Dear Media Colleagues,
Guns can’t seem to keep themselves out of the limelight. Urban shootings, outside the ghettos where most shootings take place, are now becoming national news. What changed?
Why aren’t we talking about waiting periods anymore? The media and the gun-control movement have abandoned waiting periods, but they used to be the holy grail. Why is that?
It turned out waiting periods didn’t matter. They didn’t work, had no impact on crime, they were a distraction. They were just an attack that could be made on guns, the flavor of the day, a reflection of what the public out here perceives as media hatred for guns. Like a reported shooting… from two thousand miles away.
Waiting periods were what gun controllers told media to ask for, not what media independently figured out might work. Media were told, “Waits will slow crime,” and even though rational people knew this was silly, you (plural) called for them — and then were bewildered at the resistance you got. Everyone lamented the predictable lack of results, until thankfully, you abandoned that red herring.
Now I find you urging support to ban gear, like magazine size, ammunition types and even brands, like AR-15 and Glock. This is just as bogus as the olden waiting-period demands, and you are just as mystified at the adamantine resistance again. This is why it is time for gun-control counseling.
People seeking gun control, media included, understand the subject so poorly they are getting in the way of making any real progress. Gun control is not crime control. It doesn’t have the desired effect. That’s why gun owners and others resist it so fervently. If it would work they would support it — everyone wants to stop senseless murder, we’re not irrational.
There is actually lunatic talk of banning the Glock sidearm for the public, along with all semi-automatic firearms. The Glock is so good that 65% of law enforcement uses it — it’s reliable, effective, safe, simple, fast. Guns save lives. Guns stop criminals. Guns protect us. This is why we give them to police. This is why the public wants and needs them. This is what gun controllers don’t get, and why counseling is called for if we are going to get anywhere.
You would consider taking Glock and other autoloaders away from the public because criminals understand the value and use these too. That makes as much sense as taking them away from the police themselves. Of course the public balks at that, and you interfere with getting to any real solution for stopping armed maniacs. You fail to see how your equipment-based arguments are doomed to failure. The gun-control debate needs an intervention. For example:
Why only discuss guns after a mass murder? Wouldn’t covering all the newsworthy aspects of guns help us understand the issues better? What about all the good that guns do? You may not even clearly know what that is. What about the shooting sports — a billion dollars bigger than golf? What about censorship on the subject of guns in education? It is a vacuum. Why don’t you cover that?
That vacuum is a measure of your bias. Your bias is a measure of why we have this problem. The media, both so-called “news” media and the cultural media like movies, TV, video games and magazines, are powerful driving forces behind the mass-murder behaviors we have never before seen. This is understandably hard for you to face.
When guns were more available during our baby-boomer youth — without age limit, without paperwork, without background checks, without the FBI, by mail order from the pages of comic books — these kinds of atrocities were unheard of, unfathomable, unthinkable. What changed? Our culture, and the media led the way.
Can you at least savor the irony? A crowded theater witnesses a blood-drenched massacre — while eagerly waiting to watch hours of blood-drenched massacres.
Before these atrocities were standard fare, people died off camera, without blood. A crook who shot a cop was shunned by his peers, never held up as someone to be idolized like today, where entire films glorify the villains. Kids today are virtually trained assassins, inured to immoral levels of violence. You did that.
As a 25-year member of the Society of Professional Journalists, peers have told me their editors suppressed or downplayed stories of armed self defense so they wouldn’t encourage copycats. Then broadcasters treat us to endless days of glorified mass murderers, and encourage copycats. You do that.
You’re discouraging copycat heroes while perpetually portraying copycat villains, then you scratch your collective heads. Consciously or not, you the media connect those dots. You take your unspoken bias and hoplophobic fear of guns, mix in an immoral and unethical ingredient of grief and horror, and in a beautifully orchestrated promotion push the misguided gun-control agenda — supplanting the crime-control agenda we desperately seek.
