Media “Talking to Itself” on Gun Control

Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

Before the blood of massacred children was even dry at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, and long before they had their stories straight about the shooting, much of the establishment media in the United States and even Communist China were claiming that the supposed gun-control “debate” had been “re-ignited.” To prove their point, they called up the usual fringe anti-gun rights zealots and lawmakers who have always opposed the Second Amendment. Supporters of the right to keep and bear arms, however, as polls show, say the media is increasingly “talking to itself.”

Using deceptive terminology rather than facts, the mainstream press was engaged in what some analysts even called an all-out propaganda “war” on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. They claimed to be fighting “gun violence” when they really meant restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners to protect themselves, for example, or demanding a ban on the sale of “assault weapons” when they were actually referring to semi-automatic guns that happen to look intimidating. And so on.

The Communist Party USA’s propaganda outlet People’s World ran a piece that illustrated the largely manufactured outcry for gun control perfectly, ironically pointing to widespread shootings in Chicago, which has among the most draconian gun restrictions in America, as proof that more anti-gun measures were needed nationwide. Mainstream media outlets published similar diatribes, claiming falsely that the Newtown massacre had somehow sparked an overwhelming and unprecedented demand among regular Americans for more infringements on their inalienable right to keep and bear arms — a “tipping point” in the “debate,” they declared in unison.

Countless so-called “reporters” searched high and low to find as many “pro-gun” and “pro-NRA” Democrats as possible — or Republicans in Name Only (RINOs), even better — who would give them a quote to run with. The usual anti-freedom zealots — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), billionaire George Soros, front groups like MoveOn.org, and the Brady organization, for example — were all handed a virtual megaphone so they could help the establishment press exploit dead children in the borderline-fanatical war on gun rights.

The Reuters “news” service ran one of the most extreme and error-riddled pieces on the issue, falsely claiming that President Obama could legitimately assume dictatorial powers through “executive orders” to assault the rights of Americans. “His administration has the power to issue executive orders or new rules, options that Obama is likely to consider in combination with possible new laws,” alleged the propaganda piece, apparently written by “reporters” who never read the Constitution. The article quoted a former Obama official at disgraced Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department to make its bogus case.

“This Reuters article explains how and why. Reuters is a bought-and-paid-for mouthpiece of the power elite, in our view. So when Reuters publishes an article like this, we pay attention,” noted analysts at the liberty-minded Daily Bell, which dissects the plans of the establishment by breaking down its “news” reports. “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this is some sort of strange and subterranean — yet national — psy-op [psychological operation] designed to facilitate increased internationalism at the expense of individual freedom.”

Meanwhile, the communist dictatorship ruling mainland China — known for having murdered more human beings than any other single entity in human history, with most estimates placing the number of innocent lives taken at well above 50 million — was also busy demanding the disarmament of Americans through its own propaganda organs. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), using its espionage front and “news” entity known as Xinhua, sounded suspiciously like the mainstream media in the United States claiming that the tragedy “demands no delay for U.S. gun control.”

“The massacre has triggered a new debate on gun control in the United States,” the regime-run propaganda mouthpiece claimed in an editorial on the day of the massacre, echoing MSNBC, CNN, and other American members of the establishment press. “Every time a tragedy occurs, there are renewed appeals for gun regulation. However, the calls disappointingly always fail.”

Of course, it is hardly the first time that the gaggle of mass murderers in Beijing has called for Americans to be disarmed and stripped of their rights. This summer, the communist regime released a report on U.S. “human rights” that blasted the Second Amendment. However, like sharks and the establishment press in America, the fiercest attacks on the Second Amendment began when they smelled blood — in this case, the blood of the young children massacred in Newtown.

President Obama, whose administration has been caught arming Mexican drug cartels in operation Fast and Furious as well as Middle Eastern jihadists sometimes affiliated with al-Qaeda, agreed with the shrill hysteria being whipped up by the communist and establishment media around the world. Not wanting to let a “crisis go to waste,” and as experts had already warned would be the case in his second term, Obama swiftly ordered Vice President Joe Biden to start looking at potential options to restrict the rights of law-abiding Americans as much as possible.

In the real world, however, despite the false impression created by the establishment media, Americans were buying record numbers of guns, and the membership rolls of gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Gun Owners of America (GOA) were ballooning at unprecedented rates. In a recent radio interview, GOA chief Larry Pratt pointed out that in reality, “the media is talking to itself” and voters will punish politicians who try to infringe on their rights.

Polls taken after the shooting, meanwhile, supported Pratt’s statements. Despite the non-stop barrage of anti-gun propaganda masquerading as “news,” a Gallup survey showed that a ban on the sale of “assault weapons” was close to the bottom of the list in terms of what Americans thought could help prevent another mass shooting. More Americans believed arming school officials would be more effective. Also worth noting is that the survey questions themselves were deceptively worded, since the term “assault weapon” is actually a meaningless description invented by anti-gun fanatics and politicians.

Other recent polls heralded by the establishment press as signalling stronger support for gun control, using similarly deceptive questions, barely registered a change in public attitude either. Barely four in 10 Americans questioned by CBS thought stricter gun laws could have done anything at all to prevent the shooting — see Norway, where an evil lunatic recently shot and killed some 70 kids despite some of the strictest gun control in the world, or Mexico, where despite a nearly total ban on guns, cartels often manage to outgun the U.S.-backed government. The public, meanwhile, overwhelmingly understands and supports the notion that firearm ownership is a right, with almost nine in 10 Americans supporting the legal use of deadly force with a firearm in self-defense, according to polls.

Of course, virtually none of the bogus articles claiming that there was a renewed “controversy” over Americans’ God-given right to keep and bear arms examined the facts either: Almost all of the mass shootings have happened in so-called “gun-free zones,” gun bans have historically preceded mass murder and, more recently, massive surges in gun crime in places like the United Kingdom and Australia. Research also shows that more guns lead to less crime.

Switzerland, awash in fully automatic rifles, has among the lowest homicide rates in the world. Similarly, U.S. states with looser gun control have far lower crime and murder rates than areas with stricter restrictions like Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Connecticut, too, has among the most infringements on the right to keep and bear arms. And when the ban on selling “assault weapons” expired in 2004, murder rates went down, contrary to the hysterical claims of the anti-gun lobby.

When confronted with the data by GOA chief Pratt, however, CNN talking head Piers Morgan, a disgraced British “journalist” who is probably the “news” network’s most hysterical anti-gun rights extremist, almost had a meltdown on air as he began hurling vicious personal insults. Pratt, though, remained calm throughout the interview, allowing Morgan to make a fool of himself on air in front of a rapidly diminishing audience.

“It’s up to us to make our voices heard,” Pratt said in a radio interview with host Alex Jones after the incident on CNN. “They may be hearing something on CNN and Piers Morgan, but if they hear something many times more coming from their grassroots, they’re going to realize that the media is talking to itself. They better not go with the media, because the media is not going to protect them when we come to vote.”

To be fair, a few establishment media outlets have offered a token nod to gun-rights activists, sometimes mentioning their perspective buried deep inside articles. In all, though, analysts say the transparent propaganda is becoming increasingly obvious. The evidence: the lack of real demand for gun control among Americans despite the barrage of media attacks on gun rights, and the rapidly vanishing audiences and credibility of the mainstream press.

^{Screenshot of CNN debate between Piers Morgan and GOA director Larry Pratt}

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected].

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