiquitous 30-round AR-15 magazine, demanding:
Now isn’t it possible that if we got rid of these, if we replaced them and said, ‘Well, you could only have a magazine that carries five bullets or ten bullets,’ isn’t it just possible that we could reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?
The problem is that magazine is particularly banned under the unconstitutional and gun-phobic laws of Washington, DC, where the interview took place. Further, before airing the segment, NBC asked the DC police for permission to use the magazine, and was specifically denied that permission. In other words, Gregory-and any other NBC employee who procured or handled that inexpensive, common, and innocuous firearm accessory, is liable for arrest, a fine of $1000, and imprisonment for up to a year. The DC police have begun an investigation, but refuse to comment on it. It is highly unlikely Gregory will be arrested and charged. After all, NBC is virtually a subsidiary of the Democrat party.
Irony and hypocrisy abound. Law abiding gun owners are doubtless thinking “they’d surely arrest me, even if I didn’t do it on purpose like NBC.” And they would be right, as in the case of combat veteran Adam Meckler, arrested because he had several long forgotten rounds of loose ammunition in a backpack. Be sure you’ve taken your blood pressure medication before reading this one.
An incident about which you’ve probably not heard well illustrates the second part of the lesson: what the Media choose not to report. On December 17, 2012, a single killer went to a restaurant in San Antonio, TX to kill his ex-girlfriend. When he opened fire, people fled the restaurant to a nearby theater. He pursued and opened fire, but this case had a very different—and predictable—ending. An off- duty sheriff’s deputy—Sgt. Lisa Cuello Castellano—was there. The would-be killer got off a single shot and Cuello Castellano immediately shot him four times, ending his rampage.
Only the local media covered the shooting. Even Snopes.com, reporting on the truth or falsity of the attack, sounds very much like the Legacy Media apologizing for itself:
…it isn’t yet clear whether he [the shooter] was deliberately intending to shoot innocent victims at the theater (as the gunman did in the July 2012 Aurora, Colorado theater shootings) or whether he was firing aimlessly in a fit of rage.
In general, the San Antonio theater shooting received little coverage outside of local news media, primarily because it didn’t include any of the factors that typically propel such stories from local to national news: it was not an especially horrific crime (or part of a larger crime), it did not involve any deaths or the wounding of large numbers of people, and it featured no prominent persons…The possibility that an armed off-duty law enforcement official may have prevented additional casualties by shooting the gunman might have made the incident more newsworthy than usual, but that aspect of the story is speculative, and as others have observed, the news media tend to highlight negative events rather than positive ones: ‘reporters don’t report buildings that don’t burn.
Right. He was “firing aimlessly in a fit or rage” rather than trying to cause any real damage.
In the media-fueled conflagration around the Newtown, Connecticut shooting, in their calls for “conversation” and “debate,” in their tacit and overt support for draconian gun control laws, laws that have already had a decade to work and failed utterly, one important side of the “conversation” rates no coverage at all. The fact that once all preventative measures have failed and a killer starts shooting, only armed good guys can immediately stop them is not newsworthy under the terms of the “debate” established by the Media.
While infuriating, none of this is surprising. For decades the media has ignored the millions of incidents of honest citizens stopping armed attacks, at schools, in shopping malls, and elsewhere. This is obviously the quality of “conversation and “debate” we can expect: a conversation with a predetermined result, admitting only that evidence that supports that predetermined result, which must always be a diminution of liberty and actual safety, which no doubt pleases politicians and criminals.
But I repeat myself.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
“millions of incidents”
Now that wouldn’t be “warping and distorting” the truth, would it, Mike?
You’re an unconscious comic….
Dear 1735099a:
Regular readers have had the opportunity to take the many links I’ve provided on this subject. Competent research indicates that firearms are used in America as often as two million times per year to thwart criminals, usually without the necessity of a shot being fired. Even the Clinton Administration undertook a study on this topic hoping to find more support for gun control polices. They discovered around one million successful defensive uses of firearms per year and quickly tried–unsuccessfully as it turned out–to bury their results.
Because I have often provided links on this matter, I won’t go to the trouble now, but should you be interested, I’m sure Goggle will produce the information you seek.
So yes, millions indeed, no laugh track required.
The Number is back, I see. For those of you new to these posts, 1735099a is a socialist (“We are so egalitarian that we don’t have to tip waiters” should give you a laugh about the depth of his political thought) dedicated to the socialist proposition that citizens are subordinate to government. He is oblivious to, ignorant of, or willfully deceptive about the necessity of people being able to defend their liberties (He is all for a disarmed people now that the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia were nearly hunted–yes, hunted as animals are hunted–to extinction by his ancestors. All over now, he declares, all bow to the government (white) we have now!) He has great insight into the USA, just ask him, although he has never lived here. I would like a collection to be made to fly the Number to Chicago where he will be invited to walk, disarmed, through Rahmbo’s “disarmed” city after dark with his billfold hanging out and a diamond ring on his pinky. Yes, a million dollars for a video of what befalls the Number.
No, they weren’t. Just the Aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania, and even that was not deliberate hunting to extinction (they were actually rounded up to be resettled, with the intention that they survive away from settlers, only they didn’t). In Argentina, though…
“1735099a is a socialist”
Is that supposed to be an insult? It’s a meaningless label.
(Socialism – a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.)
Given that I don’t believe that the “community as a whole” should control the means of distribution, I am not a Socialist. It’s simply a label to throw around when you run out of arguments.
Nobody has challenged or discussed the fact that the gun homicide rate is so high in the USA because the gun ownership is high. Why?