Here’s why an intervention is needed: Consider that 80 people left home, never to return, prematurely dead in their cars on the same day 12 were murdered in the awful Batman-movie massacre (please don’t besmirch a fine American city when referring to this literally theatrical violence; let the name help frame the blame).
Eighty grieving families, spread out everywhere, not just in one unlucky community. Blood and guts, horror, unspeakable tragedy, children ripped from us, police cars and flashy lights. Where were the cameras in their faces? Why not promote their grief with crocodile-tear remorse? Or does the thought of hounding those car-wreck victims for days horrify even you?
And what about the next day’s eighty? And the next? No, the monstrous bias of the media is on display here, dancing in the blood of victims and trumpeting society’s miscreants, with effects too offensive to rationalize. For shame, as a CNN anchor scolded me recently.
No, the broadcast pity party national mea culpa grief deluge the “news” media perpetrates on the public is as meaningful as the waiting periods you have jettisoned. You wouldn’t dare impose on other grieving families this way, it would be intolerable, reprehensible.
Without accepting it, you are a root cause of the problem. You appear to secretly hope the grief will finally be enough to convince the innocent to relinquish their rights and abandon the products you so misunderstand.
Please realize — people face the exact same thugs police face. But cops operate in groups, with backup, in body armor, with sniper teams and helicopters. Is that why we need less ammo and smallish bullets in inferior guns? It is we who are the first responders in criminal assaults on ourselves. The police we dial after assaults start are second responders, a point you fail to appreciate.
If the public is limited to little bullets, and only a few of them, the problem of crazy people committing murder will neither resolve nor improve. It’s waiting-period logic again. The public needs parity with police, not inferior tools. This is why counseling is appropriate — so we can discuss this intelligently.
Oh, you can go into denial, talk numbers, point to countries that are not the linchpin of freedom on the planet. Ask about Japan or Switzerland that do not have drug wars or ghettos — a word you will no longer even use — yet which is at the heart of what you like to call guns on the street.
Things that will help, like firearms education in our schools, erasing decades of enforced ignorance, confronting your own biases that perpetuate and encourage violent behavior, examining activities of your companion industries, and seeing the “cultural” problem — until we face these challenges, you’ll keep seeking changes the majority of the public will correctly resist. You’ll just be frustrated, get nowhere and not understand why.
Meet with me and a few select others for counseling that will truly get to the heart of the matter. Let’s get past the firing mechanisms, types of lead or brand name intrigues and into the real-world answers that can reduce or stop this sort of behavior and make our world more safe. Together we can fix this.
Sincerely,
Alan Korwin, Publisher
Bloomfield Press
Very well written. I agree that the anti-gun lobby is the problem and not the solution. Their efforts only serve to benefit criminals*, harass law-abiding gun owners, waste tax money on flawed regulation and basically tie up any chance of making progress.
*Makes their jobs easier and safer
Yes! +100 to this. I don’t know who this guy is, but I like the way he’s thinking. He sees the problem for what it is and says it well.
A bump to his page might have helped:
page nine, by Alan Korwin–The Univited Ombudsman
we all have a finite amount of time, energy and resources. the grabbers waste all these in no win attempts to disarm the honest and law abiding. you could make the argument that by not turning those resources to pushing for better crime control the grabbers are actually adding to the carnage. instead of joining ranks with honest gun owners in confronting crime and criminals they divide our strength and efforts to no good effect.
what happened to the waiting period for guns?
the internet and database technology combined with background checks made irrelevant.
+1
True, “waiting periods” — first rationalized as providing an opportunity for law enforcement to do a background check — became irrelevant with NCIS technology. That did not stop the further rationalization of the bureaucratic delay on the basis of a “cooling-off period”. We are expected to believe that someone who wants to kill his wife, his boss, etc. will reconsider, and change his mind if he can’t buy a gun without delay.
I never heard any supporters of this brilliant idea concede that it could logically only apply to the FIRST handgun an individual bought. If he already owns a similar firearm, he already has the tool that we are told he must obtain in order to commit the violence he is planning.
