The Associated Press’ story Why couples, women and the elderly are purchasing guns is a perfect example of the news org’s anti-gun bias. While the majority of the article is perfectly serviceable — offering vignettes of “unexpected” Americans exercising their Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms — the AP just had to inject anti-gun quotes from some of the usual suspects. Like this . . .
Margot Bennett, executive director of Women Against Gun Violence, said claims that more people are becoming first-time firearm owners should be treated with caution due to the lack of available data.
“Although gun purchases are on the rise, they are being purchased by fewer households and by people who already own a gun(s),” Bennett said in an e-mail.
However, several people involved in Lebanon County’s gun industry said there is steady demand for new gun owner training classes, and that middle-aged and retired women are one of the most interested demographics.
Does owning a firearm keep you safer?
Andrew Patrick, spokesman for the Coalition to End Gun Violence, also said it is difficult to tell whether first-time gun purchases are really rising – and if they aren’t, he thinks that’s a good thing.
“The studies we’ve seen over and over against indicate that buying a gun is more likely to be harmful to members of the family and the person than to harm an intruder,” Patrick said.
People living in homes with guns are 90 percent more likely to die of homicides than people in other homes, according to a 2004 story in the American Journal of Epidemiology, and they are also more likely to die of suicide.
Gun ownership may also not make people safer. A comparison study of 27 developed countries published in the October 2013 edition of the American Journal of Medicine found that countries with more guns per capita had more firearm-related deaths, but did not have reduced overall crime rates.
But wait! There’s more!
Gun supporters often refer to carrying firearms as a way to empower women. However, Margot Bennett, executive director of Women Against Gun Violence, believes it isn’t a factually wise choice. When women “know the facts” about the risk of guns being involved in accidents involving children or violence toward women, they will choose not to carry a firearm or keep one in their home, she wrote in an e-mail.
“There is compelling evidence that a gun in the home is a risk factor for intimidation and for killing women in their homes,” concluded a 2011 summary of studies on harms and benefits of firearm ownership published by the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. “The benefit-cost ratio is especially adverse for women and children in the household.”
Ellen Kramer, legal director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, agreed that guns are more likely to be used against women in domestic violence incidents than in self-defense. In a large majority of cases, women who do use their weapon and kill during a domestic violence incident are charged and plea bargain their cases, often facing jail time, she said.
Beyond the cost-benefits analysis, Kramer said messaging that encourages battered women to buy guns distracts from more important discussions about preventing domestic violence.
“I think it’s a pretty powerful message out there that you have a gun and you’re good to go. What we don’t want people to have is a false sense of security,” she said.
That’s a whole lot of anti-gun agitprop in the middle of an article that requires precisely none. Equally, when the AP writes a story about gun control advocacy, how often do they include quotes from firearms freedom folks? Approximately never.
I’ve said it before: until and unless gun companies can break the blacklist preventing them from advertising their products in the mainstream media, a large part of the culture will be against gun rights. We cannot depend on so-called journalism to spread the pro-gun message, nor can we hope that the alternative media will provide a suitably powerful alternative.
On a side note, if the people in the picture above the article are “elderly,” well, that’s really depressing.
“We cannot depend on so-called journalism to spread the pro-gun message, nor can we hope that the alternative media will provide a suitably powerful alternative.”
Never, ever think that the media are our friends. They are not. Not ever.
The media is simply a sect of liberal national socialism.
Journalism hasn’t existed for 50 or 60 years, except for a few honest folks who is hated by media typers for their impartiality and high moral character.
National? No, this is not National Socialism. It’s Global Corporatism. They want to turn the whole world into a “socialist” sh!thole run by Wall Street. They want their favored banks and corporations to make up a Big Brother-style One-World Government, modeled after “communist” China’s Dengist crony-capitalism, in an alliance with the neutered Commonwealth of Nations (minus India, because they have bad relations with Maoists and Islamic extremists), the EU, the Saudis and the Sunni Islamofascists that the Arab Spring helped install, and of course the People’s Republic of China. Eventually the Democrats would sell out Japan and South Korea to the Chicoms.
