That’s the title an editor at Fox News slapped on John Lott’s latest post, which just may be the biggest understatement in the history of the world ever. But you knew that. As Lott rightly points out,
The media’s pro-gun control bias doesn’t just distort news coverage. TV networks have used their primetime entertainment shows to portray gun rights advocates as dishonest, extremist and unconcerned about the loss of innocent lives. At the same time, advocates of gun control are portrayed as caring, upstanding and responsible citizens.
Of course they are. They’re on the side of the angels, right?
Lott pins the title for most biased network entertainment content on NBC in what’s no doubt a close contest and cites a few examples. Like this:
Recently the NBC show “Taken” (Season 2, Episode 11) tried to convey to viewers that gun-free zones work because the criminals won’t disobey the bans.
Santana (Jessica Camacho) asks Bryan Mills (Clive Standen), if he is “OK with this whole no-guns thing.” Mills replies that it is OK because the gun-free zone means that “bad guys won’t have them either.”
Do people really think that a group of paid, professional killers couldn’t find some way to get guns into a hospital, a school or some other place just because a sign is posted saying guns are not allowed? There’s no mention that over 98 percent of mass public shootings since 1950 have occurred in places where guns are banned. This is precisely because criminals prefer unarmed victims.
That’s some jaw-dropping stupidity, to be sure. But some of the anti-gun agitprop can be blamed on the general level of ignorance that pervades the optimistically titled entertainment industry where guns is concerned. Such as . . .
About a month ago the NBC show “Chicago Fire” (Season 6, Episode 15) had a scene where stored ammunition catches fire. Bullets fly everywhere, seriously wounding one of the firefighters. The firefighters think that a sniper is targeting them. It is hard to believe that anyone would want to have a gun in their home after watching this scene.
But the scene is complete fiction. A gun barrel is needed to harness a gunpowder explosion so a bullet can be propelled forward. Outside of a gun, the gunpowder in a bullet would simply explode in all directions, producing very little energy to actually push the bullet forward.
And though Lott doesn’t mention it, also missing from these programs is any sense of the good that guns do, such as mentioning that Americans use firearms in successful defensive gun uses about 2.5 million times a year. These are uses that prevent rapes, murders, robberies, assaults and dozens of other crimes, usually without firing a shot. Not that you’d know it from watching The Blacklist or Hawaii Five-0.
It is bad enough that news programs provide only one side of the gun control debate. But even in entertainment shows, Americans can’t escape a biased, distorted view of gun ownership.
We certainly feel his pain, but there’s a simple solution to this that many of us have adopted long ago. Vote with your remote and don’t watch TV network-produced dreck.
“The Narrative” (TM).
AR15 being fired in the air 1 handed with a bump stock and it is firing multiple rounds in succession. M4 (show description) putting holes in a vehicle that it takes a 12 ga shotgun at 15 to 20 ft to make.
If the news (and entertainment) couldn’t distort the truth or lie the news broadcast would take all of ten minutes, if that.
I have begun to compare the 24/7 news cycle to the home shopping network. If you watch for any amount of time it become obvious that they are just rambling, they can spit out all useful information in less than 30 seconds and the remaining 3 hours are them just talking and talking and talking and talking…….about that same 30 seconds worth of information. And it isn’t even just one network but like 6 of them hammering on the same exact 30 seconds of information, spun different for each network and viewership……Its gotten so bad that they ramble about the things the other news networks say while rambling…..so we have rambling about rambling, which will contribute to tomorrows rambling.
Or they could cover a wider range of topics and actually educate the public about the world rather than the opinions of some anti-gun idiot in no-where Wisconsin (sorry, picking a random state). But that would take educated and well rounded journalists traveling the world and actually getting some depth on a topic as well as editors and produces who know their ass from their elbow.
Just an example of why the media is so screwed up: The head of the NBC Asian Desk, during the Olympics, proved beyond a doubt that they knew exactly fuck all about Japanese/Korean relations. The HEAD of the ASIAN Desk. Not some idiot filling in time midday or some temp. That speaks volumes about the media.
