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.