The NRA-ILA writes:
Does it ever seem like the entertainment industry needlessly interjects biased and politically-charged content into otherwise entertaining television programs or films? If so, rest assured you’re not unreasonably suspicious. Aside from the biases already attendant to the industry, the truth is that Hollywood is engaged in a concerted effort to propagandize unsuspecting Americans on certain political issues; and one of their chief causes is gun control . . .
This is an important point noted earlier this week by Daily Caller writer Dan Griffin, who brought much-needed attention to the work of the Entertainment Industries Council (EIC). Core to EIC’s mission is “Encouraging the entertainment industry to more effectively address and accurately depict major health and social issues.”According to EIC, civilian firearms ownership is one of the “major” issues requiring public conditioning.
To further this effort, EIC provides those in the entertainment industry with a list of “Depiction Suggestions” for how firearms should be portrayed on television and in film. Of the more than 30 “suggestions,” a handful target the criminal misuse of firearms. However, the vast majority seek to portray legitimate firearm ownership as destructive and dangerous.
Here are just a few examples:
Consider reflecting the reality that homeowners often freeze up or tremble so badly when trying to use a gun in self-defense that they are unable to deploy it. Or show them as being too frozen in fear to even get the gun.
Consider showing someone who is attempting to use a gun in self-defense being overpowered by the attacker who then uses the gun against him or her.
Consider depicting people as feeling less safe, rather than more safe, when they find their neighbors becoming increasingly armed.
If appropriate to the story, consider exploring a gun dealer’s or a gun supplier’s remorse about the harm done by someone to whom he or she furnished a firearm.
Consider having a character use a gun in what he/she believes is self-defense only to be charged with murder or manslaughter because it’s determined that excessive or unjustified lethal force was deployed.
Consider portraying a gun manufacturer making the right decisions in choosing to design a safer firearm.
Try making the point that having guns in the house may actually increase the possibility of home invasion robbery since firearms are an attractive target for theft.
While EIC states accuracy as an intended goal, they’ve failed woefully. For instance, EIC’s suggested characterizations of armed self-defense appear solely informed by their anti-gun prejudice. In reality, only a minority of defensive gun uses involve an individual firing at a criminal perpetrator, with the firearm often acting as a deterrent to further aggression.
Moreover, in their book, Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control, researchers Gary Kleck and Don B. Kates cite evidence suggesting those who resist crime using a firearm have more favorable outcomes than those who do not resist.
The authors note, “Victims who used guns were less likely to be injured than crime victims who did not resist…,” and, “there does not appear to be any increase in injury risk due to defensive gun use that counterbalances its greater effectiveness in avoiding property loss.” The pair go on to explain, “In sum, defensive gun use rarely provokes criminals to attack victims, and on the rare occasions that gun-using victims are injured after using their guns, the injuries are almost always minor.”
While the entertainment industry’s assault on our rights did not begin with EIC’s efforts, EIC has been engaged in their anti-gun mission for more than 15 years, with their “Firearm Depiction Tip-Sheet” launching in 2000. A few years later, EIC created a “guide” to firearm issues for industry members, following a “Picture This” meeting that included a who’s who of the anti-gun movement.
Just like the “Depiction Suggestions,” the guide contends to offer TV and film “creators” information on the dangers of firearms, much of which has been thoroughly debunked by NRA.
In the guide, special thanks is given to representatives from the Brady Campaign, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Million Mom March, and Violence Policy Center. The publication makes clear that it was produced “with support from The Joyce Foundation.”
The Joyce Foundation is best known to gun rights supporters as a key funding source for the radical gun prohibitionist group Violence Policy Center.
Further, the EIC board of trustees includes Wallis Annenberg, President and CEO of the anti-gun Annenberg Foundation. The Annenberg Foundation has made significant donations to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The document concludes by acknowledging EIC’s attempt to condition the public, noting, “All genres of entertainment can and do impart information to their audiences, which in turn may influence real-life decisions and beliefs.”
The document adds that anti-gun propaganda should be embedded into all manner of entertainment, regardless of whether it is particularly suitable, stating, “Gun violence is not an issue only appropriate for police, medical or legal dramas.