National? No, this is not National Socialism. It’s Global Corporatism. They want to turn the whole world into a “socialist” sh!thole run by Wall Street. They want their favored banks and corporations to make up a Big Brother-style One-World Government, modeled after “communist” China’s Dengist crony-capitalism, in an alliance with the neutered Commonwealth of Nations (minus India, because they have bad relations with Maoists and Islamic extremists), the EU-superstate, the Saudis and the Sunni Islamofascists that the Arab Spring helped install, and of course the People’s Republic of China. Eventually the Democrats would sell out Japan and South Korea to the Chicoms also.
Agreed. The author had no intention of only reporting on increased gun sales to new buyers.
They went into it with intention of ” educating” new buyers that they were making a bad decision.
Orwell is laughing his ass off somewhere.
I think Orwell is spinning in his grave, at about the 1980’s F1 engine RPMs of The Founders.
1984 was meant as warning, not an instruction manual.
1984 mixed with Idiocracy…
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – If humans survive another 50 years on anything resembling a civilized planet, the remainder will be a sad melange of 1984, Idiocracy, Gattaca, and Ghosts With Shit Jobs. The rest will be over-run with Muslims.
Read Bias, by Bernard Goldberg. Basically, whenever a story involves some topic, the news office has a list of people to call for reaction/quotes. Story involves older people? Call AARP. Story involves women? Call NOW. Story involves African-American people? Call NAACP. Story involves Jewish people? Call the Anti-Defamation League.
So, a story that involves guns? The people on their call list will be CSGV, MDA, BradyBunch, etc.
A lot of the time it’s unintentional, especially when they call institutions ‘regarded’ as impartial (AARP, ACLU), but it still tends to give the work of the news team a certain spin.
I think that there is also an ” abundance of evidence” that these people and the mainstream media are FOS.
As a NRA Instructor, the motivating factor for even strident anti-gun people — or actual, people who have been taught to think that way — is when suddenly, something goes bump in the night and guess what — the police take up to 20min to respond.
Last class, 20 students, 10 had an intruder in their home and zero empathy from the police since nobody died. In one case, the home owners husband and wife had to fight off the intruder with golf clubs and the person breaking in had a gun. Will never find out if the gun was real or fake or the intruder was too scared to use it. They are both D’s — they explained how they are no longer anti-gun and angry of how long it takes to get a gun and regulations around getting a gun and had drank the cool-aide that anyone could get a gun whenever they wanted by just walking into a store. They quickly found out they could not and went out a purchased a dog and alarm for the house until they could get a gun as well.
Let us stop believing the MSM will be fair or our friend. Never going to happen. People change when the veil of safety is lifted and police are there just to take a report.
The best thing the gun community can do is to pledge to take one new never used a gun before person to the range. It is a grass roots effort that cannot be stopped by the MSM and is the best way to gain new gun owners into the community.
As a Range Owner, I agree completely.
as a common citizen, it is painfully clear to me that the MSM is the anti-gun version of the KKK. Bigoted, corrupt and so far, immune to many of the rules that govern us common folk (lookin at you David Gregory).
Allowing any MSM to film a spot at your gun range/shop seems like aiding the enemy and even my nice guy instincts scream nope if I was approached for permission to film. No KKK membership drive on the premises and no MSM filming news spots.
So much BS in that article.
What they’re doing is exactly what sways the low-information voters. All those claims saying “more likely” and stuff like that are all expressing correlations that supposedly exist within their chery-picked data sheets. There’s precisely nil discussion as to why these correlations exist.
“People living in homes with guns are 90 percent more likely to die of homicides than people in other homes” Has it ever occured to them that these households are living in areas less safe that they turned to weapons for protection? Have they ever thought about what this percentage may be when these innocent people are left disarmed? Oh, I see, they’re smart people. And conceited smartasses are always trying to deceive.
The rest i’m too lazy to call out.
They also left out race. Seeing how the majority of murders are blacks killing blacks, it’s a safe assumption that their “increased risk of homicide” stat is gang members with illegally owned guns being killed by other gang members.
^^This^^
“The benefit-cost ratio”? Jesus, are you trying to sell me on investing in your new business?
How about analyzing this one: The benefits of CC a $300 pistol when you live on the shitty side of town.
“guns are more likely to be used against women in domestic violence incidents than in self-defense.”
So tool up and balance out those statistics!
“The studies we’ve seen over and over against indicate that buying a gun is more likely to be harmful to members of the family and the person than to harm an intruder,” Patrick said.
NO… those are long-debunked “public health” advocacy research.
