Liberal anti-gun media spinmeisters wasted no time yesterday spinning the results of two reports on gun-related homicides – released Tuesday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Pew Research Center – in an attempt to perpetuate the establishment argument that guns are bad and must be controlled.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, released a statement Wednesday lauding both reports, saying that together, it “blows holes in the gun prohibition agenda.”
“If violent crime had gone upward,” he observed, “gun grabbers would exploit the fact as proof that more guns in private hands lead to more violent crime. However, if the gun rights community argued that the BJS data proves increased gun ownership leads to lower violent crime rates, the dominant liberal media would savage the notion. Of course, this is the same anti-gun press that has sensationalized crimes while remaining silent about the actual crime data.”
No sooner had Gottlieb alluded to media bias than did the media prove his point. A piece in the Christian Science Monitor stated, “America is still bleeding from gun violence, make no mistake. Some 12,343 people were killed by guns in 2010, keeping the US at the top of the most violent Western countries. The US also has more guns, per capita, than any other Western country, with at least 310 million and as many as 400 million firearms in circulation.”
A check with the FBI Uniform Crime Report revealed, however, that in 2010, there was a total of 12,996 reported homicides and firearms were used in 8,775 of those killings. Gun rights activists will quickly note that nobody is killed “by guns,” but by people misusing guns.
The most blatant spin attempt comes from Media Matters, which goes on a long diatribe about how the nation still needs tighter controls on guns, even if the firearms-related homicide numbers are down. MM’s Timothy Johnson pontificates that the conservative media is wrong.
“Members of conservative media are trumpeting a government report indicating that gun homicides have fallen as proof that the need for stronger gun laws is unwarranted,” Johnson writes, “while ignoring multiple factors that could account for the decrease. At the same time, firearm violence continues to be a problem as firearm homicides have fallen less than serious violent crime in general and the rate of gun violence in the United States still far outpaces other high-income nations.”
Right, just because firearm homicides have not declined as fast as other violent crimes, the BJS and Pew data are irrelevant. So, he argues, that proves the need for tougher gun laws still exists.
Johnson then resorts to a standard liberal ploy. He argues that it is simply illogical – in his mind, anyway – that “conservative media” think the crime decline is a significant story, and that it refutes the entire gun control agenda.
More at Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Here
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