Over at the Washington Post’s blog The Fix, Amber Phillips writes what should be the final word on the current state of civilian disarmament in America. “Gun control is still going nowhere in Congress,” Phillips asserts. “And in fact, with every major mass shooting in America, gun-rights supporters seem to be digging in even further — and bringing the rest of America along with them.” Note the words “in fact” . . .
‘Cause Ms. Phillips brings a bunch of them (facts, that is) to her editorial Gun control? Americans increasingly see more guns as the solution, not the problem; including the eye-opening poll results above.
Eye-opening if you keep your eyes open. Which fellow WaPo editorialist, rapper and gun owner Paris refuses to do in his racially-charged, righteously rambling anti-pistol polemic Guns are killing my community. It’s time to end the stale gun debate and act.
Yada yada racism yada yada NRA yada yada yada [paraphrasing] . . .
And as an artist, I don’t want to let my industry off the hook for corporate hip-hop that promotes an almost cartoonish savagery with lyrics like “Mask on, fully loaded, when I pull on street; Rifle butcher knife, zip ties for hands and feet” — taken from an upcoming major-label release — that do their part to glorify the very real gun violence prevalent in too many communities . . .
I’ve seen the enemy and it doesn’t look like me. It looks like the political machinery that makes guns readily available in my community. It also looks like media outlets that fuel the fires of racism, and the business interests that profit from the exploitation of warped messages designed to influence those susceptible to its influence.
Hopefully the tragedy of mass shootings, born of too-easy access to guns, will be the catalyst for us to meaningfully deal with gun violence.
The right to keep and bears arms is a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right. As such, it’s not subject to the democratic process. Nor does it depend on arguments of social utility. It exists independent of rap artists’ use of free speech to glorify gang-banging (if, indeed, that’s what they’re doing). It exists aside from the political machinery and business interests that oppose or promote gun ownership. Linking it to these social trends misses the entire point: the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right.
That said, gun rights HAVE popular support. They WIN the argument on social utility. So why is the Washington Post and the rest of the establishment media so obstinately pro-gun control, even when they know they’re going against public support and common sense? What’s in it for them? Is it a cultural problem; all those Ivy league J-school grads bringing their liberal bias to bear in the good old boy network? Or does the mainstream media operate on the principle that statism – for that is what gun control represents – is good for business? Something else?
It’s a combination of the mental disorder that is progressive ideology, and the fact that these people have lived insular lives, completely separated from reality.
This is a HUGE component of the Progressive mindset.
I cannot tell you how many times I have seen business customers expect to pay a few bucks for several man-hours of effort. Or children who expect their parents to pay thousands of dollars for something to amuse their children.
The real problem is the MEDIA ,our education system , and our government, is completely controlled by the ONE WORLD ORDER, that is why nothing is EVER DONE correct.. and its NEVER EVER has been tin foil hat event … WAKE UP … You are now already taken over. LIBERTY is DEAD……………..
WANT proof you are sold out ! READ “WAR IS A RACKET” by Major- General Smedley Butler, USMC
F O L L O W – T H E – M O N E Y
1) Mass media only keeps its doors open by sponsorship (NOT viewer/readership/distribution/syndication/subscription)
2) Since Cave Man times, Mass media is USED TO getting paid by the government to affect public policy/public opinion/sell war bonds etc. That is the ‘last war’ that they are always ‘training for’ and what they are striving to demonstrate that they are capable of implementing.
3) They have a monopoly on those that partake of them (in slack-times the media imitates and intimates what it’s immediate local markets present). Those main media markets are in strangubation-blue enclaves of evil house of (D) blue state urban centers on the coasts and in Chi-com-cago. Sic – Conservatives are turned-off and tune-out (check the ratings, they are horrible, even around/during such events as 9/11). ERGO – the further inbred.
4)They get their talent from the one place you cannot find any. Liberal college campuses. Where the line is set on (D) headedness.
