Why does the media only cover guns in the face of such tragedy? Why don't they discuss it when we can examine the subject coolly and rationally, and maybe get somewhere?
Because then we might learn something. Because then the public could become educated, and the media does not really want this to happen. Because then you might learn that guns have social utility, and are indispensable -- that guns serve good purposes -- instead of being pounded with the hopelessly false idea that arms are bad.
If the media covered guns without tragedy as a background, you would learn that guns save lives, which is why we want our police heavily armed, with high-capacity magazines, and high-powered rifles, and all the ammunition they can carry. You would learn that you need guns and ammo and full-capacity magazines -- for the exact same reason.
You would learn that your need is even greater, because YOU are the first responders, and police are always second. You face the criminals first, in every event. Police, with all their deadly bullets only show up later. Police are the second responders. Media stories are always wrong about that. That's what you say.
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Because so-called "news" media gun stories are not news, they are propaganda. Showing the image of a mass murderer 100 times a day isn't news, it is propaganda. Because staying on the same single event for a week or more isn't news -- even reporters would call it old news, or yesterday's news, or yellow journalism, if they were being honest -- a trait many have long since lost the ability to exercise. It is propaganda by every definition of that term.
It is designed to disgust, and cause revulsion, and motivate mob mentality. It serves no news purpose other than to induce fear and cause terror. In five minutes you have told the story, nothing new is added, yet it rolls on with images on endless loop. It promotes evil, encourages copycats, with zero redeeming news value. It violates every rule of ethical news behavior there is. That's what you say.
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But here's the bottom line as far as I'm concerned. Here's the Pulitzer Prize, waiting for you if you want one. Should people who put scores of guns into the hands of drug lords get one-month sentences -- like we saw the very day before this massacre -- is that right? If you get the laws you're shouting for, would it matter if that's what the Justice Dept. does with them?
Why isn't THAT discussed? How did you let that skate by? Don't tell me you covered that story, if you simply reported the government handout, that Fast and Furious smugglers Avila and Carillo were sentenced. That's not reporting, that's reading.
Read the rest with a click of the mouse.
And unless the NRA is willing to come out with the same, because that essay is 100% spot-on down to the last comma -- to Hell with them.
I did, and you should too.