Dear 1735099a:
No one has discussed it? You do remember my direct response to this particular challenge posted a day or two ago, don’t you?
P.M. A little of your history for your enlightenment:
1838 Myall Creek massacre – 10 June: 28 people killed at Myall Creek near Inverell, New South Wales. This was the first Aboriginal massacre for which European settlers were successfully prosecuted. Several colonists had previously been found not guilty by juries despite the weight of evidence and one colonist found guilty had been pardoned when his case was referred to Britain for sentencing. Eleven men were charged with murder but were initially acquitted by a jury. On the orders of the Governor, a new trial was held using the same evidence and seven of the eleven men were found guilty of the murder of one Aboriginal child and hanged. In his book, Blood on the Wattle, journalist Bruce Elder says that the successful prosecutions resulted in pacts of silence becoming a common practice to avoid sufficient evidence becoming available for future prosecutions.[38] Another effect, as one contemporary Sydney newspaper reported, was that poisoning Aboriginal people became more common as “a safer practice”. Many massacres were to go unpunished due to these practices,[38] as what is variously called a ‘conspiracy’ or ‘pact’ or ‘code’ of silence fell over the killings of Aboriginal people.[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]
Mid-1838. Gwydir River. A war of extirpation, according to local magistrate Edmund Denny Day, was waged all along the Gwydir River in mid-1838. ‘Aborigines in the district were repeatedly pursued by parties of mounted and armed stockmen, assembled for the purpose, and that great numbers of them had been killed at various spot.
Number: homicide by guns are so high in the US because criminal elements possess guns that they use to kill each other with and often others. Homicide by gun is so common in Chicago not because registered firearm owners rush out after work to shoot somebody, but because gang members, who do not give a damn about gun laws, murder each other over drugs and turf. Registering or confiscating guns from law-biding citizens will have no impact on those who live outside the law. The US is not Australia. We have elements that we would gladly give to Australia to help settle the interior.
Why do you continue to ignore the only statistic that matters, the correlation between gun ownership and gun homicide?
It’s a very simple understanding – the more guns there are in a community, the more likely it is that people will be killed by them. Once on this treadmill, the “solution” of “more guns” simply means more homicides.
On the other hand, the Australian solution (fewer guns) means fewer homicides.
Only Yanks lack the common sense to understand this.
It’s a very sad situation.
This is, perhaps, another solution – http://johnjacobh.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/yesyour-gun-stinks-and-the-cartridge-aint-worth-much-either/
Dear 1735099a:
I have indeed addressed this issue in a variety of posts, though perhaps not as directly as you suggest. As to “common sense,” you’re getting dangerously close to being insulting again.
(1) Correlation is not causation. Most people die in bed but that doesn’t mean mattresses and sheets are deadly.
(2) As I’ve previously written, comparing one nation to another tends to be unrevealing. Cultural, historical, demographic and a wide variety of other factors renders such comparisons misleading and less than helpful. While Americans and Australians, for example, do speak the same language and share some history, we are two different peoples in many ways.
(3) Rather than what you suggest as truth, there is good reason to believe, as Dr. John Lott has written, that More guns equal less crime.
(4) There is no doubt that if a magic wand could be waved and all firearms vanished, fewer people would be killed by others using firearms, however this would not change human nature. Untold millions were killed quite efficiently long before the invention of gunpowder and this would also be true if firearms could magically disappear. This particular genie can never be put back in the bottle.
(5) As I’ve also mentioned, the “less guns, less homicide” theory must explain how it is that despite a steady increase of firearm ownership in America over a long period of time, violent crime–including homicide–has been steadily decreasing, and for a very long time. Of course, that theory cannot account for this fact.
(6) Americans have always chosen to balance individual liberty with the certainly that some will abuse it. We have also chosen to recognize that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, thus, we have the Second Amendment. As long as Americans remain Americans, we will retain the Second Amendment which gives us the power to resist Tyranny.
If you believe your polices work for Australia, good for you and I wish you and your countrymen well. They don’t work for us, nor can they work for us.
Of course mattresses are deadly! Read the description of how Edward II was murdered in Marlowe’s play of the same name (though my theory is that he was forced back into the mattress with a stool or small table so that the traditional red hot poker could be rectally inserted through a horn, all to kill him without any signs of violence – I have heard that trappers do that to polar bears they catch, so overt injuries don’t damage the pelts).
There’s also the story of the drunk rescued from a fire who was accused of starting it by smoking in bed. “Of course I didn’t”, he replied with great dignity, “the bed was already on fire when I got into it”.
I many people die in bed, and beds don’t cause the deaths (Correlation does not equal causation)
How can that logic not be applied to “violent crime–including homicide–has been steadily decreasing, and for a very long time. Of course, that theory cannot account for this fact.”. Guns don’t cause the crime, guns don’t prevent it either. Correlation does not equal causation.
Dear RuleofOrder:
You are correct, thus my point. The fact that violent crime is decreasing while the number of guns in circulation is dramatically and steadily rising is not absolute proof. However, taken with the supporting evidence as Dr. Lott has provided, and with actual experience–criminals do indeed fear armed victims and go to great lengths to avoid them–one may reasonably conclude that more guns are in fact a causative factor in lessening violent crime. One may debate the size of the effect, but the effect is there. This rises beyond the logical fallacy of confusing correlation with causation.
Homicide by guns may have declined but rape of Australian women have increased since guns were limited and controlled in Australia. That apparently is ok with you; your women can get up and walk away afterward, if they are not knifed or beaten to death. We are free to respond differently.