5) Ownership (of most such entities) is prevented from transferring to foreign hands, but that does not pre-empt/preclude those people from accepting foreign funds in their generation of the “news” (read, exactly like latest Israeli election).
“Freedom of the press, is the affirmed freedom to protect, through mass media, the
citizens of the United States from a secret and tyrannical government; thereby being a freedom
protected by an armed citizenry [1]. It is not an affirmation of freedom from any other entity. It
is not, also, a freedom bestowed upon an individual member of the “press”, or their entire
species, because they happen to be a more noble creature than the average citizen. It is not
freedom of speech; it does not permit, or allow for megaphone amplification to shout down or
over another citizen’s free speech. It does not endure the marketing of falsehood, regardless of
foreknowledge or intent. As such, when pooled with the nightly news report or the daily pages it
must be rejected wholly.” [TERMS, J.M. Thomas, R., 2012, pg. 103]
Why do you endlessly fill comment threads with these quotes from “TERMS, J.M. Thomas, R.”? Just curious. Is this something you wrote, or have a personal connection to?
I’ve asked this same questions many times and never get a response.
Progressive – n. One who uses the failed results of previous policies as proof and impetus for the expansion of those same polices.
They ALL need to be mugged AND have their homes invaded and/or be carjacked at night. Then we’ll see.
Nothing less than Australia outcome.
Nothing less than China, more like.
Or North Korea. Totalitarianism is the end result of “progressive” policies.
. . .And arms, and those armed, are always the downfall of totalitarians, until the Grace of Societal Agreement allows the sh_t breathing space to coalesce in the back-waters of prosperity, and we begin with the ARMY OF BLUE, EVIL (D) HEAD LIBERAL A-HOLES.
Because the media attracts and retains a certain type of person, the type of person we today refer to as “social justice warrior” on internet social media. The media was attracting and employing these personality types before there was any social media, before the Internet was accessible by the public, before there were even dial-up BBS systems, etc.
If they have to lie to accomplish this, well, the cause justifies the means, ya know? This isn’t new stuff. This goes all the way back to Walter Duranty spreading utterly bald-faced Soviet propaganda in the pages of the NY Times… and receiving a Pulitzer Prize for so doing. Duranty’s crimes included bald-faced propaganda for the Soviets as they were deliberately and systematically starving millions of people in Ukraine to death. Today, Duranty should be ranked up there with Holocaust deniers, but the world of j-school journalism still won’t take back Duranty’s Pulitzer.
The journalists-as-SJW types love social causes. Just love them. The journalist-SJW type wants to feel really, really good about themselves. And to do that, they need to tell you how you should behave, who you should associate with, who you should vote for (and why), etc. When you don’t listen to them, they become very cross, and the journalist types then start to question your intellect, breeding, manners and sanity, in roughly that order, altho I’ve noticed a recent trend to skip the middle two phases.
It’s also the fact that those SJW-types don’t want colleagues with opposing viewpoints. The media has hung the modern version of an “Irish Need Not Apply” sign at the entrance to their ivory towers (same with speakers at college campuses).
It has to do with conformation bias and the provincialism within most major media markets. This quote from Pauline Kael, film critic for the New Yorker, sums it up very nicely:
“I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”
“Journalists” support gun control and every other item of leftist ideology because that’s what they are paid to do. Money talks. Truth walks. And that’s that.
Truth.
For journalists, I would tend to agree.
For everyone else who pushes gun control, they are either useful idiots (who are so clueless they fail even to understand their own ignorance) and tyrants.
“For everyone else who pushes gun control, they are either useful idiots (who are so clueless they fail even to understand their own ignorance) and tyrants”
Which one are police officers? Are they the Useful Idiots or Tyrants. Like you just said those are they only characterizations that apply when an individual willingly and eagerly gets paid to enforce California’s illegal gun control over their fellow American citizens. What an accurate account of the lack of the content of character in an individual that violates the Constitution and disarms Americans out of greed, and no less at the end of a state issued gun. It’s almost like you know somebody that matches your definition of being a gun control supporter or gun control enforcer.
