The MRC And The Gun Part Of Gun Massacres
Even though the gun is central to a gun massacre, the Media Research Center doesn't want to talk about them, preferring instead to whine that such shootings prompt discussion of gun regulations.
The gun aficionados at the Media Research Center defend guns at every opportunity and attack any effort at even the slightest attempt at gun regulation. As it typically does, the MRC reacted to last October’s gun massacre in Maine, in which 18 people were killed, by whining that people are emphasizing the gun part of it. Nicholas Fondacaro ranted in an Oct. 26 post:
In the wake of the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine overnight, the liberal media made their predictable and ghoulish push to strip law-abiding American gun owners of their Second Amendment rights. MSNBC’s Chris Jansing was particularly irritated as she spent part of her eponymous show on Thursday lashing out and attacking the residents of Maine for supporting the Second Amendment and repeatedly rejecting attempts to curtail their rights via gun control legislation.
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Growing more hysterical as the segment went on, Jansing looked to MSNBC anchor Lindsey Reiser to decode Maine’s supposedly mysterious gun laws. “You’ve been looking into Maine’s gun laws, what did you find?” she asks as if she was translating the Rosetta Stone.
Reiser did admit that Maine had “relatively low homicide rates compared to rates of high gun ownership. Last year alone, they had only 29 homicides.”
But she did take issue with them having “permitless carry.” “So, anyone 21 or older can carry a gun without a permit. If you’re 18 to 20, you need a permit to carry a weapon, unless you serve in the armed forces or you’re in the National Guard,” she added. Of course, this left out the important detail that to buy the gun they were carrying, they would have already had to pass a background check.
And on background checks, Reiser was out to mislead with lies like the gun show loophole. “We know that they don’t require background checks for all gun sales, just for federally licensed dealers, so private sales, gun shows, those don’t require background checks,” she falsely proclaimed.
Fondacaro failed to explain why any reference to the gun show loophole is a “lie” — an odd claim given that some are trying to close it.
The next day, Fondacaro spent his daily hate-watching of “The View” raging that the American obsession with guns was called out:
The term “RINO” didn’t begin to describe the level of contempt the so-called “conservatives” of ABC’s The View had for the ideology and people they purported to represent. In the wake of the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, FAKE conservatives Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro spewed pure ignorance and hatred at any Republican (politician and private citizen) who supported the Second Amendment and wanted their gun rights secured; openly blaming law-abiding gun owners for mass shootings.
Farah Griffin began her uniformed screed by falsely claiming that gun violence and mass shootings were a “uniquely American problem.” And she tried to portray herself as a knowledgeable commentator who supported the Second Amendment because her husband “owns a gun.”
According to an NPR report from 2019, in the Western Hemisphere alone, the U.S.’s per capita gun deaths were more than eclipsed by at least 10 different countries. Gun violence was one of the leading reasons why people were fleeing Central and South American countries for the U.S.
Fondacaro concluded by Heathering the show’s conservatives for not being pro-gun absolutists like him:
Navarro would later blame all mass shootings and gun deaths on anyone who exercised their Second Amendment rights. “It’s all about you all who keep electing gun-rights apologists, gun-owner apologists,” she bleated. “Do the people in Canada have better hearts? Do the people in Finland have better hearts than Americans do?”
The only thing rotten here was the fake conservatives on The View.
Brad Wilmouth used an Oct. 28 post to complain that gun restrictions were discussed in the massacre’s aftermath, obsessing over the side issue of gun rights for veterans:
On Thursday’s CNN This Morning, reacting to a deadly mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, the show provided Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) an unchallenged forum to push for more gun control and lament that such legislation would likely be opposed by newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson. And, even though fellow Democrat Senator Jon Tester supports legislation to protect the gun rights of veterans, Senator Coons was allowed to mislead viewers on the issue.
After playing a clip of the mayor of Auburn, Maine, reacting to the murder spree in neighboring Lewiston that killed 18, CNN co-host Poppy Harlow brought aboard her guest as she misleadingly blurred gang-related mass shootings with the less frequent type that has a high death toll and is more difficult to predict.
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After Harlow followed up by asking if Congress might pass more spending for mental health if it were not tied to new gun laws, the Delaware Democrat repeated his misleading claims that Republicans are trying to help veterans with mental illness get their gun rights back.
It was not mentioned that it’s not just Republicans who support the measure regarding veterans. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) also supports the same measure which would protect veterans who have had to get help in dealing with their finances because of mental illness, contrary to how Senator Coons made it sound.
As it turned out, the massacre perpetrator was an Army reservist with apparent mental health issues that hadn’t been addressed despite warnings.