All types of programming — from television comedies to country music — can find an angle of the issue that will appeal to their audience while maintaining the integrity of the production.”
According to the Hollywood Reporter, in 2005, EIC mailed out 1,900 copies of the guide to “showrunners, development executives, writers, producers and directors in film and television,” and sent additional emails to “800 people working on TV shows or programs in development.”
Moreover, in 2003, EIC joined with the Joyce Foundation to launch the now defunct EDGE (Entertainment Depiction of Gun Education) awards. Commendations were given to television shows that best conformed to EIC’s suggested depictions of firearms. Those programs that received inaugural EDGE awards included 7th Heaven, ER, and The West Wing.
EIC provides those in the entertainment industry with a list of “Depiction Suggestions” for how firearms should be portrayed on television and in film. Of the more than 30 “suggestions,” the vast majority seek to portray legitimate firearm ownership as destructive and dangerous.
To EIC’s credit, their “Depiction Suggestions” do not include producing negative representations of the nation’s largest civil liberties organization, or as they might term NRA, the gun lobby. However, anti-gun studio executives have not let this oversight stop them.
Described by Variety as a “gun control drama,” Miss Sloane, a film set to be released in 2017, follows the exploits of a political strategist working on behalf of the gun control lobby. Actress Jessica Chastain, who portrays fictional gun control lobbyist Elizabeth Sloane in the film, told reporters, “It’s a David and Goliath story, with this woman up against a powerful force: the NRA.”
It will certainly take some movie magic to portray a character whose real-world counterparts are principally bankrolled by a billionaire media mogul and his well-heeled cohorts as David, to a 5 million member grassroots organization’s Goliath.
Hollywood mega-producer and Hillary Clinton fundraiser Harvey Weinstein also has NRA in his sights. Weinstein is currently working on an anti-NRA project titled The Senator’s Wife.
In early 2014, Weinstein told listeners of the Howard Stern Show that NRA is a “disaster area,” and, “I’m going to make a movie with Meryl Streep, and we’re going to take this head-on. And they’re going to wish they weren’t alive after I’m done with them.” When Weinstein isn’t pontificating against guns, he is the purveyor of violent films such as Rambo (2008), Pulp Fiction, and Grindhouse, and slasher flicks like Halloween and Scream.
Unfortunately, even the fiction section of your local library isn’t safe from the organized gun control agenda. According to an article from WashingtonPost.com, two-dozen crime writers have collaborated on a forthcoming collection of short stories, titled, Unloaded: Crime Writers Writing Without Guns.
The anthology specifically contains stories in which the authors have refused to depict violence perpetrated with firearms, instead opting for other violent means, as some sort of incoherent statement against guns generally. The proceeds of the compilation will go to gun control group States United To Prevent Gun Violence.
However, one surprisingly astute Washington Post writer points out, “If not overtly, then certainly implicitly, this is a pro-gun-control collection, but ironically, it seems to confirm the old NRA bumper sticker: ‘Guns Don’t Kill People. People Kill People.’”
In the face of entertainment industry intransigence, the most effective means of combatting this type of conditioning is to inform others of the concerted effort to indoctrinate the public. As for frustrated gun rights supporters, the next time you’re at home watching television or a film and encounter this sort of propaganda, just remember, there was a reason your mother called it the idiot box.
——-
About:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org
As I said in an earlier post, the media is a worse enemy to liberty than the tyrant politician.
They direct the public to action, as you see motivated by their own agenda. And they are successful.
Yes. So where are the flags saying “Sic semper media?” In the event of a real revolution, the media should be the first to go. They are a major part of the enslavement complex.
I love/hate it when a vocal minority of gunners makes the rest of us look like retards. “They want to take away my 2A rights?! Well, my revolution will end their 1A rights! Have I mentioned how I respect the Constitution lately?”
The answer to bad speech is more speech, not bullets.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree. The 1st amendment does not protect sedition. Anybody who rallies against any part of the constitution automatically forfeits the protections of the rest of it.
Oh, and some people DO need killing.
“Anybody who rallies against any part of the constitution automatically forfeits the protections of the rest of it.”