It didn’t work out too well for cowards exercising and enforcing gun control on April 19, 1775, and history not learned from is often repeated. That was the start of America’s first civil war and it was started by the same grievance as in the second one, which was when one group demanded to another group that they had to bend their knees. A brief history lesson about the Second Amendment. It was the intent of the Second Amendment that the firearm in the hand of the colonist was not for protection from the king, but the Second Amendment was recognized for the protection from the king’s men.
that’s easy, they’re dumbasses!problem is they don’t think they know any gun owners, when in fact probably a lot of their friends are gun owners that just don’t tell them their gun owners because of their retarded belief system. plus we all know about President Obama’s back door meeting with the press. you know the one where it was supposed to be open to the general public but you got turned away at the door unless you had a press pass. it’s all a setup and he’s the main player pushing the liberal media to report on everything that bleeds! it’s really an unjust sentence these liberal media personality types are giving the gun owning populace of this country. when they’re right to work is covered under the First Amendment which is defended by the second can we please hammer that through one of their thick skulls kama thank you david.
I suspect that Fox News and the Drudge Report are part of the mainstream media now, so it isn’t quite monolithic in this respect.
Because the vast majority are left-wing azzwholes…
Part of it is money. No news sells like bad news.
Headline: “Guns save family of 4″
Viewers: a few.
Headline:”Guns should be banned!”
Viewers: everyone, both pro and anti gun.
We the people then feud while the editor in chief is laughing all the way to the ratings bank.
You can see it on TTAG as well. Keep an eye on the comment count when the “Quote of the Day” is a pro-gun quote or an anti-gun quote. To a large extent, we get the news we most consume.
Because trolling people gets eyeballs, and more eyeballs sell more ads.
Bingo. And everyone hops onto some of the bandwagons (to pick just one recent meme, remember when Ebola was going to be TEOTWAWKI)?
What does political machinery look like, pay tell? Does it look anything like the dude on the corner selling stolen guns? How about the woman who buys a gun for her man even though she knows he’s in a gang and has a felony record?
It looks like the cops who stand by and do nothing when gangsters roam the streets destroying what little opportunities for a good future children may otherwise have had; but suddenly gets busy interfering and ranting about “death squads,” when decent, armed parents get tired of waiting for them.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Progressive riffraff to figure than one out, either….
I don’t recall doing any of that stuff. I remember impounding gangbanger cars and running them for warrants.
I think he is referring to the behavior in Baltimore and Ferguson. Gassing protesters and the media while buildings burn, then “give them room to riot” the next. I think the only arrest/charges filed I read about from Ferguson was for Geraldo’s bodyguard sporting a CCW without permit. I wonder how the investigation is going on the arsons…
Accur81 & Richard in WA
Less about any particular incident (nor about any individual officer), than about the general culture of banning parents from simply cleaning up their neighborhoods as they see fit, unless those who ban them from doing so simultaneously guarantee that they’ll do at least as good a job as what they are preventing others from doing.
In LA about a decade or two ago, in many neighborhoods, gangs were definitely roaming the streets. the occasional running of number plates or not. So, some people decided to at least make the roaming part a bit more cumbersome, by blocking off major cruising streets in their neighborhoods. And, lo and behold, here comes the cavalry. To the gangstas rescue, whatdoyaknow….
Ditto regarding the furor over so called “death squads” murdering “children” in Brazil around the same time. As if a bunch of born and raised Catholic family guys down there just decided to go around murdering complete innocents for amusement alone.
And closer to home: Report a bicycle stolen in San Francisco, and the cops will tell you they don’t have the resources. Catch the thief in the act and smack him over the head with a tire iron, and suddenly the resources are available. To go after you….
In general, the deeper we sink into the swamp that is our current progressive dystopia, the more unequivocally true it becomes, that the state’s violence apparatus is primarily employed to run interference for those commonly thought of as “bad guys.” All of whom would simply have to either clean up their act, or their remains, were it not for said interference. Even in Mafia infested Sicily, the “protection rackets” wouldn’t last past the first week, were it not for a “higher power” watching the gangsters back, keeping them safe from the 98% of the population who are not Cosa Nostra.