The true intent of the “waiting period” is to tie up in red tape a right that cannot be denied.
Extremely well written. Thank you for this.
I agree, THANK YOU for this!
Maybe criminals don’t obey gun laws either? Just a shot in the dark.
I’m somewhat young and I’m extremely worried what will happen to our freedom to bear arms as I grow older.
I’m 24, and terrified of my generation taking charge. A generation that had everything handed to them and never once had to deal with the consequences of their actions.
Also a generation that is struggling with getting jobs after college, learning firsthand unemployment means, and thus is learning the value of budgeting, money management, and the true value (or lack thereof?) of an expensive Liberal Arts Degree.
Recessions suck, but part of the reason America was well prepared to fight WWII was that we had just faced the Depression. That was a generation well used to adversity.
This little hicup is no fun for a lot of people, but it sure could be worse. If people have learned their lesson about buying houses they can’t afford and running Credit Card debt they cant pay for it will be worth it in the long run.
leo and loyd, time for you to step up and provide direction and leadership for your generation. get active to protect your rights. join gun rights group, let the poloticians hear from you.
Unfortunately, you will lose your rights! As public education spreads it’s useless rhetoric, more and more students will fall under the heel crushing socialistic/communist ideology that is taught by todays teachers. Leo, you yourself are a prime example of this.
You asked a question, yet due to your public education, you failed in using proper punctuation. This is not entirely all your fault, as proper English is no longer a requirement. Just as History has been replaced by Social Studies. Were History and English still viable studies, you not have to ask this question, as historical papers that were written by our Founding Fathers would still be required reading.
It is a real shame that I, as a Grandfather must tell my Grandchildren about the Federalist Papers. That I must explain the importance of the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. I am not opposed to doing this, but isn’t this the reason children are sent to school? I would be willing to bet that you know little if anything of the French and Indians War. The Revolutionary War is given but just a few pages, and the War of 1812 is none existant.
I could go on, but I’m sure that the many scholars that come in here, are by now ready to push on to more complex issues such as the newest 30 rnd mag. that is the market. It is a shame that the very people we pay to teach our children, are themselves, little more than functional illiterates.
Nothing will happen to your rights as long as your prepared to fight for your rights.
Prolly one of the most intelligently written, insightful, and propaganda-free missives I’ve ever read on guns. Well done.
Hear, hear!
Wholly open letter to the Antis Batman!!!!
Alan Korwin for president!!!! Just kidding….
In all honesty though he has probably the most valid point I have heard of in years.
1. “Gun control is not crime control. ”
This is such a DUH, yet gun control advocates don’t get it!
2. “What about all the good that guns do?” Let me put it this way, getting news of a DGU in this country is rare. Sure you might see a small article somewhere, or possibly a news broadcast, like the young boy who saved his brothers and sisters in Arizona, but overall those are shoved to the back.
3. “Why only discuss guns after a mass murder?” My cousin, who works for the AP once said if it bleeds it leads. Tragedy is great for pushing an agenda. Pathetic I know. You would figure on a bright sunny day, with no issues, spree killings or anything else folks could have a legitimate conversation on the subject, but no! they wait to everyone is in shock. It is like leading the lemmings to the cliffs edge. It is easier to push them off, if they haven’t a clue where to turn.
4. “Ask about Japan or Switzerland that do not have drug wars or ghettos” Yup drugs issues we have. I don’t know how to solve that, but ghettos, yup got those two and they are growing.
DC, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland CA, East LA. All of these are modern day ghettos. There are many more, but these are just a small few. They don’t contain Hasidic Jews, but they are ethnically, and economically segregated for the most part. Unemployment is high, and drug use, distribution, prostitution are all rampant. People are afraid to go out at night, and gangs have control.
Now throw on top of that the fact that these places have the strictest gun laws, and make it hard for those who are stuck there to defend themselves, then you have a victim rich environment for the criminals to feed off of.
