atlanta cnn riot
(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

By Larry Keane

CNN’s not even pretending to hide their antigun bias these days. Two reports over the weekend painted gun owners as a scourge on America while at the same time giving criminals – and Chinese communists – a free pass.

CNN posted a report on the soaring level of criminal violence in America. The report’s headline stated that 2021 could be the worst year in decades when it comes to crime. Statistics were cited from the Gun Violence Archive through mid-September, noting that 14,516 people died from what they define as gun violence, a nine percent increase over 2020.

CNN also reported Gun Violence Archive’s data showed mass shootings are on the rise, claiming 498 were committed through mid-September, or 1.92 each day of the year. That ticked up, according to their calculations, by 15 percent over last year.

CNN and Gun Violence Archive define mass shootings as four or more people killed or wounded in an incident, excluding the suspect. That’s not how the FBI defines it, though. Armed American News’ Lee Williams pointed out earlier this year the figures are being inflated for shock value.

Gun Violence Archive reported that in 2019 there were 417 mass shootings, but the FBI counted just 30, because they stick to a traditionally accepted definition. The FBI excludes incidents of self-defense, gang violence, drug violence and others.

CNN presented this report of crime spiking alongside information that firearm sales were also at record levels. The pairing of the information leads a reader to believe that there’s a correlation between the two – or even causation. The inference is that because guns are selling at record levels, criminal violence is the result.

Facts Matter

In fact, gun sales are at records levels. More than 21 million background checks were conducted for the sale of a gun in 2020 and so far in 2021, there have been over 12.4 million. Last year, an estimated 8.4 million people purchased a firearm for the first time and in the first six months of this year, over 3.2 million have also legally bought their first gun.

CNN’s article briefly touched on what might be driving the crime spike, pinning the causes on the pandemic and racial strife. However, COVID-19 symptoms don’t include sudden lawlessness or violent criminal intent. The report glosses over the tolerance by elected officials for rioting, looting and burning of cities.

 

Portland police protest black lives matter defund police
(AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

Portland, Ore., witnessed riots for over 100 days straight. Judges turned criminals out on reduced and no bail policies, only to have those criminals standing before the bench hours later for more heinous charges including murder.

The authors attempted to link rising crime with increased gun buying, not for a moment pausing to think that gun sales rose because of rising crime. It is an anathema to some reporters that Americans would defend themselves against lawlessness.

Praising Communist China

That wasn’t enough for CNN, though. The news outlet drew comparisons between the United States and China. They posited that both countries were born of armed conflict and now have radically different gun policies. The authors praised Communist China’s low rate of criminal violence involving a firearm.

“The difference is stark when it comes to public safety,” the CNN authors wrote. “Despite being the world’s most populous country, with 1.4 billion residents, China only records a few dozen gun crimes a year.”

CNN completely whitewashed that America was a nation founded in protecting personal liberties while China’s revolution was a communist takeover. The disarmament policies instituted by Mao Zedong not only stripped Chinese of their firearms, Chinese also lost the ability to protect themselves against their own government.

China Chinese military police flag communist
Chinese paramilitary police march near a sculpture of the Chinese Communist Party flag outside the Museum of the Communist Party of China in Beijing on Wednesday, June 23, 2021.  (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

The Washington Post reported Mao’s bloody campaign to “purify class ranks” resulted in the deaths of as many as 40 to 80 million Chinese. That started with landowners in 1949 and later included Christians, Chinese Nationalist sympathizers, counter revolutionaries and “bad elements,” which included tens of thousands to millions executed in the 1950s by government authorities that controlled all the arms. Other deaths are attributed to disastrous policies that resulted in widespread famine.

It’s About Control, Not Just Guns

This all seems outlandish, but this is what is being pushed by mainstream media. It’s not a new notion, but one that National Review’s Kevin Williamson noted in a series of articles that gun control groups and the politicians that carry their mantra into Congress and state capitals are keen on instituting gun laws on gun owners – who are exceedingly law-abiding. Gun purchasers are required to pass the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), or similar state systems before they can take possession of a firearm.