Some sort of a police force with a certain privileges wrt initiating violence for the protection of others, may well be a good thing versus just leaving it up to every single individual to protect himself. But with that privilege comes a responsibility to at least not do a worse job that those granting it to you could have done themselves. When you fail at that, just abdicate and leave it up to the individuals, who after all were granted that right to self protection by a much higher power than some gaggle of sleazy politicians.
“The right to keep and bears arms is a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right. As such, it’s not subject to the democratic process”
End of debate.
Castle Coin Conscience, motivation math money….words on a page pays and frankly shaping a narrative holds no law.
“..Why Does the Mainstream Media Cling to Gun Control?”
Because you dance with them that brung ya.
Bloomberg’s millions buy a lot of agreement from a lot of media outlets. And he is just the one we see the most of. Countless others are buying agreement from media outlets, or employing those that agree with them to work at the media outlets, which is kind of the same thing.
My guess is because they are elitists from big cities and are naturally left-leaning sheep, feeding on their own news cycles, caught in a bubble of propaganda of their own making.
If you take these same people out of their element and move them to say, rural Carolina, or rural PA or Nebraska, Alaska,Texas (ie – get them out of their big city elitist, latte-sipping bubble) and let them live like most people (average job) for a year or two, I bet their perspective would change dramatically.
There is some truth to that. More people need exposure to different environments – and not just Paris-Hilton-goes-to-a-farm-for-6-hours field trips. “Oh look, that’s what a farm looks like. Quaint!”
Live outside a megalopolis for a while, shoot just live outside of the suburbs for a while and you will pick up a new perspective. It will challenge your intellectual honesty.
Try living in a town with no police force for a while and see how people handle themselves.
Kids drive quads on the streets, shoot BB guns in their backyard, and there’s one or two calls to the Sheriff a month (I read the blotter in the local paper). Everyone’s armed, nobody cares, and generally speaking people are free to do their own thing. Turns out there aren’t shootouts in the streets. Who knew?
Excellent description of how parochial we all are.
It’s very difficult for us PotG to fathom how easy it is for city-folk to imagine that civilians-carrying-guns = blood-in-the-streets. Yet, that’s just the way it is.
Recall the New Yorker cover of some decades ago of a NYC-dweller’s mental map of the US. There is some definition of Newark but then the rest of the territory is depicted as prairie.
As much as we try to tell these urban dwellers that there are 300 million guns in the US and their owners don’t all shoot one-another, they just don’t get-it.
In fact, the California immigrants to Austin TX don’t get it when they are just a few miles away from the enormous rural territory of their State where guns are common.
We PotG are really pretty clueless as to how to penetrate the urban-dweller’s mentality.
It is all about who is in power and controlling that power to their whims.
Because fear sells papers, draws eyes and gets clicks.
“So why … [are] … the establishment media so obstinately pro-gun control, even when they know they’re going against public support and common sense? [Are] … all those Ivy league J-school grads bringing their liberal bias to bear in the good old boy network?”
A resounding YES!
I have heard that more than 90% of “journalists” identify themselves as being Progressives. In that light their actions to promote
civilian disarmamentgun-control make perfect sense.All of this comes from a desire for utopia which requires an incorruptible government that acts like parents and “citizens” who must be “children” to said incorruptible government. That notion reflects their deep desire to NOT be responsible for their choices and actions. It also reflects their propensity to choose and act based strictly on passion and emotion. This last bit enables them to reject history, facts, and human nature … and conduct themselves as though their vision of life is possible.
People who reject history, facts, and fundamental human nature are clearly delusional. Unfortunately they get to vote and work as “journalists”.
“Nor does it depend on arguments of social utility.”
Hmmmmm. Does this really ring true? Bear with me here; we might discover something useful.