If I recall, and I don’t want to lose more brain cells by going back and reading it again, the study quoted is 12 YEARS OLD! This in an article about people today buying more guns. Quality journalism, that.
That would be the Kellerman study and Kellerman admitted that his results were biased because it included prohibited persons. The data really says living with a felon makes it more likely that you will be murdered — and the gun used isn’t the one found in the home.
So what else is new? I except them to suck. As an aside I was in a local gun shop(Griffith, IN) today and the guy yapping at the clerk proceeded to whip put his tiny Beretta Tomcat (in 25!). The clerk had the exact same gun for sale. I told him they had a story about the tiny cat yesterday at the biggest gun blog in the world-TTAG. And he was a regular reader… there ya’ go! I still can’t believe he has it self-defense…
Griffith… Blythe’s?
Yep. Sadly no deals today.
Damn, he must be one hell of a big guy to conceal a 25 caliber pistol! That’s over two feet in diameter, just for the ammo! It gives a whole new meaning to Steve Buschemi’s line in Desperado about “This guy pulled out the biggest fucking hand-cannon I ever saw”.
“There is compelling evidence that a gun in the home is a risk factor for intimidation and for killing women in their homes.” — American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine
How about this angle:
“There is compelling evidence that a MAN in the home is a risk factor for intimidation and for killing women in their homes.”
When you live with a man — which includes eating and sleeping under the same roof with that man — that man most certainly does NOT need a firearm to easily intimidate or kill the woman in the home. Even a feeble person could easily kill you (without a firearm) if they have access to you while you sleep. Sheesh.
Actually Lesbians have the highest rate of domestic abuse.
The mistake was thinking they were ever a friend.
“There is compelling evidence that a gun in the home is a risk factor for intimidation and for killing women in their homes”
There’s far more compelling evidence that living with an abusive piece of shit is the only risk factor for intimidation and killing women in their homes. 400 million guns in this country alone, probably more than a billion worldwide, and I haven’t ever heard of a gun beating or killing a woman by itself.
“In a large majority of cases, women who do use their weapon and kill during a domestic violence incident are charged and plea bargain their cases, often facing jail time, she said.”
So remember ladies, Ellen Kramer, legal director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, thinks you shouldn’t defend yourself and should just take the beating from your shitheel abusive husband and just hope you survive.
What did the lady say:”If my gun is going to be used against me it will be empty and they will be bleeding.” I read that quote to my wife and she said yep, that’s how it will be.
if the people in the picture above the article are “elderly,” well, that’s really depressing.
Looks like a bunch of youngsters shooting guns.
Associated Press = Pravda.
Just look at the media coverage of the Hitlery rally.
This is clear evidence why “Journalism School” graduates in aggregate score far lower on nearly any test you give them compared to STEM graduates. Logic and reason, and understanding the institutional bias of “standard go to sources” are something that they are unable or unwilling to see. If they observed an angel float down from heaven and that angel gave them the word of God, they would feel compelled to call up a Satanist for an opposing viewpoint.
“What we don’t want people to have is a false sense of security,” she said.”
So when a criminal is in your home, approaches you in a parking lot, or attempting to rape, gun ownership is a false “sense” of security. Let’s review…small concealable device, capable of throwing lead slug at high velocity, employed with 8 pounds of effort with a finger….that’s more security than any other option on the planet.
“On a side note, if the people in the picture above the article are “elderly,” well, that’s really depressing.”
No kidding.
When you stop viewing the stories as news and instead as entertainment it makes it easy to ignore. Our problem is people view these stories as education. Facts. Records. Truth.
You’re not going to change that perspective. The media have a responsibility they don’t take seriously and if they do its biased.
It’s important to understand that in modern “news” media, the story is already written long before the reporters and photographers head out to get material.
What they go to collect is just stuff to support what has already been set in linotype (or bytes). It’s little more than window dressing. Frosting.
You don’t even need to study major stories like Ferguson to see that it’s all done ahead of time. Just watch ordinary everyday stories for a while and when you see “unexpectedly”, it’s almost always a small correction written in at the last moment to cover a falsehood or error so glaring even the editors can’t let it go.
You’re a prop.
Yep. It’s all about the narrative.
A few points.
