—Which, what a perfect companion piece to your network “news” division’s spiked poll results! Remember: service the narrative! From Newsbusters:
World News Sunday continued ABC’s gun control crusade, devoting its “A Closer Look†segment to how after the 1996 school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland, Great Britain virtually banned handguns, suggesting [a gun ban is] worth emulating.
[…]
[ABC reporter David] Wright featured two Britons exasperated by the refusal of the U.S. to follow Britain’s lead. Gun control activist Ann Pearston contended: “What ordinary people have got to do in the United States, if they really care about what happened at Virginia Tech, is to make the banning of firearms in the United States an election issue.†Mick North, the father of a child killed in the Dunblane incident, fretted: “Nothing happened after Columbine. Nothing happened after Nickel Mines in the Amish community. After a few weeks, nothing will happen after Virginia Tech. Even the death of 32 people may not be enough to build up the necessary momentum.â€Â
What’s interesting to note here is that, in the course of his report, Wright was careful to supply the argument’s reservation—admitting that gun crime has actually increased in Britain after the ban. What hasn’t happened, however, is another school shooting, which, as Newsbusters suggests, “sounds more like good luck than a result of the ban”—but which was nevertheless presented as the benefit of a disarmed populace at the mercy of those who aren’t predisposed to follow gun laws in the first place.
That the report would be framed in favor of gun control and gun bans even though the evidence itself clearly shows that the bans have had precisely the opposite effect from the one its backers intended, is yet another instance where the “reality-based” community stubbornly refuses to admit that what the want to happen, as opposed to what actually happens as a result of their social engineering policies, is not the proper way, empirically speaking, to justify a continuation of bad policy—or, in this case, a willful push to spread failed policy in the service of a world view that is routinely pimpslapped by the law of unintended consequences.
Perhaps these words spill from an unenlightened fool, but isn’t the value of a free press that it shines light on truth and aids in protecting our freedoms?
What value is a free press when they endorse the abolition of our rights? And who, exactly, is it that they are assisting?
Actually, what did happen is a bunch of nutcases blew themselves up in the subway. Why haven’t explosive precursers or digital watches or cell phones or backpacks?
‘cause it doesn’t look like the explosives ban is working out.
And that‘s why I read this blog!
I’m beginning to favor sane, sensible broadcast news control.
I’ve been favoring various common-sense press controls for years.
You know those big copiers at Kinko’s? They have lasers in them! And their sale and possession are utterly unregulated!
How can any civilized society survive when any shmoe off the street can walk into an OfficeMax and walk out with a death-ray device!?
I’ve long favored requiring that everyone 18 and up should carry a gun everywhere they go, and act as a reserve police force and militia, with revocation of citizenship, confiscation of all possessions and shipment to France as the penalty for failure to do so.
Sure would solve a lot of problems, wouldn’t it?
That’s right. And France deserves it.
I fear that one day in the not-too-distant future, a president of the United States will sign a UN treaty “limiting the trade in small arms” (read: making it illegal to purchase a personal firearm), and a U.S. Senate will ratify it, 2nd Amendment to the Constitution be damned.
After all, it’s FOR THE CHILDREN!
”I think it, therefore, it is true.”
One of my daughters was in a pre-journalism mode until she discovered she was supposed to do things such as argue the benefits of a particular video game, specifically without having to even play the game. She actually argued with the teacher about it. From a perspective such as that, reality simply does not matter. Anything goes. So all she is going to do is to repeat the Company sales pitch. But who couldn’t do that? And who’d want to? She’s getting out of the program.
n.b. to Faux Liberals – reporting on something is not the same as voting on it, or at least it shouldn’t be simply because of the Freedom of The Press, dontcha-know!, to say nothing of my feelings, my feelings. Nor because I am a useful idiot.
I do find it odd that the same people who hyperventilate about “the destruction of civil liberties” whenever a Republican is President* will gleefully call for the utter abolition of an explicitly protected civil liberty without a moment’s evident reflection.
* You know, that civil liberty to not have a court be able to give theoretical access to your public library records to the state, unless it’s a grand jury which could always do that, but that’s different because it can’t be pinned on Bush.
While it is exceedingly frustrating to have to live with a situation in which the press is not so much interested in delivering the news as it is in putting forth a proper opinion, I am comforted by the fact that the people in this country have seemingly “seen the light” on the issue of our 2nd Amendment rights. All of the movement, as of late, has been in the direction of the intent of the framers. Which is good.
The press, as well, should be more concerned than they seem to be about the notion that more and more folks seem to be able to see through their biased, profit centered bullshit. It made me smile when VT asked the press leaches to please get lost.
the “reality-based†community stubbornly refuses to admit that what they want to happen, as opposed to what actually happens as a result of their social engineering policies, is not the proper way, empirically speaking, to justify a continuation of bad policy
“Look, your worship,” said Sancho; “what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go.”
“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat.”
And the rest is, uh, history.
Hence the drumming the D’s got a decade ago…
So over 10% of the respondents want stronger gun control laws but believe they will not help curb violence.
We care about polls… why?
I once heard it said, if we beat all our swords into plowshares, we’d just have people killing each other with plowshares.
Of course in this vein, one could argue that it takes more time to kill a dozen or so people with a knife than with a gun, but the flip side of that is that a gun is an unmatched equalizer for a deficit in physical size and strength. A firearm-equipped 5’0” 95 lb. woman is far superior in combat to a knife-equipped 6’5” 250 lb. male intent upon causing harm.
I submit that nearly all violent crimes are crimes of power, and therefore can be curtailed if the assailant is forced to consider a real possibility of his prey being other-than-powerless.
I don’t see the anti-gun crowd parading with stickers, buttons, and other paraphernalia declaring themselves, their loved ones, or their property “gun-free.” Perhaps even they begrudgingly accept the notion of a “soft target” being more attractive to one of ill intent.