Let’s look at the 3A; quartering troops. Let’s suppose, for discussion, that the case for the social utility of permitting/forbidding quartering troops in homes is of debatable social utility. We need troops to defend the nation and they must be quartered somewhere. And yet, the founding generation found something – perhaps no longer relevant today – worthy of contempt about the practice and circumscribed it. I agree; the right to be free of quartering soldiers exists irrespective of it’s contemporary utility.
Have we no more to say about the rights of the 2A? We refuse to discuss the social utility of guns in civilian hands because this is a right that was guaranteed 220 years ago and the debate of social utility is closed? Is this the best we can do?
If that’s our story then we have to stick with it. If the facts are against you, argue the law; if both the face and the law are against you, argue like hell.
Yet, I don’t think that there is ANYONE among the PotG who think that civilian guns are lacking in contemporary social utility. Quite to the contrary, we believe that the contemporary case for social utility is as strong as it was in our founding generation. Moreover, we believe that the case for social utility will survive the 20th millennium.
Undecided voters are very much interested in social utility. That homeowners stop home invasions; that carriers stop crime in public places. That our homes and public places are threatened by the violent behavior of criminals, crazies and terrorists. Our communities and nation are safer when we have a civilian population capable of rising up in their defense at the instant of urgent need.
Has the case for defense against criminals, crazies and terrorists been eliminated? Is there any sign that they will all be eliminated soon?
It seems as though the drop in crime rates is largely a function of having “achieved” a high rate of incarceration. Are we willing to drive crime rates toward zero by ever increasing incarceration rates? The low rate of crazies randomly attacking victims in public places seems to be stable. Are we willing to drive this rate toward zero by incarcerating violently mentally ill people in asylums? The low rate of terrorism on US soil seems stable; but can we count on maintaining this stability? Do we take note of any international developments that might be a cause for concern for a rising rate of terrorism for which we ought to be prepared?
The bar-graph suggests that the public is beginning to figure-out the social utility of an armed citizenry. If this is a theme that resonates with them, why should we not emphasize this social utility?
Certs is a candy mint! Certs is a breath mint! Stop — you’re both right!
You missed RF’s point. He did not contend that guns have no social utility. He said that RKBA does not depend on arguments of social utility.
The POTG will point to cases where guns saved lives. The antis will trot out a mountain of dead bodies. Once you make guns dependent on social utility arguments, you can kiss the guns goodbye.
For decades the media has been consolidating ideology.
All MSM outlets are basically owned by 4 or 5 people who largely think alike, hire alike who in turn hire alike who in turn hire alike and so on and so on.
Eventually the like minds bias so extremely that the media is nothing more than a sounding board for frat/sorority pals.
There is no more news. It’s basically just a clique that writes a newsletter of personal opinions.
This sort of thing happens in every industry. Most of the time new management or restructuring can breathe new life into a stagnant and heavily biased workplace but every once in a while a corp is just too old, too big and too atrophied to be saved and amputation is the only way to save the body.
Saw this one on my facebook a few days ago:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/poll-do-you-think-people-should-be-allowed-carry-guns-public
Should Americans be “allowed” to carry firearms in public — 92% say Yes, 2nd Amendment guarantees it.
It’s because they are Marxists. Glad I could clear that up for you.
I have to disagree with those who say it is simply a matter of money. Traditional news outlets have been hemorrhaging consumers for years, and at least part, if not most, of the reason is their flagrant left-wing attitude; even sheeple who aren’t into politics aren’t entertained by their “betters” lecturing them on why they should support this or that otherwise unpopular lefty cause. The news outlets persist in their course despite of the money issue, not because of it. The actual “entertainment” end of the industry may be an entirely different story, tho.
Yes, but left-wing commentators and talking heads demand and receive salaries that stagger the imagination, and the drones that are hired to support them owe their jobs exclusively to toeing the leftist line. Brian Williams, who we know personally walked on water, raised the dead and cured a bunch of lepers, made $15 million a year. Rachel Maddow makes over $7 million. Leslie Moonves of CBS makes about $60 million, not counting stock and bennies. You see what I’m getting at?
