http://www.mediaresearch.org/columns/news/col19990504.html

Media Lock and Load on the Second Amendment

By L. Brent Bozell III
May 4, 1999

The National Rifle Association has already won, hands down, the distinction
of having the worst luck of any lobbying group in politics this year. Days
before a big three-day NRA convention would begin in Denver, the Columbine
High School massacre shocked and outraged the nation.

What to do to contain the public-relations nightmare? Cognizant that the
national media always shower blame on the NRA after a high-profile shooting,
the NRA cancelled its plans for a large gun exhibition and just retained its
core “meeting of members” and an awards dinner on May Day. While that may
have stopped hordes of network producers from stalking around the gun show
looking for the cheapest video shot, the reaction wasn’t about to be
diluted.

ABC’s Peter Jennings announced his network’s attack piece the day after the
slaughter: “The gun lobby scaled its plans down, but it may not have been
enough.” A night later, CBS reporter Sandra Hughes showed a billboard of NRA
leader Charlton Heston holding a rifle: “The National Rifle Association
billboard is a cruel reminder for those still grieving over the events in
Littleton that next week the NRA is coming to Denver, even though Mayor
Wellington Webb asked the NRA to go away.” Newsweek’s “Conventional Wisdom
Watch” box sniped: “Fifteen die and they ‘scale down’ their convention. How
many would it take to cancel it?”

Is this fair? Ask this question: Is there any confrontation of armed force
that would not be interpreted by the media as an embarrassment to the NRA?
Have they ever considered someone defending their life or property with a
firearm to be newsworthy? Has there ever been a violent incident that the
networks would portray as embarrassing to Handgun Control Incorporated or
the Violence Policy Center, because the victim had been cowed into not
purchasing a weapon to defend himself?

Couldn’t you ask if this massacre demonstrated that the gun-control crowd
which passed legislation to keep guns away from kids have been embarrassed,
when their proposed solutions solved nothing? The Conservative News Service
reported last week that the two teen assassins broke eighteen separate
federal and state gun laws in the Columbine High School massacre. Doesn’t
this on some level reinforce the NRA’s belief that criminals will get guns
and use them no matter how many laws are passed? Doesn’t it at least merit
consideration in the endless stream of analysis stories?

But you can’t expect these questions to be asked by journalists who
explicitly declare that guns should be banned. Many of them now acknowledge
that gun-control laws aren’t doing the job, but they want guns outlawed
anyway. On the talk show “Inside Washington,” Newsweek’s Evan Thomas
declared: “I don’t think that gun control is going to have much impact. But
I think we ought to do it anyway just to make a statement as a society and
even if you save a couple of lives then it’s worth it.” Time national
correspondent Jack E. White one-upped Thomas: “Whatever is being proposed is
way too namby-pamby. I mean, for example, we’re talking about limiting
people to one gun purchase, or handgun purchase a month. Why not just ban
the ownership of handguns when nobody needs one? Why not just ban
semi-automatic rifles? Nobody needs one.”

The fulmination wouldn’t be complete without Geraldo Rivera, who asked a
gun-rights activist: “Don’t you think that your movement, what you stand
for, even the Second Amendment itself is rightfully under attack after the
carnage in Littleton, Colorado?”

The media and much of American society are making a serious mistake when
they make the mental leap of assigning blame for a crime committed with guns
to those who advocate the rightful, lawful ownership of guns. The NRA has
never advocated the right to mow down innocent bystanders with firearms. So
why do we so quickly expect the NRA to apologize somehow for the deaths of
13 victims and their murderers? And at the same time, Planned Parenthood is
never blamed for the million and a half babies it advocates the right to
kill annually, not to mention the more than 100,000 abortions it performs
for profit each year? The media’s marination in doctrinaire liberalism
becomes crystal clear when you compare the two.

Over the weekend, an unsafe Arkansas tourist boat drowned 13, the same
number of victims as died at Columbine High. You can understand how this
story can’t compete. Murders are more sensational than accidents. But this
story also offered no scapegoats for a liberal media which earnestly
believes the Second Amendment should be repealed and a new Prohibition is
the wave of the future. Even when they know it won’t solve a thing.