CNN Keeps Supporting Gun Control Advocates After Wisconsin Shooting

August 7th, 2012 4:08 PM

After forcing gun control into headlines only hours after the July 20 Aurora massacre, CNN gave a voice to anti-gun advocates on Monday and Tuesday in the wake of Sunday's Wisconsin shooting.

The network hosted three guests who pushed for gun control on-air, and correspondent Dan Lothian highlighted prominent gun control advocates like Mayor Bloomberg in his Tuesday morning report.

"As authorities try to figure out why a gunman opened fire in a Wisconsin temple, gun control advocates aren't waiting," Lothian kicked off his report. "They're talking openly and loudly about the need for gun control, and they are again pressuring the White House."

On Monday night, Piers Morgan interviewed Deepak Chopra who had tweeted that "Guns do not belong in a civil society," and asked him "What is the practical thing that can be done now?"

And Morgan concurred with Chopra that more gun regulation is needed. "There just has to be something in our system in America which means if you're a skinhead white supremacist thrown out of the military for misconduct and you are in a band which advocates violence and racial hatred and all the rest of it, there's got to be something that flags you up when you go and buy a gun legally."

Twice on Tuesday morning, CNN played part of an ad by the anti-gun Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Anchor Brooke Baldwin played a clip when she teed up Tuscon shooting survivor and gun control advocate Mavy Stoddard.

"Do you feel like you have heard enough, Mavy, when it comes to our guns in this country and preventing another one of these massacres?" Baldwin asked. "What do you want to hear from on either a Mitt Romney or a President Obama?"

Stoddard demanded "a plan to fix our gun laws" and added that "We need no assault rifles."

Later on Tuesday morning, anchor Carol Costello interviewed a member of the anti-gun group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl of Evanston, Illinois. Costello did ask her tough questions, but seemed to agree with her at the very end that a "plan" for guns is needed.

"Yep. Someone needs to come up with a plan, right?" Costello said in agreement with Tisdahl before adding the word "But" and then shrugging and ending the interview.