As far as the ships going down, we haven’t seen a big-time left wing news outlet fold. Not yet anyway. I think that rumors of their deaths have been greatly exaggerated.
Aha, I think I get your point. But if I may–Brian Williams makes that enormous salary from a news outlet–an outlet that controls what he says. “They” are the ones who continually espouse the lefty line, and arguably not because they make so much money doing it. The “news” has never been particularly profitable for the networks, they do it to keep up their image, to satisfy their desire to “serve the public”, etc. Also–some of the biggies are indeed still hanging on to life, but not nearly as big and grand as in earlier times. We just noted here a week or so ago how Newsweek has indeed pretty much folded, from a must-have by anybody of any substance to an internet page that is read by–well, who, exactly?
“And as an artist, I don’t want to let my industry off the hook for corporate hip-hop that promotes an almost cartoonish savagery . . . ”
I read this sentiment as an invitation for out-reach on our part. I take it that the Progressives fancy themselves to have inroads into the inner-city culture from which most crime originates. Most of the victims of gun homicide are inner-city residents.
Why not invite these Progressives to use their contacts within these communities to find out about the underlying causes of violent behavior? To explain the “iron road” flow of guns to this community?
Can they put us in touch with Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde cases where choir boys were converted into vicious drug-dealing criminals by first laying hands on a gun? Or, did a host of underlying factors (having nothing to do with guns) lead to crime as a way-of-life which – at some point – made contact with guns as a means to pursue that vocation? Could hip-hop lyrics be one of these factors?
How do guns become available to these inner-city youths? Did they:
– buy a handgun at the age of 21 but before they were convicted of their first disabling crime?
– use a (girl-)friend to straw-buy a gun?
– buy a gun from some law-abiding collector/trader at a gun-show, via an advertisement, etc?
– steal the gun or buy from a burgler?
– buy a gun from a trafficker?
– where do the traffickers buy their guns?
My suspicion is that a majority of crime guns probably originate from a straw-buyer. If so, are the straw-buyers of such a character as to be influenced by fines or prison? Is our society willing to fine or imprison straw-buyers?
My suspicion is that a majority of straw-buyers are single mothers. As such, they should be fairly easy to track-down, convict and imprison. However, our society is perfectly unwilling to send a single mother to prison for 5 years for committing a “non-violent” “paperwork” crime of lying on a 4473 form. If that is so, then our society probably isn’t going to imprison her for failing to run a BC on her principle (boyfriend, trafficker) who induced her to buy the gun.
Perhaps I’m mistaken. Perhaps most guns are burglarized. If so, can we expect burglars to run BCs on their black-market buyers.
What are the other possibilities we might discover? Rouge FFLs who have escaped detection by the ATF? OFWGs at gun-shows? Internet advertisers?
Surely, if our Progressive brothers and sisters are genuinely interested in solving the problem of gun crime, they will use their inroads into the unlawful buyers and users of guns to enable us to understand the demographics of the problem in a way that would help to formulate an effective response.
“My suspicion is that a majority of straw-buyers are single mothers. As such, they should be fairly easy to track-down, convict and imprison. However, our society is perfectly unwilling to send a single mother to prison for 5 years for committing a “non-violent” “paperwork” crime of lying on a 4473 form.”
Maybe so; but they are perfectly willing to convict & imprison gainfully employed single-moms like Shaneen Allen who have the temerity to lawfully arm themselves. Proof that the left will eat their own, even if they belong to one of the left’s favored minority.