Sir, please reference Article V of The Constitution of the United States of America, which outlines in detail the Constitutional methods with which ANYBODY may rally against any part of the Constitution. Also note that many times people have in fact rallied against the Constitution with the result being 27 amendments to that document to date.
Don’t really follow your point.
I didn’t suggest any sort of solution for this, and I don’t really know that there is one.
This is a cultural problem.
It’s also a function of crony corruption – the media is effectively the PR arm of the Democrat party, which itself is another branch of the government – functionally.
This is bad, we need an independent media but the truth is that the people in general don’t really see any problem, because they are informed mostly by the very media we are discussing.
That said, I see the internet based media outlets becoming more and more relevant, and the traditional media becoming less less of. Perhaps they will just die out and go away.
That’s what I think, that’s all.
I thought his comment was in response to Rokurota’s post about revolution and who would suffer first.
That said, the media and the Hollywood elite are doing more than merely making movies and singing songs. They’re actively involved in pushing an enslavement agenda and they work tirelessly to elect politicians eager to implement it. Now, perhaps all of that activity also falls under constitutionally protected rights, too. Freedom of assembly, petitioning the government for redress of grievances, and so forth. Perhaps.
Then again, there are plenty of acts which on their face may be perfectly legal, but taken in the context of their aims become illegal. For example, as we all know, culpability for criminal conspiracies depends on an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy (thanks “Law & Order”!), regardless whether the objective is reached. Well, those acts can include a whole lot of speech and assembly and petitioning the government.
My point here is not that the media is a vast left wing criminal conspiracy and that anyone would be justified in committing violence. Far from it. Likewise, however, the media isn’t just out there expressing their opposing views in a vacuum. True, many are just vacuous. Others just want to curry favor so they get good parts, get nominated for Oscars, or just to feel smugly self-righteous.
Others, though, more than a few, actually do want to transform America into something European. Which century or decades of Europe they have in mind, is what’s troubling. These people are not mere limousine liberals and champagne socialists. They’re Fifth Columnists who are exploiting the freedom this country affords them, to bring down this country. There’s nothing honorable about that. While I would not condone violence against them for it, neither do I feel compelled to respect what they’re doing for even one second.
Thank you Jonathan – Houston
Having abdicated its role as the bulwark of liberty, the American Fourth Estate has become the Fifth Column.
I agree 100% Mr. 308. Politics are downstream from culture. We see evidence of the progressive efforts to fundamentally transform America in the form of tryannical laws being floated, but these defitely come after a cultural shift in that direction–starting first in the slave states.
However, even in free states like Montana we see the encroaching cultural warfront in things like transgender bathroom bills (called non-discrimination ordinances) and other footings. First the culture changes and law soon follows. That’s just the way it works.
That’s why I make known to anyone who will listen why I don’t participate in many “mainstream” cultural activities, like TV, that are being used to promote a secular progressive agenda.
It would seem these suggestions would have a huge effect on the plot. I can’t imagine writers and producers taking this crap seriously enough and altering the plot line just for it. But hey, stranger things happen.
Yet 70% of Hollywood movies revolve around the simple plot of a good guy with a gun taking out a bad guy with a gun.
Yes but almost always this occurs with a “highly trained” subject being the main protagonist which is where the cop out comes in. It works just as well with the ‘anti’ narrative of “guns for me but not for thee” because they can just pass off the protection they get from firearms as being wielded by those highly trained.
To hollywood, and most of the anti freedom crowd, firearms are far too difficult to use as they are complicated and without decades of training they are next to useless in the hands of civilian. UNLESS of course that civilian is a mass shooter at which point they turn into commandos and firearms are the easiest machine to operate since the stone chisel.
I don’t doubt that they rationalize their profit taking from guns that way. But in reality they are doing more to push the hated ‘gun culture’ than the NRA could ever dream of. Unfortunately, they also promote unsafe, even reckless use of firearms. They glorify not only the guns but the violence as well. They make children curious about guns. If they are truly concerned about disarmament for safety then they are their own worst enemies. But most likely they’re just hypocrites.
So true
“Yeah, Can you feel it baby. …”
*whispers*
“I can too.”
