ABC News is launching another attack on gun rights, starting Sunday. Its project, called “One Nation Under Fire”, will join with ABC affiliates across the country as well as with Good Morning America and GMA3. Variety, which made the announcement, breathlessly rejoiced that “various ABC-owned stations may also contribute their own reports on findings in their area of coverage.”
So, what will ABC News be using as its source to back up the attack? False data from the Gun Violence Archive, long considered to be biased in favor of more gun regulations and controls.
Said Pierre Thomas, ABC News’ chief justice correspondent, “We hope this is going to give us a better sense of who, what, where and why and that people will walk away from this with a much better sense of what’s happening.” That would include, of course, according to Variety, “solutions that might help reduce gun violence.”
Those watching to the end will no doubt have their opinions formed in the cauldron of canards, misinformation, and distortions served up by Gun Violence Archive.
For one example, according to the FBI, the media’s portrayal of “mass shootings” is more than 10 times higher than reality. The FBI reported that in 2016 there were 20 mass shootings, while GVA reported that there were 382. In 2017, the FBI reported 31, while GVA reported 346.
In 2018, the FBI reported 30 mass shootings, but GVA reported that there were 337. In 2019, the last year for which comparisons are available, the FBI reported there were 30 mass shootings, while the GVA reported that there were 417.
Why the great discrepancy? The GVA explains: “GVA uses a purely statistical threshold to define mass shooting based ONLY on the numeric value of 4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter.” It adds:
GVA does not … exclude … victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot.
That means the GVA includes any and all incidents, including gang- or drug-related shootings. It includes self-defense shootings, domestic disputes, shootings that include crossfire as a byproduct of another criminal act, and accidents (“actions that appeared not to have put other people in peril”).
The media, including ABC News, fails to mention the huge chasm between what the FBI reports and what GVA reports.
John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, complained that the focus on guns, both by the media and the White House, ignores this basic fact: More than 90 percent of violent crimes in American do not involve firearms at all.
Lott explains that, in attempting to rein in violence, many other relevant factors are ignored: unrest over the George Floyd murder; the impact of the COVID restrictions, including mass layoffs and youths being kept out of schools; the early release of many convicts from prison; softening of bail rules that allow those accused of crimes to remain on the streets; police ordered to stand down; police departments having their funding reduced; and liberal prosecutors in many major urban areas refusing to prosecute violent criminals.
Lott also points out facts that are conveniently missing from the mainstream media’s (and likely ABC News’ “One Nation Under Fire”) including: More than half of all murders in the country take place in just 60 of the nation’s 3,140 counties, most of them occurring within a 10-block area. Gun violence there is overwhelmingly gang related.
For those intending to watch ABC News’ “One Nation Under Fire,” they would do well to remember that what is being presented is propaganda, not reality. It will be another part of the effort to separate gun owners from their firearms, turn local police departments into mere appendages of a national police force, and prepare the nation for the imposition of the left-wing Marxist agenda.