First off, no study I’ve seen, and I’ve read a number of them, that looked at guns in the home vs. danger to occupants controlled for other criminal activity. There’s a world of difference in the attitude towards a gun that your average TTAG or POTG has as opposed to your average gangbanger. That guy living in the projects/trailer park pushing dope, “wilding out” and generally being a thug cannot reasonably be considered a 1:1 comparison with a middle aged homeowner who owns a gun. In fact the only thing he can be compared to 1:1 is other thugs.
Second, none of the studies I’ve seen have controlled for substance abuse. Very often domestic abuse has substance abuse related issues. People get hooked on meth or whatever and it completely changes their lives. Again, you can’t do a 1:1 comparison between a crackhead and someone who might have a few beers after work.
Third, journalists in my experience know precisely fuck all about firearms. I’ve seen people like Bill O’Rielly say things that are completely off the wall and a reflection of total ignorance. That’s inexcusable IMHO because someone like Bill has an entire team of people who can research things for him and tell him that the AR-15 for sale in your LGS is not a goddamn M4. They don’t bother though. As others have noted there’s a tendency among non-gun owners to assume that you can buy a gun as easily as you buy a can of soup. They don’t know jack shit about the topic but they continue to bloviate about it while steadfastly refusing to do any research.
Forth, the numbers on this are sketchy and I call bullshit they vary so much that I don’t think you can actually have any idea what’s really going on. For example ncadv.org says that 10 million people in this country are victims of domestic violence every single year. If that’s the case then how is it that in 2015 the FBI only recorded 55,598 rapes and 679,719 aggravated assaults? Are we truly to believe that north of 5 million women were violently assaulted in 2015 yet only 13.9% reported it? (Clearly I’m assuming here that every aggravated assault was a DV case. The reporting would have to be much lower in reality). I don’t know about you but I find that very nearly impossible to believe.
Oh, but let’s look at the DOJ’s definition of “domestic violence” shall we? (https://www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence). Hey look there, most of their definitions are not actually violent at all! If you have a kid and you tell your wife she should stay home and raise the kid while you work to make money, well you’re attempting to make her economically dependent on you and that’s domestic violence!
This is all tomfuckery and I’m sick of it. No one even has the numbers for this remotely nailed down but they claim they can work statistical wonders for us and tell us exactly why not to buy a gun while at the same time questioning the statistics on new gun buyers in an attempt to make it sound like every gun sold is to some “nutcase” collector who already has an “arsenal”.
“Although gun purchases are on the rise, they are being purchased by fewer households and by people who already own a gun(s),”
Lack of available data, indeed.
The number of Illinois FOID card holders (law-abiding gun owners) is at an all-time high and continues to rise. I have seen no data to indicate it’s going the other direction in other states.
so 90% more likely than what, 0.000000000001?
Also, shouldn’t that be a case by case basis depending on the assessment of the one requiring defense?
Also, what about kitchen knives? What’s the percentage on that and is it justifiable?
Read the original article – not TTAG’s selective quotes.
In an effort to provide balance, anti-gun folks are quoted, but overall, it’s fairly positive toward firearm owners. Unlike many, the writer actually went to the effort of shooting and consulted with gun store owners. Note that the piece ends on the phenomenal growth of women shooters.
Mr. Farago’s ‘the AP hates us’ claim is not supported by this piece from a Lebanon Daily News writer and circulated by the AP. TTAG readers expect accurate reporting from the media – and that includes TTAG.
Comments like this make me wish this site had an upvote option to get it to the top of the pile.
Of course that was exactly the thesis written in the very title of the post. So what exactly is your point, that RF was hiding some fact when he specifically calls it out at the very first step?
“The Associated Press is Not A Friend of Ours, Even When They Try to Be”
So what are you saying?
RF is right. No need to read the original. I get the gist. And “up voting”? It’s not difficult to post right under the 1st comment…
I’ve read the original article SJ gun owner. I don’t know what alternative universe you are from, but that article was not at all positive towards gun owners.
Case in point. This is towards the beginning of the article. “Still, she’s far from the stereotype of a gun owner, decked out in camouflage and stockpiling weapons while waiting for the apocalypse. Lager hates the National Rifle Association – “I think they are opportunists” – believes in mandatory training for people purchasing guns, and would never want to use her firearm to hurt an animal, much less a person. Instead, she considers herself part of a “silent majority” between two political extremes on guns.”