Really, I though bolt action guns could fire semiautomatic fire and now you tell the network my favorite show is on is biased. I’m going to off to crawl in to my safe space now.
Well, thats okay because they dont want your semiautomatic bolt gun. What they really want to do is get those full semiautomatic AR-47’s off the street. Those are the ones nobody needs for hunting. /sarc/
You mean the ak15…. its got thay shoulder thing thay goes up….
How often do you see someone in a TV show or movie just holding a gun in ready condition WITHOUT their finger on the trigger?
Never.
Now? Most of the time actually… At least on the shows/movies I watch, where someone is supposed to be a professional shooter (operator) or experienced in firing them. For some reason I can’t seem to stop looking for that particular faux pas, and rarely do I find it – yes there are examples from every show where there is the one idiot with the finger on the trigger, but over all the instances of occurrence are really low.
I think that Hollywood actually got the message on that one (it seems)
For me it is the metallic scraping “shwing” when swords come out of leather scabbards and that is only second to people chambering a round anytime the director wants ratchet up the “oh, no, their serious now?”
I think the actress on “The Blacklist“ has said she will never appear holding an AR rifle, because, after all, she said she is not on a SWAT team. She is “just” an FBI agent.
Of all the things I’m actually ok with this.
Too many cop shows have the lead detectives taking point with SWAT teams, sans armor and rifles, when in reality they wouldn’t even be allowed to enter the scene until a half hour after SWAT declares the building clear.
The Blacklist lives in a world where computers are magic, the government is somehow omnipotent yet inept. Where the only one with any sense is a possible traitor but definite murderous criminal mastermind (who the FBI they allows to stay armed like he’s a Mexican Cartel or something).
I’d be OK with her character leading all operations from the front until we get the Non-preachy Adventures of Raymond and Tom.
Watching The Punisher last week, they portrayed an individual who was guilty of stolen valor, as being an NRA member. They made the character cowardly, rude and disingenuous. Was almost enough for me to turn it off. The left are using the same tactics bigots use against those they hate. I alway laugh when I think about the leftist thought process and ideological positioning, as it is nothing but a set of hilarious contradictions. I mean, how does one not go crazy holding such incompatible views?
The NRA IS run by a draft dodger so…
So…that makes all NRA members draft dodgers? I’m not sure what you are attempting to achieve with that comment.
Actually, that’s about all Nanashi and other NRA-bashers can come up with. Hate any and everything NRA. Fact (not opinion) is: As far as anyone with the ability to reason freely can prove, NRA is the only pro-gun/pro-rights organization in the country with the ability, political capital, funding and grassroots energy to make positive changes for American firearms owners.
GOA and NAGR, among others can give lip service to the ignorant but cannot put forth any incident of any consequence in which their “uncompromising stance” has made a damn bit of difference in the pursuit of maintaining or regaining any Constitutional guarantees. Critics like this go all the way back to 1934, sometimes further to blame NRA for regulations and laws that were passed or initiated before there was ANY progun group in the US. That began in mid-1971 and was a very uphill battle even through the 1980s.
It took something like 80 years in this country (if you go back to Wyatt Earp and western LE making cowpokes check their guns when they came to town) for the American public to reach the point of reversing the notion that unarmed civilians were safer on the streets than those with the means to protect themselves and their property, from criminals and elected crooks. I’d say NRA has done a pretty fair job of turning that tide. as gradually as it may seem to some, to the point of where normal people carrying firearms, even if only concealed, is nowaccepted by a large segment of American society. None of that is thanks to Larry Pratt or Dudley Brown, or their compadres and disciples.
Ollie North dodged the draft? BTW, what branch did you serve in?
No, but then again he doesn’t run the NRA (there’s also no way a ladder-climber careerist like him was a draftee, but I’m too lazy to check his bio to know for sure)
On the other side The Punisher made it obvious it thought the gun control Senator (any anti you want) was a cowardly hypocrite with his armed guards. Right down to disarming the reporter (the average gun owner) of her legally held CCW.