Criminals don’t pass background checks. They go around them and illegally obtain guns. They also don’t care, Williamson wrote. The striking part is gun control politicians aren’t proposing to hold criminals responsible. They’re only targeting the law-abiding. Williamson pointed out that gun control isn’t interested in controlling guns as much as they are interested in controlling gun culture.

“From that point of view, what matters is not that retail gun dealers and their clients are dangerous — which they certainly are not — but that they are icky.”

That notion was cemented even among a minority of gun owners who supported the view put forth by a New York Times columnist about the need for increased gun control. The commenter started with, “As a gun-owner and carry-concealed holder in Oklahoma,” and later distorted the Second Amendment before tarring every AR-15 owner as loudmouth braggards with little-man complexes.

“That kind of sneering really gets to the heart or the issue — this is not a crime-policy debate, but a culture-war exercise. It’s not ‘these guns,’ it’s ‘these people,’” Williamson wrote.

That’s what makes it easy for CNN to dismiss gun owners while overlooking criminals and murderous regimes when pushing a gun control narrative. It’s not really about the guns. It’s about you.

46 COMMENTS

  1. Meanwhile CNN & CNBC get minuscule ratings…so these cretins are essentially preaching to the choir(of satan).

      • Yeah, CNN pays millions of dollars to the airports anually.
        Just to brainwash the sheeple with propaganda. 🤪
        Convinces advertisers to keep pumping them money too.

    • they continue to ignore the real cause factor in all these gun purchases…while targeting the wrong group…but people are smarter than they give them credit for…and have already seen through this false narrative….

      • cnn has a lot in common with the kkk, nazis, rapists, perverts, child molesters, kidnappers, etc. They all benefit from Gun Control. What Filth.

  2. The “wokest” of the bunch always become the loudest just before they get defunded, and eventually put down.
    Congratulations CNN, you’re becoming a “useful idiot” that’s nearing the end of your usefulness. 🤔
    Anyone at CNN care to guess what comes next. If you don’t have a clue, ask Bill Maher. He’ll fill you in. 😄

    • Nah, I vastly prefer Queef Olberdouche as an instructive example of ‘wokism gone even MORE bats*** crazy’. After all, Bill Maher is actually making sense an unusual amount, lately. Queef, not so much. And Maher still has somewhat of a national audience. The only people who pay attention to Olberdouche are (i) his LIMITED fan base, and (ii) mockers like Twitchy, who mock him mercilessly.

  3. “CNN completely whitewashed that America was a nation founded in protecting personal liberties while China’s revolution was a communist takeover.”

    CNN and everyone on the Left is completely ignoring the push to give violent criminals in this country more and more leniency. If they really wanted to stop violent crime, then they would crack down on it, but they’re literally doing the opposite. You can’t exist on the Left without ignoring reality.

    • Exactly why anyone who questions any position the far-left takes is IMMIDATELY attacked and cast off.
      It’s a cult that requires total loyalty. Don’t think, don’t debate, don’t question………. JUST COMPLY!

    • quote——————“CNN completely whitewashed that America was a nation founded in protecting personal liberties while China’s revolution was a communist takeove————quote

      You flunked your History classes. Only 1/3 Americans supported the Revolution. It was a war started by greed monger merchants and power mad politicians like George Washington that started it. The Merchants who funded the war were too cheap and stingy to pay a few pennies in taxes that was supporting the hand that was feeding them and making them prosper and that was Britain through global trade. Yeah, the Far Right Wing paranoia about it did not start in the 20th Century. The revolution actually set back America’s prosperity and modernization by decades and also resulted in slavery going on far longer than in Britain and Europe.

      Not to mention Americans being screwed out of a truly democratic parliamentary government. While France’s revolution was a resounding success for the common man the American Revolution was a disaster and is still felt right up to this very day with an archaic 2 party divisive Government that fails to get anything of substance done.