The rest of the article has some factual reference to gun ownership, but then has any quotes about gun safety and effectiveness from gun control groups, ie, not effective at all. No references to the DOJ’s own report about the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of defensive gun use a year. Let alone John Lott’s book of his own scientific research shown in his book “More guns, less crime” which show up to two or three million DGU’s a year.
So, no. Just another gun hit piece disguised as “fair and balanced” reporting.
Clearly, AP is no longer mainstream if it ever was. It is simply a tool of the political left. The good news is that there are more pro-gun and pro self-defense alternate media sources, training schools, websites, and video aggregators than ever.
The truth is out there. You just need to help people find it. When you take new friends shooting, help them also to adjust their RSS feeds.
Sight alignment: It ain’t just about guns anymore!
Old news.
Take away their right to use “media” as their own megaphone to shout down and drownout your freedom if speech, and the truth.
Newsflash, all mainstream media is owned and controlled by 6 corporations, and none of them are on your side.
Mainstream media is no longer journalism or investigative reporting, it is press releases from the powers that aim to control you. Left and right are just distractions to fool people that there is actually some choice.
I’ll go out on a limb here and say it’s possible the author wrote a straight up piece on the growing gun buying demographic. but then the editors got a hold of it and decided to add “balance” to it by filling it with the usual debunked anti-gun drivel and to maintain their political standing. Editors are often the bane of a journalists existence.
I can’t even get a link to the American Journal Of Lifestyle Medicine. Must be a high end, fully peer reviewed publication. Where do they come up citing crap like this? Don’t answer. Rhetorical question.
“Journalism” is what I scrape off the bottom of my shoes when I step in the wrong place.
So in a nurshell… someone who knows nothing about guns asks several other groups who no nothing about guns, what their thoughts are on guns. Bout sum it up?
Yeah, I’d say you got the gist of it.
There is ZERO UPSIDE to gun owners or rights advocates cooperating with the media. None. If the media wants an interview, tell them NYET. If they want a free gun safety course, tell them NYET. If they want a quote, tell them NYET. Freeze the bastards out like they freeze us out. It costs us nothing (they’re going to screw us anyway), and it makes their job harder, impacting their bottom line. Put them out of business. It’s way past time for us to go Amish on the media. If they need a quote, tell them to call a Bilderberger.
The Media, IS THE ENEMY.
Fact, Full Stop
The ANSA news agency said preliminary autopsy results indicated that Solomon had suffered injuries consistent with a fall and with days spent in the water. The police official said investigators were in particular looking to see if he was conscious when he fell in the water.
This is clear evidence why “Journalism School” graduates in aggregate score far lower on nearly any test you give them compared to STEM graduates. Logic and reason, and understanding the institutional bias of “standard go to sources” are something that they are unable or unwilling to see.
I’ll exit on a limb here and say it’s doable the author wrote a straight up piece on the growing gun shopping for demographic. on the other hand the editors got a hold of it and determined to feature “balance” to that by filling it with the same old debunked anti-gun drivel and to keep up their political standing. Editors ar typically the scourge of a journalists existence.
I’ll exit on an appendage here and say it’s feasible the creator composed a straight up piece on the developing firearm looking for statistic. then again the editors took a few to get back some composure of it and resolved to highlight “adjust” to that by filling it with a similar old exposed against firearm flimflam and to keep up their political standing. Editors ar ordinarily the scourge of a columnists presence.
Mainstream media is no longer journalism or investigative reporting, it is press releases from the powers that aim to control you. Left and right are just distractions to fool people that there is actually some choice.
When you stop viewing the stories as news and instead as entertainment it makes it easy to ignore. Our problem is people view these stories as education. Facts. Records. Truth.
The media is essentially a faction of liberal national communism.
Reporting hasn’t existed for 50 or 60 years, aside from a couple of genuine people who is detested by media typers for their unbiasedness and high good character.
This is clear proof why “News coverage School” graduates in total score far lower on almost any test you give them contrasted with STEM graduates. Rationale and reason, and understanding the institutional inclination of “standard go to sources” are something that they can’t or unwilling to see.
I’ll exit on a limb here and say it’s achievable the author wrote a straight up piece on the growing gun buying demographic. on the opposite hand the editors got a hold of it and determined to feature “balance” to it by filling it with identical recent debunked anti-gun drivel and to stay up their political standing. Editors ar usually the scourge of a journalists existence.
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