Then there’s the pro 2A nutjob (a nutjob) blowing things up who is portrayed as an extremist. One who is ripped a new one by the CCW carrying reporter (average gun owner).
Spoilers, btw.
That bothered me too about the punisher. But then they also had some really progun stuff on the same show. So I kind of felt like ok yes we’ve seen assholes like that in our community , and we’ve thrown them out or ostracized them.
Why is every AR depicted in these shows so Tacticool? In the animated picture in the article, I don’t even think he could see out of that scope with that stupid laser in the way. I mean really…….who mounts a laser on the top rail in front of a scope?
i saw that as well and immediately thought: i wish that sequence hadn’t started without me prompting it.
Guilty 🙂
I have a HAMR on a Tavor with a laser mounted on the rail in front of it. The sight is tall enough that the laser doesn’t block it and it allows me to use the offset rail for other things (rail mounted Swiss Army knife?). Laser is in line with the barrel and sight so there is no horizontal drift over distance just vertical.
I don’t operate operationally though, just like cool toys 🙂
“I mean really…….who mounts a laser on the top rail in front of a scope?”
The US army, with every M4 I was ever issued.
The problem isn’t as much the media as the target audience. People film themselves sobbing over a favorite TV character’s demise and post it to the internet. Most recently, film fans took to twitter to blast an actor for a characters decision which resulted in a failed attempt to save the world. These people seem to be unable to differentiate between film fiction and the real world.
I put the bleme square on these pathetic morons and the willfully ignorant. The fact the progressives manipulate these idiots is another facet of human nature.
Its Hollywood! They dont get anything right. One of my personal favorites was when the Hawaii 5-0 flew the bell jet ranger helicopter from Hawaii to North Korea and back.
5500 miles one way in a chopper with a range of 436 Miles.
It’s a hybrid!
I snorted.
Airwolf could have done it…
I don’t watch modern TV except for the occasional comedy, and hockey, baseball, football, and the Cavaliers. Late at night, though, I watch detective shows from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Gotta get my Mannix and Cannon fix.
Just wish those shows weren’t on at 2 – 3 AM in my neighborhood!
DrDKW
In the pilot for Longmire (which I watched because my mother likes the show and said I should give it a try), the victim is killed with a .45-70. First, the show claimed that only an antique Sharps fired the .45-70. REALLY?!? (So they try to locate the murderer by tracking down all the Sharps in town. OMG, what nonsense.) Like, who doesn’t make a lever action or a Sharps repro in .45-70. Second, Longmire inspects an antique Sharps and says it could not be the murder weapon because the throat was too corroded from black powder and therefore the gun could not fire. And I am like, “Say WHAAAT!”
My wife watches Chicago Fire, and I just happened to be i the room when they had the scene with the exploding ammo, and again, I am like, “NOT!” But I did have to explain to my wife that it just could NOT happen that way.
There are quite a few redeeming episodes of Longmire. A lot of citizens that carry guns and use them in self defense including the Sheriff’s daughter shooting a domestic abuser which had a restraining order against him. Some of the least irritating entertainment I can find on TV now a days. Sure, it’s Hollywood but they’ve been getting firearms details wrong since John Wayne was a young outlaw on a Stagecoach.
After watching all episodes of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Walt Longmire the only way to take the show is as pro 2A/pro self defense.
You can’t rely on no-cell Walt to respond in a timely fashion even when he isn’t off messing around in other peoples counties. You definitely can’t rely on any of his over-worked, under-paid, poorly-treated deputies either. Maybe the one he hired without a thorough background check but she isn’t very good outside of a city/100ft from Walt anyway.
You are on your own. If you do wait for a cop there then between the lack of gloves, walking around the scene like a drunk and dumping you in the back of a vehicle that’s had dozens of corpses and crims in it don’t even expect your killer to get convicted.
How about the road kill fetcher woman who when Longmire saw her hand gun she said defensively said “It’s registered”.