The local police avoid the areas like the plague and local governments are beside themselves on what to do. I hate to say this, but it is a national issue, and it isn’t going to get any better.
If all those welfare and out of work folks had 9 to 5 jobs. If they all went to work and cared about the way their houses looked, and their streets weren’t filled with criminals. If their kids could play outside without fear, all these things would help strengthen the impoverished areas. They wouldn’t be ghettos as much as working class neighborhoods. Sure it isn’t perfect, but when the individual has self worth, can protect themselves and their property, it goes a hell of a long way.
So get those factories back open, get the economy back on track, and give people the ability to stand up for themselves. then we will see real change!
+1 Sanchanim. Amen!
Very well written. I only have one issue with it, and I admit it’s a bit pedantic, but here it goes. The Cracked link below contains spoilers, but it’s pretty funny if you’ve already seen the movie.
A crowded theater witnesses a blood-drenched massacre — while eagerly waiting to watch hours of blood-drenched massacres. Before these atrocities were standard fare, people died off camera, without blood.
For the record, Batman, as a rule, doesn’t kill people, and when people do die in his movies, it’s not blood-drenched or gory. Even in the most recent Batman movie, when one side turns a gatling gun (!) on the other side, the people that are killed fall down without blood, without carnage, without spectacle. As Cracked put it: “ALL-OUT WAR breaks out, with COPS and HENCHMEN and EXTRAS having a HUGE FIREFIGHT with PG-13 BULLETS that just make everyone REALLY SLEEPY.”
(Don’t complain about that being a spoiler. If you’re surprised that the good guys and the bad guys fight in a Batman movie… I don’t know what to tell you.)
Sadly, logic and counseling will not work. The issue is not “gun control.” It’s only “control.”
I and others turn this over again and again. And the answer is always that simple.
This.
Antis don’t want a safer world. They want a world under their control.
“When guns were more available during our baby-boomer youth — without age limit, without paperwork, without background checks, without the FBI, by mail order from the pages of comic books — these kinds of atrocities were unheard of, unfathomable, unthinkable. What changed? Our culture, and the media led the way.”
This
Alan Korwin – Another name to put on my hero list.
Excellent piece. Well written and on point.
Bully, bully!
Hopefully there are others out there that will share this type of knowledge with everyone. This is the type of info that must get beyond the gun community and into every part of American society.
Bully!
+1 on media being the problem and trying to be the solution at the same time.
Media -“Well, this guy used X gun to kill Y number of people. We’re gonna talk about this guy and give him national fame Z number of days”
Criminal – “Wow, if I get an X gun and kill Y^2 people, then I’ll surely be in the news for Z^3 days. Let’s start planning!”
They swear they want to help by pushing stories that go along with their agenda to stop people from accessing the tools used, but spend all of their time making money off of the violence coverage to the point that they fuel it even more.
Guns don’t keep guns out of the limelight; people keep guns out of the limelight.
I wish I had heard him deliver his statement as a speech. It deserves a standing ovation.
While I can take issue with the reference cultural media’s influence (Most independent studies can’t find a direct correlation between violence and violent media,) I will say that it can influence some into horrible acts, yet others after being exposed to the exact quantity and sources, will show no ill effects at all. It boils down to Society in general and this garbage lifestyle that is deemed the way we should live. (Yeah, parents gotta work to put food on the table and pay the bills… but in turn there is little family activity. The media becomes the teacher and babysitter, and unless parents counteract, those with violent tendencies are the ones that snap and cause the problems.
In Short, cultural media isn’t all to blame. Blame the medical system (mental health care) and the inability or lack of desire to discipline (laws, faulty discipline techniques, etc) have more influence.
Other than that, there are some good points raised and addressed, by the article and commenters.
I was with him up until “Before these atrocities were standard fare, people died off camera, without blood. A crook who shot a cop was shunned by his peers, never held up as someone to be idolized like today, where entire films glorify the villains. Kids today are virtually trained assassins, inured to immoral levels of violence. You did that.”
