In the immediate aftermath of the Navy Yard shooting the liberal media reflexively began their push for more gun control. NBC’s Matt Lauer, on Tuesday’s Today show pressed an outspoken chief medical officer that treated some of the wounded: “You say you didn’t want to wade into the issue of gun control and yet your comments are resonating with people...but we also heard emotional comments after Newtown and Aurora, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Are you worried that your comments will be soon forgotten, as it seems some of those other comments have been forgotten?”
Lauer’s plea to the doctor represents how desperate the liberal media has been to keep the gun control issue alive, even in the face of recent political losses like the defeat of Barack Obama’s gun control legislation in Congress and the recall of anti-gun state legislators in Colorado. (Video compilation after the jump)
Piers Morgan
On Tuesday, NewsBusters called on CNN's Piers Morgan to retract his errant claim from the previous evening that Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis brought an AR-15 with him to the massacre.
Much to our dismay, Morgan still has not done so.
At the New York Times on Tuesday, Michael S. Schmidt claimed that "The suspect in the killing of 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday test-fired an AR-15 assault rifle at a Virginia gun store last week but was stopped from buying one because state law there prohibits the sale of such weapons to out-of-state buyers, according to two senior law enforcement officials."
The portion of that statement about being "stopped from buying" an AR-15 isn't true, writes Emily Miller at the Washington Times, not only because "state law" wouldn't have prevented such an attempt, but also because Aaron Alexis didn't even try to buy one. Miller asserts that the New York Times "should issue a correction immediately." She also decries the establishment media's "obsession" with tying the AR-15 to the Navy Yard shooting (bolds are mine throughout this post):
As NewsBusters previously reported, CNN's Piers Morgan repeatedly claimed Monday that the alleged Washington, D.C., Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis brought an AR-15 into the facility. Morgan made such assertions despite reports that this might not have been the case.
On Tuesday, CNN.com reported that not only didn't Alexis bring an AR-15 with him, that type of rifle might not have been involved in the massacre at all:
CNN’s Piers Morgan began his program Monday claiming that Aaron Alexis, the alleged shooter at the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard, entered the facility "armed with an AR-15, another rifle, and a semi-automatic Glock."
But this is currently under dispute with some believing Alexis initially possessed only a shotgun and that the other weapons he took from fallen security officials inside the facility (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CNN's Piers Morgan lashed out at NRA "cowards" hours after Monday morning's shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, and asked President Obama to take "action" against gun violence.
Just as he did after the Aurora shooting, Morgan took to Twitter. "Where's the @NRA today? Oh that's right, Wash Naval Yard is a heavily secure place so doesn't fit their agenda. #silenceofthecowards," he tweeted.
In a Twitter war with conservative radio hosts Ben Ferguson and Dana Loesch, CNN's Piers Morgan pitched the idea that they stand as targets for blind shooters.
The argument was over allowing the legally blind to own guns. Morgan railed against the idea and tweeted, "An idea @Dloesch @benfergusonshow > you guys stand at the end of a range and I'll get 100 blind people to fire away at targets around you."
[UPDATED] Not surprisingly, CNN's Piers Morgan used last Friday's indiscriminate murder of an Australian student in Oklahoma to push for more gun control. His shilling for stronger gun laws has become a tired story.
On his Tuesday night show, Morgan lamented "What is wrong with America that it has to be partisan? That you have to be if you're pro-gun, you're Republican so therefore you can't bring in gun control. If you're anti-gun outrages as I am, apparently you're some liberal freak. What is wrong with the argument in America that makes it so nonsensical?" He also took his outrage to Twitter.
Lee Daniels, director and producer of the new film "The Butler," lashed out on Monday's Piers Morgan Live at Americans who are "angry that [Obama] is president" and who are "showing their true colors."
Host Piers Morgan teed him up, asking if "America is a more or less racist country since Barack Obama became president?" Daniels responded that "sadly I think so." Actor Lenny Kravitz had a more positive analysis but supported Daniels' assertion about many Americans.
What's going on at CNN? On Thursday afternoon CNN's Athena Jones called the Missouri rodeo clown controversy a "firestorm," but CNN's tone changed within a matter of hours.
On Thursday night's Piers Morgan Live, Morgan admitted "it's all a bit silly" and agreed with Newt Gingrich that the outrage over the stunt "is all a bit ridiculous." Then on Friday morning, anchor Carol Costello huffed, "May I be blunt? This whole controversy is being blown way out of proportion and it's just kind of stupid now."
NewsBusters reported the other night that during a debate on guns, CNN's Piers Morgan falsely claimed that according to FBI statistics, Virginia had the highest murder rate in the country in 2009. Over 38 hours later, Piers apologized and admitted "It didn't."
This came at a pivotal moment in the debate as Morgan's pro-gun opponent had cited Virginia's falling violent crime rate coinciding with its rising gun sales. By labeling Virginia the number one murder state as of only four years ago, and appealing to authority to support his claim, Morgan put his guest on the defensive with a completely false statistic not anywhere close to the truth.
[UPDATE BELOW] Trying to refute his guest's argument that "more guns equal less crime," CNN's Piers Morgan fell flat on his face on his Tuesday night show.
When guest A.W.R. Hawkins cited Virginia as an example where violent crime fell in 2012 as gun sales increased, Morgan answered that "It's Virginia, the very state you just quoted to me actually has the highest murder rate in the country. According to 2009 statistics by the FBI." Morgan's assertion was entirely false, according to the FBI's 2009 report on crime.