The following was written by TTAG Contributor ST:
As a young guy who shamelessly plays his roommate’s Xbox 360, I’d like to offer these words to put Wayne LaPierre’s speech into some context, as already I’m seeing a lot of gun and video game owners getting ruffled feathers due to the press conference. His broader point is that we need to focus on solving the problem, not treating surface symptoms with pointless laws like another AWB-and to do that we not only have to look at security, but also the role of our media in helping to cause violent acts. One aspect of the media is video games, alongside sensationalist journalism and extremely violent action movies and TV shows . . .
I’m a man who believes the government has no right to regulate half the stuff it does, including the 1st Amendment. Yet I share LaPierre’s opinion that the media is to blame for a lot of the evil which happens in our society.
Rather than fulfill its mandate to serve as the watchdog of the public, the mainstream media today has sold its soul to ideological socialism and commercial self interest. That’s why a news channel which airs news segments demonizing AR15s and claiming “pass an AWB for our law enforcement” doesn’t see the problem with playing a violent action movie like Heat right behind it, showing bad guys using AR15s to kill cops. Big surprise that if you show lots of TV and movie scenes showing a lot of people being callously murdered, someone with mental health issues might decide its OK for them to do it, too. Heck, normal people copycat each other all the time, that’s why we have the saying, “keeping up with the Joneses.”
The media’s created a culture where everyone is just one ultra-violent massacre away from cultural immortality. Want to be instantly remembered forever? Take a weapon and kill lots of people in America, the media says. We’ll put your name all over the place, blare your acts across HDTV screens constantly and use your act of filth to make you famous. The shooter in CT would never have been known to any of us if he lived a normal life. But because of his vile crimes his name will be forever enshrined in our culture. The shooter in Oregon will be remembered, but the law abiding citizen who helped stop the rampage won’t be.
And then we wonder why people are killed en masse. Worse, the media has the nerve to play moralist afterward. The networks blare morally bankrupt material 24/7-365 and then have the stones to claim we law abiding gun owners are the reason bad things happen. It’s like a spouse who commits adultery and then blames the wronged mate for violating their wedding vows.
Genuinely fixing this problem will require reform of our security measures (buh bye gun free zones in schools and colleges!), but also a change in how our media goes about their job. A gun owner is held responsible for acts they commit with their weapon which result in bodily injury, death or criminal behavior. The same rules should apply to Fox News, Paramount Studios and CNN.