Trying to blame media (meaning movies and video games) for the actions of a person is absurd. If it was true, we’d have hundreds of millions of murderers in the country, not the occasional random jackass who decides to kill a bunch of people for kicks.
Mostly quite a good article but I was struck by something different. Car crashes and deaths by firearms seem to be two different things – at least to most people, especially those who have the luxury of not having to worry on a daily basis about the intersection of their routine with violent elements in society. Most people recognize that their daily routine, or at least that of most working adults in the nation, would be severely hampered by the loss of automobiles; the logic behind not calling for a blanket ban on autos is clear. This has not stopped the media from trying to wring blood from the stone when it comes to seeing patterns (actually, just stories that make good headlines) in “unusual” stories. Some of the focus is good – against drunk driving – and some is just punitive, like the line the media always loved to stick in their reports of the Toyota accelerator problems about the “bad press” (“Unintended acceleration incidents are getting way out of hand,” Danny Choy wrote yesterday for iMotorTimes, in his article about an acceleration problem on a ’11 Kia Sorento, which the company understandably is calling an “[apparent] isolated incident” since nobody has seen it happen before.) Whatever the case, the media generally does not have time for “business as usual” and the routine, sometimes even when it merits discussion.
In Korwin’s line about gun users being shunned in pop culture I think I recognize a reference to Edward G. Robinson’s Little Caesar. You could also find this sense of genteel astonishment towards gun use in the ’50s British film The Blue Lamp (which established that quintessential British police character, Dixon of Dock Green). But pretty soon people realized that it wasn’t the guns that were the problem; it was the sense of entitlement to use violence against one another. They also started to resent the lack of engagement of the show with abuses and changing culture at the time. Not surprisingly, The Blue Lamp was remade as The Black and Blue Lamp in 1988, a telefilm that took a hard look at the changing culture of policing in Britain, and its portrayal, and found it wasn’t just the “bad guys” who acted recklessly. I’ve also theories that a change in camera styles during chase scenes (I guess in the late ’80s or early ’90s) from a “rear view camera” that allegedly caused viewers to “sympathize with the victim” to a “chase camera” that gave viewers the thrill of the hunt. Utter nonsense; you’re showing an innocent person running for their life in either case.
So I generally agree with Totenglocke – but I wonder how media (particularly computers) are changing our minds, if at all. At the same time, I reacted rather badly to assertions that “Google makes us stupid” (a theme from Nicholas G. Carr, a man who obviously knows how to handle a deadline); I agree instead with Scott Esposito, who notes that “responsible adults” have to learn how to cope with distractions and have been doing so throughout the ages. Wikipedia’s (now there’s a controversial tool) article on Carr’s article is filled with many subtle refutations of the idea that something new has overthrown our perilously-held sense of balance, like the fuming observation of a 15th-century Venetian editor: “Abundance of books makes men less studious.”
a study conducted by the military at about the time of ww2 showed that the average american soldier was reluctent to fire his weapon at another human being. i don”t know the exact figures on this but something like 20% of the soldiers in combat were doing most of the fighting. the study concluded that amongst other factors was that at the range american soldiers were firing at traditional circular targets. the army revamped it’s training to include shooting at human shaped targets and by the time of viet nam the average for soldiers firing at the hostiles went up to something like 80%.
how does this translate to video entertainment. i don’t know. i walked in on my teenage son years ago playing one of those first person shooter games and was immediately struck by how it appeared to be more realistic combat training than i had recieved in the service. a human shaped target appeared in graphic detail and you fired without hesitation or mercy.
and it strikes me also that it’s in the best interest of the entertainment industry to deny any connections. look how hard and long tobbacco execs denied the health effects of their products.
food for thought at any rate.
Very well thought out and well written article. Too bad that pretty much any anti would immediately dismiss the plain “common sense” presented, and brand the author as being in the NRA’s pocket.
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