Simple truth for ALL..”..Better to have a gun and not need it than to not have one and wish you did.”
These hypocrites make their career’s from constantly depicting firearms negatively, and then have the audacity to promote the systematic weakening of our 2nd Amendment rights; with significant loopholes for them and their protectors.
Yet again, with each new day I find another reason to dislike California.
And New York. Although I suspect the same mentality and studios that drive California are at work in the industry in New York as well.
As an example: I have recently been catching up on reruns of CSI New York. (Missed a lot when I was truck driving.) Generally I find the show entertaining, but their depictions of guns, especially those used in crimes, is ludicrous. Single shot stops and sudden death from center mass shots with .22LR or .25 ACP and 9mm or .38 Spcl rounds that never penetrate all the way through the skull in head shots. Laughable.
But more to the point of the subtle agenda, I watched an episode today where the victim was shot in the abdomen by a frangible round and the CSIs and ME seemed to have no idea what could possibly have caused the wound and not left an intact slug for them to examine, only a copper/zinc powder. They traced these supposed special bullets to a training facility in the Bronx that used these special “Simunitions” in their “Kill House” during training. In the scene of the training the instructor ambushes a student from behind a corner by pointing his pistol, loaded with these “simunitions” at the student’s head – with his finger on the trigger! (This was obvious as Mac immediately took his pistol from him and drop the magazine to reveal the copper/zinc simunitions loaded. In the subsequent lecture to the students the instructor points out the mistake the student made (!) and that as a class they had managed to kill 6 innocent civilians that day and would have to try to do better next week. The sad part was that Mac Taylor (Gary Senise) did not arrest him on the spot for fraud since he had no business teaching anybody about gun handling or gun safety.
And remember Gell-Mann amnesia is in play here as well.
If you are not familiar with the concept, this is when you read something say in the paper by a particular writer, say on the subject of earthquakes. You know nothing about earthquakes. You find the article interesting and tell yourself ‘hey, I learned something today’.
Then the next day you read something by the same writer and this time it’s about computer networking technology. You happen to be a network administrator, and as you read you realize the writer is completely full of BS, has no idea what he is talking about, is just throwing buzz words out there and is basically terrible.
You have to think back now and realize the writer is this bad on the subject you know, he is most likely full of the same bovine excrement in the article about earthquakes that you don’t know much about.
It’s the same here, we may know the firearms BS in these shows but we also have to assume in areas we aren’t familiar with these writers are full of crap in every subject.
We try and be picky what we watch. “Better Call Saul” for example is really good TV, “The Knick” was really good. Some of the reality TV maybe fun to watch, but you can’t take it too seriously. I can’t watch anything from the alphabet nets, ABC/CBS/NBC, literally it’s just so terrible.
The plots of episodes in the first few seasons of the original CSI set in Las Vegas frequently depicted concealed-carry permit-holders as either irresponsible gun-owners or actual criminal perpetrators. I’m sure I was one of many who contacted CBS to protest these erroneous portrayals by citing available data showing CCW-permittees have lower arrest & conviction rates than average for the general population and fewer unintentional discharge incidents per capita than LEOs. Whether due to coincidence or causation, this plot device appeared less often in subsequent episodes.
I think Hollyweird actually does a great job of selling the iron. Look at the movies at Redbox and Wally World, all of them have guys running around with guns with more “Gun Violence” than Eugene Sledge and the Marines at Okinawa. Makes Peleliu look like a Boy Scout sleepover.
“…the truth is that Hollywood is engaged in a concerted effort to propagandize unsuspecting Americans on certain political issues; and one of their chief causes is gun control . . .”
Please.
Hollywood is the 2A’s best buddy.
All they need to do is to always portray guns in their movies as so abhorrent that the very idea of civilian gun ownership would be horrifying.
But, they don’t, and more importantly they *won’t*, since those movies won’t sell. Well, unless the public suddenly decides romantic comedies are all they want to see.
But, dag-nabbit, the people, to the left’s endless dismay and chagrin, love seeing action movies with lots of guns being used by both the good guys and the bad guys. And, they *CHEER* when good triumphs over evil.
