GUNS&AMMO February 2005
Page 14

Guns In The Media

?Semi-Truths? Continue

The assault weapons ban has come and gone?the twisted logic
surrounding its media coverage is still here and thriving.

On September 14, 2004, the air was a bit sweeter, carrying
the distinct aroma of freedom. Of course, we know that the
assault weapons ban was largely symbolic since most
gunmakers complied with the law by removing the prohibited
accessories, but it was exactly this symbolism that was, and
remains, so important. Sometime, a journalism school should
study the media treatment of this issue as a way of explaining
the power of the Big Lie and its effectiveness at moving
popular opinion.

In 1994 a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party barely
passed the assault weapons ban, and President Clinton signed
it into law. To get the votes needed, Democratic leaders
of Congress included a provision in the law that was its
death sentence. If Congress did not renew the ban, it would
expire in 10 years.

Josh Sugarman of the Violence Policy Center said that the
public didn?t know the difference between semiauto and
fullauto rifles, and the gun-control movement could take
advantage of that by convincing them that these rifles were,
in fact, machine guns. He was right. Of course, that was
possible only if the antigun-rights forces had the full
cooperation of the media.

In the months before the 1994 vote, CNN and other networks
frequently showed video of machine guns being fired while
talking heads were describing the debates on the ban. Each
time, the networks were informed that the ban had nothing to
do with machine guns. The networks didn?t care and were
only too eager to show misleading footage to help confuse
and frighten the public.

After the ban?s passage, and through the next 10 years,
the public remained convinced that this was a ban on machine
guns. Despite being told hundreds of times that this was
not the case, television networks and newspapers around
the country kept hammering this lie into the public psyche.
This brainwashing had the desired effect, as witnessed by
polls that showed that as high as 70 percent of the public
favored the continuation of a ban on machine guns.

Should anyone not be clear on the activism portrayed by the
mainstream media on this issue, one need only watch the
television coverage as we approached the ban?s expiration
deadline. Months prior to it, CNN was caught, yet again,
falsifying reports. CNN reporter John Zarella showed a
police officer shooting one of the banned rifles into cinder
blocks, which were blown apart. When the officer shot a
?legal and more safe? rifle, the cinder blocks went
unscratched. Both rifles shot the same ammunition, but
because (I guess) one rifle did not have a means of mounting
a bayonet, the bullets became harmless.

This faked story would have stood as fact had not CNN been
broadcasting a live interview with Wayne LaPierre of the NRA
the next day. Since it was live, LaPierre was able to make
his statements without being edited. He called for the
immediate dismissal of Zarella because of his fake story.
Obviously, the police officer was not aiming at the cinder
blocks when shooting the ?safer? rifle. CNN proclaimed that
its award-winning reporter would never do such a thing.
Days later the network admitted that the report was not
accurate.

?ABC News? showed video of the North Hollywood, California,
bank robbery, where criminals used full-auto rifles in a
shoot-out with the police. ABC?s ?Nightline? also used the
footage, and both programs warned that these automatic
rifles would be back ?on the streets? if the ban was lifted.

Of course, it was a lie. Not a mistake, mind you. If you
know the difference, and continue to mislead your viewers,
you are a liar. The media decided that it would be to the
public good to ban these guns, even if it meant lying. So
they did.

In the weeks right before the ban expired, the editorials
were amazing in their stupidity (wrong facts and twisted
logic) and in their similarity (using Brady Center press
releases). For example: ?The expiration of the ban also is
a concern to the Long Beach Police Department. Detective
Malcolm Evans, with the Violent Crimes Detail, said that
police have seen ?a resurgence? in the last few months in
the use of assault weapons, particularly in the gang-related
crime that continually plagues parts of the city:?

So, the ban wasn?t working when it was in effect?

Some reports were over-the-top: ?This week?s lapse of the
10-year federal ban on assault weapons is great news?for
people who make and sell the weapons and for gangs and
criminals who get a thrill out of military-style weapons.
Police, who are the usual target of such weapons, are not so
happy…. There is absolutely no reason on Earth for those
weapons to be legal….”

Of course, there was the usual parading of police
politicians prattling platitudes to placate their party
bosses. Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton said,
?They?re weapons of murder. They?re not weapons of hunting
or collecting.” Chief, you need to attend the national
matches and watch hundreds of the best rifle shooters in and
out of the military shooting these guns in competition.

Post-Sunset Reporting

When it became obvious that the ban would sunset, the
comments from the gun-banners and media changed to a
collective, ?Oh, never mind.”

The Violence Policy Center was quoted as saying that there
really would be no change in anything once the law expired,
and all the law did was restrict some cosmetic accessories
on rifles. While that?s correct, it was strange to hear it
from a group that calls for hugely repressive controls on
honest people owning guns. These media-savvy anti-rights
activists wanted to be able to say, when it later was clear
that there was no increase in crime, that they knew all
along that the law was just cosmetic, as were the items
banned.

Another interesting theme popped up in newspapers all over
the country. This tact took the ?Oh, never mind? dismissal
of the defeat and twisted it beyond recognition. The
reason, reports said, that the federal ?assault weapon? ban
was ineffective was not because criminals rarely used these
guns in crime anyway (less than 2 percent according to FBI
figures). The reason the gun ban didn?t work is that it was
so full of loopholes that it didn?t really keep any guns off
the market. In this tortured logic, gunmakers, who removed
the banned items as required by law, were somehow
circumventing the law rather than complying with it. The
manufacturers were doing exactly what the BATF told them
they had to do, but it was implied that they were trying to
get around the law by doing what the law required.

The gun-banners will be back?soon. They will say that the
reason the ?assault weapons? ban did not work is that it
didn?t ban enough guns. Stay alert. Never let them lie
without being challenged. A lie left unchallenged becomes
the truth.

It makes my head hurt.