Too bad these “inroads” generally consist of the fact they listened to rap music in high school, and can recite the lyrics word for word as they rile up blacklivesmatter socialists on facebook.
there was a really great reddit ama by a former gang armorer. yes, gangs have amorers. answers to most questions were: stolen during break ins, bought by new members who were still clean, no record. safes were too much work. dogs were too much work, so they focused on homes with neither. requests were taken, put on a list til it could be fulfilled. most of his work was cleaning. no, they didn’t file off serial numbers. no they didn’t ditch guns after a job. most gang members couldn’t tell a hi point from a glock, some wanted dirty Harrys gun. very very few practiced. none wanted holsters. my takeaway from the post was this: gangs are LAZY. the answer to most of the questions regarding safes, dogs, alarms, lights, cameras, was the same, “too much work” .. http://np.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/2zinox/guns_gangs_and_the_glawk_40_a_primer_on_street/
Very informative link. We PotG would do well to cull such inputs and find people from the inner-city who will talk to us.
The straw-buyer info supports my suspicion that this is a major channel for leakage. If the ATF and local police won’t do anything to enforce the straw-buyer law (oversimplification of the legality) then why should we believe that they will enforce the U-BC laws?
So, Mr. Paris, if you wouldn’t mind pulling your head out of your @$$ for one minute, maybe you can answer a few questions? What political forces are you speaking of? Are you now saying the NRA is responsible for gang violence? Are you saying that those pulling the trigger have no inherent responsibility for their actions? In your mind, have you reduced those in your “community” to nothing more than mindless predators incapable of moral choices and acting solely on primal instincts? You sure seem to be saying that. So maybe if you keep your head out of your @$$ for just a little bit longer, you can understand why I prepare to defend myself against such predators.
“nothing more than mindless predators incapable of moral choices and acting solely on primal instincts?”
If I hired you on as a full time employee who’s sole job was to find 5 people who did not fit this description, and gave you an entire year to do it; you would fail. I don’t think there are 5 people left in this country who are not damn dirty apes.
but most are able to control those instincts well enough to not be a threat.
because they are instructed by their masters.
The link doesn’t take to Paris’ story, just the Wapo one.
That being said any community is made from individuals, individuals who make decisions, and you cannot hold your entire community responsible for the decisions of individuals, and trying to claim the availability of guns means your community can’t control themselves, or their violent tendencies is an insult to your community.
“..Why Does the Mainstream Media Cling to Gun Control?”
Because Gun Control is a subset of Control.
Is TTAG being facetious? This can’t be a serious question.
“Why does the mainstream media cling to gun control”?
Because that is what the money dictates. As long as Shannon’s Sugar Daddy and other billionaires like Gates are willing to write checks the gun control movement will continue to receive media coverage.
Any of us can think of propaganda efforts that succeeded and even name the central figures. People like Goebbels, the Dulles Brothers, Rumsfeld, Kissenger and others. What about propaganda efforts that fail?
Remember the Hollywood producer who was going to make a movie that would “make the NRA wish they had never been born”. Losing the national gun control debate is a clear demonstration of the limits of media and the entertainment industry in shaping public opinion.
Because culture eats strategy for lunch. Propaganda is lies and when the lies contradict overwhelming evidence that is all around us, the liars lose.
Because they’re all statists and europhilles.
Because Progressives will cling to the notion that their way is better until the bitter end. No amount of logic, facts, statistics, scientific study, or anything else will shake them from this belief. They just know that guns are a great evil and that the world will be a better place without them. They truly believe that they can regulate guns out of the hands of citizens, despite the overwhelming evidence of Prohibition, the War On Drugs, and every other government attempt to prohibit an item. Since Progressives control most of the MSM, we will continue to hear the message from them. They will continue to plead their case with society and be puzzled as to why people won’t do what is obviously in their own best interest (i.e., follow Progressive ideology).
I think you’ve got it.
A lot of good reasons cited already…
I would only add that I believe that by these “journalists” towing the company line for this administration and being a good mouthpiece for their (extremist liberal) policies, that they are then afforded a greater level of access – and also greater avenues for advancement within their naturally liberal (elitist) establishments.
They would gain nothing, and perhaps not even have jobs for long, if they actually wrote truthful articles that do not support the administration and their liberal bosses’ socialist ideologies
“. . . if they actually wrote truthful articles . . . ” That would be a lot to expect. However, it might not be too much to expect that the MSM might take an interest in this paradox (to them). If the Obama Administration is the incarnation of absolute truth; and, all the evidence available from the authorized sources calls for more gun-control; while the public is drifting toward gun-rights, what would explain this phenomena?