Hollywood, don’t change a single thing, you are fine just the way you are.
And we wouldn’t have it any other way…
*Wink*
Nah. In Hollywood, guns are usually only wielded by members of the government, ex members of the government, or criminals, oh or crazy hillbillies/rednecks. It’s either that or guns aren’t used to solve the problem because it would be too easy to just shoot the monster/slasher and ruin the movie. I’m certain there are exceptions because there are a lot of movies that I haven’t seen. But the general theme is that if you’re a government employee of some sort, then you can use guns in a good way because you’re trained and a good guy. If you’re a civilian with a gun, you’re either incompetent or a criminal. The message is clearly there.
Here is an example that infected Blue Bloods, starring NRA Board Member Ton Selleck. His son, Det. Danny Regan, seems to shoot someone every week. But when his wife Linda (a nurse) is mugged coming home from the hospital one night, she goes out and, using her husband’s (and father-in-laws) pull to get a permit hustled through the system, goes and buys a revolver. Then one night it comes time to use her little (unloaded) .38, and she points it at the bad guy. But she is so freaked out by the encounter that she confesses her little deception to Danny and gives him the gun, realizing that she will never have the willpower to use it. Guns for me (the cops) but not for thee (the civilian).
[As an aside, Danny usually carries a Kahr. Would this really be allowed in NY as a duty weapon? Not knocking Kahr, mind you, just NYC.]
NYPD traded in a large number of Kahr K9 pistols within the last couple years. Good pricing on solid hardware.
Too bad I missed that. I am rather fond of mine. I asked because I thought the city was into Glocks with 12 lb triggers for all.Must be for the beat cops, then.
Maybe NYC made the switch since the 12lb triggers made it too tough to shoot all those innocent by-standers.
“A gun misfiring and injuring someone after being accidentally dropped.” So it lands on someone’s foot and hurts them since it misfired and no bullet exited the barrel?
Oh man this is nothing new. How many movies & TV shows show a timid female pull a gun on a violent male? And then scream/not shoot him or faint. Real women pull the trigger. Like my wife. Without guns there would be NO Hollyweird.
Their plan backfires too. I quit watching shows that push the bs too far. Never sorry to watch less TV.
A Weinstein movie starring Meryl Streep…there’s something I’d pay good money NOT to see.
Meryl Streep features in just about every flick on my “I want that two hours of my life back” list of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I won’t go near another movie that has her in it, not even if it’s free. My time is worth too much to waste any of it that way.
And in a business stuffed to bursting with pompous pricks, Weinstein has the distinction of being possibly the biggest testicle-head of them all.
“…special thanks is given to representatives from the Brady Campaign, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Million Mom March, and Violence Policy Center.” Chris Cox at NRA-ILA would know all about the Brady Campaign, they’re on the same side.
Before the U.S. Federal Appeals Court in Chicago overturned Illinois’ concealed weapons law in Moore v. Madigan (2012) NRA lobbyist Todd Vandermyde already cut a deal with the anti-gun Chiefs of Police to put Duty to Inform in the “NRA backed” carry bill.
Chief Tim McCarthy of Orland Park, IL was president of the IL Chiefs when Vandermyde cut the deal on Duty to Inform. That’s the same Tim McCarthy who was a Secret Service agent when President Reagan was shot, and the same Tim McCarthy who does events with Jim & Sarah Brady to promote gun control. NRA and the Bradys are on the same team.
At least Vandermyde is consistent. He has consistently been a liar and a rat who deliberately sets up armed citizens to be killed by police criminals. Maybe that’s why Chris Cox & Chuck Cunningham keep him on the payroll as a contract lobbyist, he’s consistent. NRA-ILA knows they can count on Vandermyde to backstab NRA members every time.
Michael Bloomberg’s paid troll on the job here.
Let me tell you something, friend. I would rather have Illinois’ CCW law that the one in effect in California. First of all, you went from no ccw to shall issue. California has may issue, which in almost all urban counties is no issue.The sheriff (or Chief of Police) in each jurisdiction has his or her own rules on issuance, and they vary widely. Some counties have a duty to inform, others don’t. Some used to ban campus carry, others didn’t (until the State passed a law banning all carry on campuses). And Illinois is not alone; Ohio also has a duty to inform. And in most places, it is considered plain good manners, as it prevents “issues” if an officer spots your gun.