      Parliamentary governments can get things done far more quickly and when the Europeans raced ahead full steam with the new green technology and the fight to stop global warming America was left behind in the dust.

      The Chinese revolution was successful not because of Communism or Mayo Zedong but because of the enslavement of the Chinese peasant by the Capitalvanian Chinese War Lords and the people were screaming for land reform and Mao was only too glad to ride the tide of resentment and promise them land reform and he did indeed follow through with that promise. Also under Mao modern farming practices were introduced and the dreaded famines that often killed millions came to an abrupt end. A rush to industrialization also followed providing millions of new high paying jobs along with the necessary modern education to make all this possible in the later part of 20th Century. Small wonder Mao was almost deified.

      When you ask Chinese people today if they consider themselves slaves they will laugh right in your face and reply “We as a people and nation are more prosperous today than at anytime in or past, go sell your propaganda to the hillbillies in the U.S.”.

      • TL;DR
        But you’re quoting something from the above article, not me you fecking moron. Notice the quotes? One of them even survived your copy paste job. I didn’t comment on the founding or takeover.

        • I’m so desperate to pick a fight with someone that I’ll write up a five paragraph diatribe in response to someone that’s talking about a completely different subject. Of course I don’t realize they’re talking about a different subject because I don’t comprehend what I read. Or maybe I just don’t read it. I forget. I’m irrelevant. 😂

        • “Irrelevant, you did not say it but you believe it.”
          Wow! Grand Inquisitor much lil d?

          This is why it’s pointless to engage with the TTAG leftard.

      • but from the standpoint of individual liberty they’re still slaves…selling their souls for the almighty buck…

      • Although the American Revolution was supported by only a third of the population, it didn’t result in mass annihilation of non-supporters or opponents once it ended. Very much unlike the ChiComs (40-80 MILLION deaths!) or even, more contemporaneously, the French (only 17,000). Ask those folks how prosperous the revolution made them. (Well, I guess it could be said they ended up in a better place, if you believe that sort of stuff.)
        Thanks, Dacian, but no, I’ll take messy freedom over prosperous slavery any day. But if they’re so successful, why do they have to steal our technology rather than developing their own?
        And if you think the ChiComs are so all-fired great, why don’t you just head on over there? I’m sure they’ll take you in, maybe after a stint in a re-education camp with the Uyghurs so they can be sure you aren’t a threat.

        • Where precisely can I find the quoted poll of all Americans’ attitudes (while almost all were illiterate and mass communication was nil) from 250 years ago? I call massive double sized bullshit, here, no one has any clue whatsoever what percentage believed what, except for the fact they defeated the most powerful nation in the world and formed a new nation which became the most powerful in the world. When you determine to make up a bunch of idiotic lies to support your indefensible position, at least put a little thought into your lies, this is so transparent it’s ridiculous.

  4. Loved it when Nicki Minaj went from “woke” to “awake” a few days ago, she was attacked for trying to think for herself.
    Called no-Joy Reed an “Uncle Tommianna”. 🤣
    Never been a fan of NM, but I have nothing but respect for a woman who thinks for herself, and refuses to following the masses “just because”.
    You go NM👍

  5. I believe the Left needs to understand a few important facts when it comes to firearm confiscation. First the people who advocate this are not the ones who have to confiscate them because they know they would be carried out horizontally if they tried. So they pass laws that will require some law enforcement officer or miliatry person with a family to be carried out horizontally as well.

    I once asked two friends who were active police officers at the time what they would do if they were ordered to confiscate people’s firearms. One indicated he would call in sick and the other indicated that a lot of officers would be shot. Given the number of firearm owners and the recent surge in firearm purchases and the relatively small number of military or law enforcement individuals actually willing and capable of taking on the confiscation task you can be assured it will be an absolute failure. Most of those folks want to go home to their families at night and they certainly don’t want to get into life or death situations with people who are law abiding citizens simply exercising their Constitutional Rights. This is a losing battle on the Governments part and could be the breaking point in a real insurrection that is going to have them running for their lives. The last thing you want to do in this Country is wake that sleeping Giant. He/She is gentle and well behaved until unfairly riled and his/her wrath is not something they are going to want to experience.