That’s the problem. People watch too many movies and believe all the crap they see. They need to use their brains sometimes and research the stuff they see. Same goes for historical inaccuracy in movies, when I complain, some friends would say “lighten up, its a movie, it’s entertainment.” To which I say, to a lot of people it’s fact, and no wonder so many people are lazy and ignorant. Do I have an agenda in saying this? Why yes, Pearl Harbor the movie is absolute crap and Michael Bay sucks.
TV is dead anyway. What passes for mainstream hits these days is only consumed by 2% of the population. Long gone are the must see shows with 20 million or more viewers. Networks flip their shit when 4 million people watch a show.
TV is unwatched trash for dying Boomers and the last Fudds.
Personally I don’t watch news broadcasts any more…there is no such thing as true journalism anymore and one network is as guilty as another when it comes to the truth about ANYTHING!! I haven’t trusted news broadcasts or those that “perform” on TV as journalists in decades!! I have much better things to do with my time than to waste it watching news broadcasts!!
Wait, what? Say it ain’t so. Our gray suited overlords make “Gun Control” , oops, I mean gun safety laws based on what they see on TV and movies.
SAAMI sacrificed a pallet full of ammo for the cause:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlOXowwC4c
Interesting that an image from Blacklist was shown – I emailed TTAG early into its
run on NBC regarding a comment made by a character utterly dismissing the idea
of successful armed self defense.
And yet, these idiots want to write our gun laws.
its the liberal media agenda. why are they surprised?
and why the picture of spader? nothing about blacklist in this entire article???
Click over to the Lott article. It’s mentioned there.
Excellent video produced by SAAMI and the International Association of Fire Chiefs shows the reality of ammunition fires.
The key here was “reasonable working distance”. I think they were protected simply because the fire was too big and too hot to get close enough to get hurt by the exploding ammo. My other post detailing the death from a jammed and later exploding cartridge is proof enough that yes exploding ammo can kill you that is not in a gun when it explodes.
Over 400,000 rounds…. 😢😢BURNED!!!!
😭😭😭😭😭😭
quote from the article:———————–. A gun barrel is needed to harness a gunpowder explosion so a bullet can be propelled forward. Outside of a gun, the gunpowder in a bullet would simply explode in all directions, producing very little energy to actually push the bullet forward.——————————quote.
What is wrong with this statement? It seems to imply that if the bullet cannot harm you that you would survive right? Wrong. If you do not know the answer here it is.
When ammo explodes it does not need to be fired out of a gun barrel to kill someone as many sad true life examples have been recorded.
The one that I most often think about is the man who had a jammed rifle. The cartridge was stuck in the chamber. He had his wife hold the gun while he rammed a cleaning rod down the barrel. The cartridge came flying out of the chamber but the primer hit something and it was dented and it exploded outside the chamber of the gun. The shrapnel from the brass case hit his wife in the stomach and killed her.
Yeah, but it’s shrapnel from the cartridge case that’s dangerous and only within a few feet. The guy who died from an out of battery detonation in his SKS was holding it close to his chest.
Other documented out of battery detonations I have seen resulted in only minor injuries, if that, because they happened while the shooter was holding the gun in a normal shooting stance.
Bullets will never fly out of an ammo pile fire at lethal velocity, unless there’s also a loaded gun in the fire. I don’t know about other people, but any guns I keep loaded are stored muzzle down for this reason.
One of the characters in Hawaii 5-0 did stand up for gun ownership in an episode. Tom Selleck in his Jessie Stone movies make a few pro gun remarks.
Lets point out the good ones, if we can find them.
Roseanne original run mentioned that they, mere non-uniformed mortals, owned a gun a few times. The new season showed it, only “message” was keep it away from the grandkids who had just moved in.
Longmire showed DGU in a positive way. So did Justified (before every character became a criminal).
Netflix wants to save ;designated survivor; which has been cancelled. I had to stop watching when the first thing the new president wants to do, after the President and all of Congress is blown up, is to make new gun control laws.