Guns

Since the Connecticut school shooting happened, leftists in and out of the media are calling for more restrictions on guns. But guns are not the only cause for mass shootings. Untreated mental illnesses can be one. The American news environment could, potentially be another. In a column for The Week, Matt Lewis takes on the question of “media control” in light of the fact that the press gives…

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) told CNN on Monday that the Connecticut shooting was a "tipping point" and added that if President Obama wanted to take action on gun laws by using an executive order, "God bless him."

An old journalistic saw about what's newsworthy goes a little something like this: "When a dog bites man, that's not a new story. Now a man bites a dog, that's a story." The idea is simple: News is something that is unusual, out of the ordinary, has a twist that makes it unexpected and shocking. There's nothing unexpected or shocking about a preacher in a mainline liberal Protestant church…

CNN's Soledad O'Brien interrupted, bullied, and dismissed guest John Lott on Monday's Starting Point when Lott argued in favor of less gun laws. "[Y]our position completely boggles me, honestly. I just do not understand it," the liberal journalist lectured Lott after he cited statistics supporting his position. O'Brien sidestepped his facts and condescended to his position from the beginning…

The Monday after Friday's horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Good Morning America opted to exploit the tragedy to push for more gun control, even entertaining the notion of banning future production of some guns. Speaking on Monday morning, GMA co-host Josh Elliott introduced the segment by insisting there were "big questions about whether stricter laws…

Remember how liberals feigned reverence for the Constitution during its alleged wholesale destruction while George W. Bush was president? With a Democrat ensconsed in the White House, they are reverting to old habits when it comes to the blueprint for our republic. On his radio show Friday, Schultz argued with a caller who said he usually agrees with Schultz, citing "socialized medicine" and…

Bill Plante slanted four-to-one in favor of gun control on Monday's CBS This Morning as he reported on congressional Democrats' efforts to introduce new firearms regulations. Plante played soundbites from Senator Dianne Feinstein, Carolyn McCarthy, and President Barack Obama. His sole pro-gun rights talking head was Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who came only after the clips from the liberals were…

Suffice it to say the media coverage of the recent tragedy was an abject failure. Perhaps the most egregious example was how CNN initially reported that Ryan Lanza, brother of the real shooter Adam Lanza, was the culprit eliciting screenshots and information about his Facebook account that was disseminated on the Internet  – and on the airwaves.  David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun wrote on…

The NBC, ABC, and CBS morning shows on Monday all touted President Obama seemingly calling for more gun control during a Sunday night vigil for the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting. NBC's Today provided the most hype as correspondent Lester Holt proclaimed: "While he offered words of comfort, he also laid down a political gauntlet....sketching the outlines of what amounted to a policy…

CNN anchor Don Lemon went on an anti-gun rant on Monday morning and called for an assault weapons ban. Lemon is only the latest CNN anchor to abandon journalistic standards and push for gun control. "We need to get guns and bullets and automatic weapons off the streets. They should only be available to police officers and to hunt al-Qaeda and the Taliban and not hunt elementary school…

Most of the anti-Second Amendment media have been predictably thrilled with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's call for stricter gun regulations in the wake of Friday's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Apparently not New York Times columnist David Brooks who said on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, "It’s counterproductive to have him as the spokesperson for the gun law movement" (…

If certain aspects of stories relating to an incident of gun violence don't fit the template, they usually doesn't get reported at all. But if such things somehow get some local exposure, they rarely escape into the broader national news environment. What follows is an example of the latter. On Saturday, Dan Zimmerman at the Truth About Guns blog (HT Instapundit) asked a quite logical…

Roughly 48 hours after the tragic shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, a powerful Democrat claimed that on the first day of the new Congress in January, she will be introducing a bill to both chambers of Congress that bans assault weapons. So said Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif), the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday.

Liberals always say they don’t want to take away guns. But give them an awful tragedy like the Newtown, Conn. shooting and they get bolder and more honest. MSNBC host Ed Schultz showed a rare bout of such honesty during a brief Twitter exchange Saturday. Schultz asked “Why should anyone own an assault rifle ?” and followed it up by saying “it's the confiscation of these types of weapons that…