    • quote—————-First the people who advocate this are not the ones who have to confiscate them because they know they would be carried out horizontally if they tried.—————quote

      This is the standard Right Wing fantasy because it tends to make them feel better and actually believes such absolute nonsense.

      Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it.

      In reality when the penalties are made severe enough the people comply just as they did in many countries, such as Britain and in Australia where railroad cars of guns were collected and no they did not need jackbooted armies of smiling and sneering thugs because the people had no choice but to turn them in willingly. No sane person wants to lose his life, his home, be incarcerated, pay a huge fine and lose the right to own any weapon for life. The Government is smart enough not to confiscate all the weapons at once but only certain categories of weapons. The Government has got you by the balls and only the dreamers and nut cases refuse to face cold hard reality. Obey “or else” as the German Nazi’s used to say and everyone knew “what or else meant”.

      Most sane people know that a banned weapon cannot be used at a public range or sold or traded or even used for self-defense therefore it is totally useless.

      • “a banned weapon cannot be used at a public range or sold or traded or even used for self-defense therefore it is totally useless.”

        Please explain.
        How does the “banned” weapon know it’s no longer allowed to fire in a self-defense situation.
        Does it get a memo from the alphabet boiz instructing it to cease functioning? 🤔
        Your posts are usually retarded, but that one was funny on so many levels. We were running an M134 GE Minigun at a local range a few weeks ago.
        Keep tilting those windmills Don. 🤣

      • No same person,,,well that leaves me out.
        Danm.
        Guess I’ll just have to be a freedom loving nut job with a gunm that no same person would try and take away.

      • Gee, dacian the dim, how’s that whole “assault weapons” ban working out in NY, CA, NJ, MA, etc.??? What are those estimated “voluntary compliance” rates (based on INSANELY doctored statistics, doctored to favor the gun control narrative)???

        What percentage of owners of now-illegal ARs have turned them in? How many ‘seizures’ of ‘illegal’ semi-automatic rifles have there been since the various “assault weapons” bans have been put in place??

        Or are you as stubbornly, bomfozzlingly stupid and ignorant as you have always been??

        If you are the best the Left has to offer as an intellectual opponent, the Left is even more pathetic than I thought. In a battle of wits, you are unarmed.

      • “therefore it is totally useless”
        Oh, I wouldn’t say that. It becomes real useful in getting Politicians, Bureaucrats, Judges, Media People, etc. to go back to the Constitution. And it is not like their bought security is really loyal or anything and willing to die for them. The Police and Military may not be ready to do that either. After all the Military takes an oath to defend the Constitution, not the Government or the Politicians let alone the Bureaucrats. The Democrats keep pushing, trying to get the Republicans to become violent. This is so the Democrats can then use the media to crack down on the Republicans as Terrorists. The Republicans haven’t gone violent YET. The Democrats think it means that the Republicans are scared and will not fight back, the truth is that the Republicans have too much to lose, so force is really a last option for them. The Democrats are like someone poking a lion and keeps poking it, believing that the lion will not react. Even if the lion reacts SOMEONE will save him from the lion.

  6. I couldn’t be bothered to read the article because the link said that the US is to blame for gang violence in Brazil. Because guns.

  7. quote—————–Gun Violence Archive reported that in 2019 there were 417 mass shootings, but the FBI counted just 30, because they stick to a traditionally accepted definition. The FBI excludes incidents of self-defense, gang violence, drug violence and others.————quote

    The FBI is wrong on this as gang violence, drug violence often results in innocent bystanders being gunned down along with the gang bangers. The FBI really should not ignore that its pure stupidity on the FBI’s part but they want to underplay all the mass murder because it makes them look bad as not doing their jobs and lessening the violence.

    quote————–CNN presented this report of crime spiking alongside information that firearm sales were also at record levels. The pairing of the information leads a reader to believe that there’s a correlation between the two – or even causation. The inference is that because guns are selling at record levels, criminal violence is the result.———quote