Wilmouth used a post the next day to whine that the massacre made a Maine congressman change his mind on gun regulation:
In the aftermath of the deadly mass shooting in Maine, CNN This Morning on Friday spent time touting a moderate Democrat congressman who has now switched to the liberal side on gun control as the show also took time to single out the only five congressional Democrats who voted against an “assault weapon” ban last year.
Left-leaning CNN analyst Natasha Alford declared that Congressman Jared Golden (D-ME) had “moral courage” in switching sides on the issue after the shootings in his state while CNN Republican Alyssa Farah Griffin lauded the move as “fairly bold.”
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Alford suggested that Second Amendment supporters are not thinking of what’s best for their constituents as she also took a jab at newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson:
Then, Griffin — the kind of Republican analyst the liberal media like best — went along with the premise of the discussion that there needs to be more gun control and speculated about what might pass in spite of Republicans usually opposing more gun laws.
Wilmouth didn’t explain why a mass shooting shouldn’t change people’s minds about the danger of guns. He was still complaining that the massacre was being discussed in a Dec. 2 post:
On Thursday’s CNN This Morning, viewers witnessed another soft-soap interview promoting gun-control legislation as fill-in co-host Erica Hill provided a promotional platform for Senator Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses and votes with Democrats, in the aftermath of the October 25 mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.
CNN feels no need to balance these discussions out with gun-rights advocates.
After spending the first part of the segment discussing the issue of whether federal spending on aid to Israel will be linked to aid to Ukraine, Hill brought up her guest’s efforts to regulate guns, which she framed as an attempt to reduce mass shootings:
Wilmouth then tried to talk down attempts to limit the size of bullet-holding magazines:
Senator King talked up his efforts to limit magazines so that they can hold only 10 bullets at a time:
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The CNN host could have brought up the argument that limiting the number of bullets a magazine can hold disadvantages self-defensive gun users if they are taken by surprise — possibly by multiple armed assailants who can show up prepared — forcing victims to reload while they are fighting for their lives, but Hill was true to form in showing no concerns about the potential harm gun regulations could cause.
This same show has also notably never mentioned that at least one of the locations where the recent Maine mass shooter targeted was a gun-free zone, and that there is reason to believe that cutting the number of gun-free zones would help deter high-casualty mass shootings in public spaces.
Wilmouth offered no evidence to back up his claim about gun-free zone — just a vague “reason to believe” — and he failed to note that if victims had smaller magazines, the shooters would too. He also previously complained that the massacre changed King’s mind about gun regulation.
More gun regulation talk
Tim Graham spent a Jan. 20 post whining that non-right-wing media were covering discussion of gun regulation instead of his preferred right-wing narratives:
NPR hasn’t reported on the scandal of Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis potentially ruining her election-interference case against Donald Trump by having an affair with her married special prosecutor, who took her on vacations with the money she was paying him. No, they were too busy sounding like State-Run Radio on Thursday night by offering a four-minute press release for Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s now “taking a more front-and-center role on addressing gun violence” on the campaign trail.
The closest thing to negativity was anchor Juana Summers noting Harris is trying to “court younger voters, who, right now, aren’t showing a lot of enthusiasm about voting for President Biden.”
Wilmouth whined about more discussion of gun regulation in another Jan. 20 post in which he deflected from the central role of the gun in the Uvalde school massacre:
On the day the Justice Department released a report on the mistakes local law enforcement made in handling the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre from May 2022, CNN coverage of the findings predictably turned to pushing more gun control as both Democrat and Republican guests appeared to discuss the findings.
On Thursday’s CNN This Morning, State Senator Roland Gutierrez (D-TX) — who is also running for the U.S. Senate this year — was given un unchallenged forum to complain about his state’s Republican legislators opposing gun control. Toward the end of the interview, he complained:
Unfortunately, the policy holders in this state, the people that are controlling this state, Republican leaders both in the house and the senate and of course our leadership have decided to create loose gun laws that allow anybody and anybody — everybody to access a weapon of this nature. I mean, this young man was 18 years old — he bought a gun in a small town in Texas at the only gun shop in Texas (sic) on day one.
After recalling that the Uvalde gunman had bought hundreds of rounds of ammunition before attacking the school, the Texas Democrat added: “In other states, that would have been considered possibly a red flag. So it’s my hope that we not only learn best practices sure going forward, but we have to change our policy. And if our policy makers aren’t willing to make some changes, then we need to get rid of those policy makers.”