The standard place to begin is to blame the NRA which is a puppet of the NSSF; or something. And yet, the NRA’s budget is largely made up of dues from individual members and gifts from individuals who are not in the guns & ammo manufacturing or sales industry.
If that myth is shown to be unsupported by facts, what might be the other reasons? Publicity about crimes? Publicity about gun-owners’ DGUs? etc.
Interesting topics for investigation. The more the MSM writes articles in search of a plausible explanation the more the MSM will find itself debunking the Anti-narrative.
Is it conceivable that we can find some writers who – albeit Progressive – would write such articles? We feed them a story line with some facts and they write it up as they see fit.
“The more the MSM writes articles in search of a plausible explanation the more the MSM will find itself debunking the Anti-narrative”
-That is an interesting paradox indeed. I agree with your assertions of course. I didn’t mean to imply that it was a valid excuse for them to ‘tote the line’. I would think that there has to be someone out there in that world that would have the fortitude to actually seek and report the truth… but I haven’t seen much of that to date.
Thanks for using the word “cling” in the title, I’m tired of the anti’s using it on us. They are the true “clingers”.
“That said, gun rights HAVE popular support. They WIN the argument on social utility. So why is the Washington Post and the rest of the establishment media so obstinately pro-gun control, even when they know they’re going against public support and common sense? What’s in it for them? Is it a cultural problem; all those Ivy league J-school grads bringing their liberal bias to bear in the good old boy network? Or does the mainstream media operate on the principle that statism – for that is what gun control represents – is good for business? Something else?”
Yes. All of it. Privately owned guns, privately own military gear like like plate carriers and such transform a subject into a potential infantryman who could challenge state power. It’s the same or better gear that the state’s minions are using. That offends those with a religious belief in the messianic powers of the state to feed, cloth, heal, and protect, a belief they have in spite of all the failures.
When Samuel cried out to God that the people were rejecting his wisdom and demanding a central power, a monarch, God responded telling him that it was not the man they were rejecting, but the God that created them. They were rejecting the God that they could not see, could not touch, required study to understand, and did not hold their hand for one that would. The fact that this not-god would be just a man like them is irrelevant. The fact that this man would solve their problems by throwing them at their own problems was irrelevant.
The r selected demanded, the K’s stood by and let them ruin everything.
The lame stream media are almost all liberal and/or socialist. They have long since abandoned classical journalism and are now the publicity arm of the Democratic and socialist parties. Gun confiscation is a major goal of the progressives and the so-called “journalists” are more than happy to do their part to negate the Second Amendment.
Toohey is a power-seeker Toohey deceives his victims by posturing as a humanitarian, but the code he preaches — that of self-sacrifice — is utterly destructive. He tells them that virtue lies in selflessness, and that they must exist for the sake of others.Because he creates and contributes nothing, Toohey can exist only as a parasite. Toohey seeks to establish a collectivist dictatorship in America. He is a Marxist intellectual preaching communism to the masses, he desires to control policy. Toohey hopes to spread the ideas to establish a totalitarian state in America. Toohey knows that a Fascist or Communist state requires a citizenry willing to obey. A dictator requires a flock of sheep; he cannot hold power over a citizenry of independent men. Toohey has a clear vision of his role in the collectivist state. He himself is not the brute of physical force who gains dominance by unleashing a reign of terror. His role, rather, is to be the intellectual advisor behind the throne. The brute will hold physical power over the masses, and Toohey will hold spiritual power over the brute. Toohey is a behind-the-scenes puppet master, who surreptitiously wields the real power — and this will be his place in the totalitarian state he seeks.
Rights and privileges are misunderstood.
Uh, author, the enemy does in fact look like you, you even identified them as promoting an attitude of glorifying gun violence. That has nothing to do with the political machinery and everything to do with this “artist community” of yours.
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