    Yes there is a very big correlation between the two and this was verified long before the CNN program as Robert Reich pointed out some time ago that numerous previous studies have shown that when gun ownership goes up so do killings. Such incidents as road rage murder, and citizens becoming vigilantes as in the Zimmerman case and the other Arbery case where an innocent black jogger was gunned down by 3 white racists because he was jogging through a white neighbor hood and “jogging while black” through a white section of town and according to the white racists this is not allowed. Even the ex-prosecutor, (a white female she wolf of the SS) is now in legal trouble for trying to get the 3 white Nazi’s off the hook. After all according to them “black lives do not matter” even when a black man only wanted to jog down the street. And the show covered Carl Rittenhouse the crazed assault rifle toting punk kid wannabe Nazi that gunned down 3 people during the troubles in Kenosha.

    More guns also result in more guns left unattended in peoples homes often resulting in kids picking guns up and shooting themselves and their playmates because unlike civilized countries which ban such madness there is no Federal Law mandating safe storage practices.

    And more guns left lying around also result in a field day for criminal smash and grab street punks only to eager to make a quick buck in the black market which is awash in not only stolen guns but the much bigger pool of black market “second hand” guns for sale on the streets of our major cities like Chicago, New York and Baltimore just to name a few.

    Quote————-The authors praised Communist China’s low rate of criminal violence involving a firearm.————–quote

    Which is very true. As a matter of fact one interview (Not shown in the film) of an expat American female music professor at a brand new Chinese University said she was astonished to see females hitch hiking to work or school every day and thinking nothing of it simply because crime in China is so low even though China has a population of 4 1/2 times larger than the U.S. In the U.S. the females even in rural areas would have been raped and strangled in only a short period of time, and it would have been suicide to attempt hitch hiking in America’s big cities even for men.

    The Show also missed the mark (pun intended) by not showing the much lower crime and homicide rate with guns in many European Countries.

    The show also viewed Obama chastising Congress for knuckling under to the NRA and defeating Universal Background Check legislation which the NRA and some Far Right Gun owners cheered was a victory while in reality it made the incidents of mass murders only grow more numerous resulting in more and more calls for draconian gun bans. The Far Right proved once again that they are always their own worst enemies.

    One of the most shocking parts of the show was the life of Harlon Carter. Although without Carter’s Cincinnati Revolt during an NRA Meeting the NRA would have ceased to exist as a political body what was revealed also was that the man was a sickening and brutal racist that murdered a young Latino boy in cold blood and then changed one letter in his name so he could hide his brutal crime (for 50 years) which enabled him to become later a sheriff and run a brutal and terrorist campaign against Latino’s who he hated as rabidly as the Nazi’s hated Jews in Germany. Carter would have made the perfect Nazi in Hitler’s Germany.

    And of course the show covered the rise of Wayne LaPierre’s rise to absolute dictatorial power and the sickening corruption in the NRA who squandered millions of their members money on themselves living high on the hog with expensive trips and other perks. The Show claimed that because of all this the NRA’s power has slipped dramatically with politicians as when you do not pay your Congressional prostitutes off they abandoned you as quickly as rats desert a sinking ship much to the peril of all gun owners.

    Yes even Hollywood could not have come up with a fictional movie more bizarre than the real life problems of guns in America in the 21st Century, especially when the civilized world has come up with far better solutions to run away gun violence decades and decades ago.

    • Hmmm…

      Favoring Parliamentary government with the ‘civilized world” having a far better solution to run away gun violence long ago.

      Sounds like you are still young and educated in critical race theory and similar philosophies. You also show a lack of understanding of rural America. You know, you should consider a move to a better country, your choice!

      … And leave we old farts behind with our guns.

      • quote———–Sounds like you are still young and educated in critical race theory and similar philosophies———–quote

        The only thing you got wrong was young. And as far as your comment about critical race theory, its called being a product of higher education, something you just admitted you are not a product of.