When Jake Tapper talked about background checks in another CNN segment, Wilmouth insisted that such checks are meaningless and repeated the right-wing mantra demanding more guns in society:
But Tapper’s suggestion that more background checks might have made a difference ignores the fact that mass shootings are generally carried out by perpetrators who either are able to pass background checks or steal their weapons, making new background checks irrelevant. Plus, Tapper specifying gun shows gave an incorrect impression that professional gun dealers are not legally required to do background checks at gun shows even though they are.
It would have been more relevant to point out that schools that experience mass shootings are usually those that prohibit plain clothes school staff from carrying guns on school property even though studies suggest such measures deter mass shootings from happening.
Wilmouth cited only one study, by the discredited pro-gun “researcher” John Lott. He closed by huffing: “As is typical, CNN hosts did not discuss anything that might have actually made a difference to prevent more such shootings from occurring.” But Wilmouth only offered rote pro-gun talking points in response.
Following a shooting at a Super Bowl celebration in Kansas City, Fondacaro whined in a Feb. 16 post that gun regulations were brought up again:
After conspicuously not pushing gun control following the Lakewood megachurch shooting in Texas last week, likely because good guys with guns put down the shooter, CBS Mornings spent part of their Friday show morbidly cheering on how the Kansas City Super Bowl parade shooting was “helping renew” the left’s fight against gun rights with a so-called “assault weapons” ban.
“And the shooting at the Kansas City Super Bowl parade is helping renew the conversation about how to curb gun violence in America, including how to limit easy access to military-style rifles,” co-anchor Tony Dokoupil announced.
He added: “It's been 20 years since the ban on assault rifles expired, and that includes the AR-15 and weapons similar to it. Weapons that have been used in many of the nation's deadliest mass shootings.”
In a report featuring a sit-down conversation with several mass shooting survivors, CBS correspondent Nicole Sganga promoted the Gas-Operated Semiautomatic Firearm Exclusion Act (the so-called GOSAFE Act), the latest reincarnation of the unconstitutional assault weapons ban.
Of course, at no point did they mention that the 1994 assault weapons ban did nothing to curb gun violence in America, hence why it was allowed to expire. They also failed to mention that the Columbine school shooting the worst school shooting in America, at the time, occurred during the first so-called assault weapon ban.
In fact, there was a lower average annual death rate from mass shootings while the assault weapon ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004 — even factoring in the Columbine massacre — and it has skyrocketed in the years since the ban ended - which tells us that, contrary to Fondacaro’s claim, the ban did help to curb gun violence. ConWebWatch has previously exposed how the MRC’s discussions on the Lakewood megachurch, home to pastor Joel Osteen, obsessed on the purported transgender identity of the shooter — in fact, she has always identified as a female — rather than the gun.
Distracting from 2018 massacre
Brad Wilmouth is part of the team of gun apologists at the Media Research Center, and he devoted a April 22 post to trying distract from discussion of a 2018 gun massacre with irrelevant arguments:
On this past weekend’s The Saturday Show, MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart teamed up with anti-gun activist Dr. Jonathan Metzl to spread misinformation about the effects of gun laws as the two discussed his book on the 25th anniversary of the Columbine school shootings.
As the discussion turned to the 2018 attack on a Nashville Waffle House by 29-year-old Travis Reinking, Dr. Metzl reflexively blamed Tennessee’s “pathologically loose gun laws” without divulging that the gunman had only somewhat recently moved into Tennessee from the blue state of Illinois. He soon complained about Tennessee expanding gun rights since the shooting:
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It was not mentioned that Illinois police had confiscated several guns from Reinking after he showed signs of schizophrenia, but then gave them to his father who then returned them to his son later. One of those firearms was used in the Nashville attack after the gunman moved to the state. Reinking’s father was also convicted in connection with giving his son’s firearms back to him.
Wilmouth offered no evidence that Tennessee’s gun laws would have done any better in addressing Reinking’s issues or in keeping weapons away from him, nor did he acknowledge that the loosening of gun laws there make such a massacre scenario even more likely. Also note that Wilmouth referred to the massacre as merely an “attack” without mentioning the fact that four people died.
Instead of pointing out those relevant facts, Wilmouth whined that it was suggested that Reinking may have treated better during his arrest and in custody because of his race:
Capehart played the race card by hinting at the far-left liberal trope that the cops allowed Reinking to live because of he was white. “Dr. Metzl, a question occurs to me when we showed the Waffle House shooter. Was he taken alive after that — that manhunt?” he played coy. Metzl obliged.
Then, without offering any evidence that other racial groups are treated differently, Metzl claimed that the Waffle House gunman was allowed to keep his guns because he is white:
Wilmouth offered no evidence to contradict the claim, though it should be noted that Reinking surrendered immediately when approached by officers.