If you ignore a troll he shrivels up and dies(one would hope). Yep-Illinois is way better than commiefornia. Except the weather…
Thr best movie with a civilian with a gun was Don Knots, in Apple Dumpling Gang. Thats how the media should portray citizens with guns
What about “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight”? Based on a true story… (you KNOW it’s BS when you read that!)
Some of the suggestions for content in the beginning actually do make sense and/or don’t particularly seem thought provoking towards ant-gun ideals… Most of them are more redundant then anything….. Firearm manufacturers have been making firearms safer and safer for years. Though, the only safety you can trust (usually) is keeping that finger out of the trigger guard!
Gee, I’m just wondering, if the entertainment industry is wanting to insert subliminal messages to depict gun ownership in a negative way, why are so many movies depicting violence and guns as part of the story line. Wouldn’t they instead want to make movies that are absent this activity. Oh that’s right, then they woulld actually have to write movie screenplays with a story line and real dialogue.
Well, all the best artists seeking big-T truth get their stories, scenes n carictariions for a mime graphed list of Agitprop tropes.
Really, is this any different from productnplacement? They’ll put anything on the screen they’re paid to. For the art.
I do think the funding and content sourcing for movies n T V should be in the credits, and the marketing. We can help them with this, I think. “Brought to you by ‘The Right Think Catalog’ and Bloomie’s billions, it’s what’s left of the artist’s truth in… ‘Flyover Follies…”
As for Ms. Chastain, she’s just doing penance for being the lead in that finding Bin Ladin movie.
Gorramit, could the overlords delete that last of mine, until I can get to an inter we b device that fights me less hard.
I frakking proof-read what I could see. Today it’s started making up words, because helping, I suppose.
None of the eic links work.
I noticed this too. Can’t get anything from that domain to work.
The more people are prevented from the reality, the more they want the fantasy. I don’t mean prevented from killing people while in a crime spree. I mean the reality of being able to defend themselves. The Wild West heroes and heroines such as Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley were created as entertainment for the huddled masses in the big cities as the range was closed. Same thing here. The entertainment industry needs real crime to keep the proles scared, gun control to keep them weak, and a free hand from the politicians to portray as much gratuitous violence as possible. Bread and circuses while the Empire crumbles.
Right on!!!
You hit the nail on the head!!
I Could not have put it better!
Thank you
I’ve been saying that the movie industry is our biggest enemy for a long time now. People get their perception of firearms from Hollywood and that’s a very dangerous thing. Politicians also learn everything they know about firearms from Hollywood as well and much of the legislation they propose is based off of those false beliefs.
So I guess we can say it without sounding crazy anymore. All hollywood movies are nothing more than brainwashing
E.g. “Jesus Christ Superstar”, where I was taken aspart of a Church youth group in the mid 70s. Great music, costumes and sets, but a very cynical message where Jesus is crucified and does not rise three days later. Maybe due to Jewish funding? Norman Jewison was the director. But every credible account in the Bible predicts, then reports that Jesus walked among his Apostles AFTER His resurrection. Big fail for Hollywood.
Yeah, screenwriters are going to laugh at them. Story drives everything to them, and if one of these suggestions doesn’t fit the story or add to a character or the plot its getting filed in the trash.
Reading the comments re , “yeah, they show lots of guns, but always in the hands of government or ex-government [good guys]…”, I am reminded of Norman Lear and Archie Bunker. Lear created Archie to show the world what hopeless idiots blue-collar conservatives were. But as people watched the show, they pretty much agreed with the viewpoints Archie was expressing–the very stuff Lear was hoping to deconstruct was actually being reinforced. Sometimes the Hollywood SJWs are too clever by half–and actually wind up promoting what they intend to destroy. I think it kind of works that way with guns. The audience tends to view the “good guy” as the “good guy”, not as the “government guy”, especially since the movies are inhabited with double-crossing bad guys who work for the government too.
RICO
Comments are closed.