        • Everything that comes out of your head is complete trash.
          There is no point in a rebuttal. It is obvious you lack major education but believe you have somehow achieved an exceedingly high education, so much so in fact that nearly everyone you meet is a lesser human being that you feel you must explain to them how they cannot fathom your extreme intelligence.

          Dunning-Kruger affect, near perfect textbook example.

    • dacian, Dude, you need to get a job. I don’t have time to read your crap, if you have time to write all that you should get a job and live rich!

      • dacian has been trying, but he’s having trouble finding someone willing to pay him $200K per year for his degree in Sociology with an emphasis on Critical Race Theory. I hear they turned him down as a barrista at the local Starbucks.

  8. “CNN completely whitewashed that America was a nation founded in protecting personal liberties while China’s revolution was a communist takeover.”

    They *want* a takeover…

  9. I’m sure the Uighurs are relieved that they don’t have to live in fear of mass shootings and gun violence, and that they are under the protection of the Chinese government.

  10. Ok, CNN thinks I’m the problem. Guess I must be. Older white guy who runs his little farmstead and used to run his own business independent of government assistance.
    By that I mean I was never qualified for government loans or grants. Didn’t get to cheat the tax man either. Property taxes in October and income taxes in April.
    And I must be the problem on guns as well. Been collecting for decades and to date have not been charged with anything more than a couple minor traffic tickets in more than 70 years. Of course, back then jail or felony charges were something to be avoided. Not a right of passage or bragging rights.
    Now, those singing the praises of China, perhaps they should speak to some of those who left. Not those who are under surveillance by the government or who may lose their privilege’s, should they say the wrong thing. Or ask why China closely controls news and information allowed both in or out. Why does the government closely control what passes their version of the internet?

    Yes, the US has had and does have it’s faults. We’ve not always lived up to the ideals laid out by our founders. Many of whom also failed to live up to the ideals they espoused.
    But, considering what I’ve seen and experienced in my travels, and what I’ve learned from people I’ve met over the years, the US is nowhere near as bad as some would have you believe. Take an honest look at the situation on the Southern border. Why would so many be trying to get in if the US was the horrible hell hole the leftist narrative claims it is?
    Sorry, I’ll take the chances of being a free man and take the risk of failure and loss over forced mediocrity and the security of the police state or forced compliance anyday.

  11. These filthy insects called the media, always like to compare the USA to China or Japan, when it comes to crime or shootings, guess what else those countries have none of, well just look at the demographics, it’s pretty obvious.

  12. The problem is the MSM we don’t need them. I sure don’t waste any time listening to their drivel and bull sheet

  13. The ugly truth is that all violence of all types is either Human or it is Animal. The animals are not at issue here, only the humans.

    It is always possible to compare data on violence in human societies around the world, finding surprising differences. These differences put the lie to it being the weapons, the inanimate objects, as the root cause. The causes are cultural, religious, economic, political, many complicating factors.

    That is the key. Realizing that humans are always at fault in the violence being done to other humans. Once you get that thru your thick skull, you have a place to begin working on solving the root causes of human violence.

    Problem is this is a very inconvenient truth. Inconvenient for all sides, all political doctrines. There is little to be gained in votes at election time by preaching the true difficulty in solving any problem. It is far more beneficial to party success to over simplify, to manufacture falsely reasoned cause and effect. To give voters something to focus on emotionally, not factually.

  14. I used to have fairly pricy pullover with the CNN logo embroidered on the front that I bought several years ago while at their HQ tour. I needed a warm pullover and I liked the style. At the time CNN was far less left leaning and it was a very interesting tour.

    I never actually wore the thing and it hung in my closet for years. Since I wouldn’t wear it with that name on it and trying to rip out all the embroidery was a huge pain in the butt I came upon the perfect idea. I grabbed an HK patch I had just gotten at a media event and had it sewed over the CNN logo. So now my CNN pullover is an HK pullover. It makes me smile every time I wear it now, which is often.

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