Disingenuous Reporting on the Gun Issue

If there ever was a situation tailor made for Second Amendment rights it is the ongoing manhunt drama in California following the killing of three people and the injuring of another by former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner.  Dorner (33) has promised in notes he left behind to perpetrate “warfare” on police officers and their families.  Desperate and heavily armed, authorities are not certain what he is capable of.  One report says residents of rural southern California towns are barricading themselves in their homes, some armed to the teeth, in the event Dorner attempts to break into their homes.

Now, you would think that the mainstream media in an effort to provide “fair and balanced” reporting would seize the opportunity and report at least this one time that this is what James Madison had in mind when he wrote the Second Amendment.  That is that people have a natural right to self-defense when a madman is on the loose.  But, this lack of reporting, as well as other examples of outright chicanery in reporting, is indicative of the MSM’s agenda when it comes to guns.

For instance, there was this headline in the Huffington Post on January 27, 2013, “Ronnie Chambers Death:  Mother Loses Fourth Child to Gun Violence…”  What followed was a video of the grieving mother (Shirley Chambers) and an article explaining how her fourth child was gunned down “while sitting in a car”.  The author of the piece gave no other details about the circumstances surrounding any of the shootings of her four children.  In fact, readers were left with the impression that each one was an innocent bystander.  What was inferred was that something must be done to stop wanton gun violence before more innocent children are killed – i.e. gun control.

The purpose of the piece was clearly to horrify readers’ sensibilities toward the mother’s loss, get them caught up emotionally, and bring them around to the belief that if only guns could be banned the violence on our streets would disappear.

But, upon further investigation, this observer found that Ms. Chamber’s children were anything but innocent bystanders.  Two of her children died as a result of arguments with individuals they knew.  One seemed to be a targeted killing by, perhaps, a rival gang.   And the last of her children to be gunned down, had been arrested in the past a remarkable 29 times and had four felony convictions!  This refutes the Huff Post’s inference that the victims were innocent and merely at the wrong place at the wrong time.  

Also from the Huffington Post was the blog by Josh Horwitz, the Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, entitled “LaPierre Reveals True Purpose Behind Assault Weapons”.  In the piece, Horwitz takes exception to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s Senate testimony that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to ultimately provide Americans with the means to protect themselves from their own government.  Horwitz went so far as to label LaPierre’s position “insurrectionist”.  He accused LaPierre and others who hold the same belief that they were “ready to wage war on our government”.

Once again, emotional scare tactics were employed by a Huff Post columnist to drive home the point that guns should be banned.  The insinuation is that LaPierre and others who hold the view that Americans need guns to protect themselves from their own government are on the far fringes of society.  In fact, they are the loony tunes to be feared.

What Horwitz intentionally ignores are those that came before us, who were revered, and who held the same belief that an armed citizenry is the greatest defense against tyranny.  Thomas Jefferson said, “What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”  In the Federalist Papers #46, James Madison proclaimed, “Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

Lastly, there is this quote from 20^th Century liberal Democrat and former Vice President of the United States, Hubert H. Humphrey:  “Certainly, one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. … The right of the citizen to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible.”

By ignoring history, Horwitz seeks to taint his readers’ understanding of the gun issue.  But he is not alone in this endeavor.  The government run schools and most of Hollywood employ the same tactics.  Their goal is to convince the public that we need more gun control.   

But, for those of us that understand the true meaning of the Second Amendment, we can take solace knowing that the disingenuousness of the gun grabbers is not working because Americans have responded by setting back to back monthly records for arms sales.

Kenn Jacobine teaches internationally and maintains a summer residence in North Carolina