The Media and Loaded Guns

[shotgunjoel]

Why is it that every time the news says something about somebody carrying a gun or having a gun in your home they make a fuss of it being "loaded" or "loaded and ready to kill" or "fully loaded", you get the picture? They make it sound so evil and wrong. I guess they never heard that rule about guns are always loaded even if they aren't. I suppose they do it all for shock value, but come on, when are people going to say that this is ridiculous?

 

[General Geoff]

well there's this odd phenomenon in the media and in most non-gun-enthusiasts' minds that an unloaded gun is harmless. While they are technically correct, it's kinda like saying a car without gas is harmless. How often do you find a car that's completely out of fuel?

 

[Frog48]

I suppose they do it all for shock value, but come on, when are people going to say that this is ridiculous?

Yep, its purely for shock value. And since most people are clueless, they buy into it.

 

[shotgunjoel]

If it is because they think unloaded guns are harmless then why do you here about daughters freeking out driving her dead father's guns to the police station. They aren't loaded, hopefully.

 

[Old Salty Dog]

As we noticed this election season, the media are about 87% liberal. (Real statistics from some studies in the 1980s. Rosenfeld, I believe was a co-author.) That means that they are about 90% anti-gun. That means that they either have zero experience with guns or have willingly forgotten everything they learned when young. What they know about guns comes from the media....and so on and so on. It's a self-feeding loop.

Don't forget also that we are one generation now into the all volunteer force military. The percentage of our population under age 60 with military experience is somewhere under 8%. (US News and World Report statistics from some years ago. Probably worse now.) The previous generations had a lot of experience with guns from WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. They may not have liked guns, but the men knew guns and weren't afraid of them for the wrong reasons. This isn't going to improve anytime soon unless the draft comes back, and our military is structured in a way now that the draft would do more damage to the force than help - at least for the first few years of it.

Therefore, if you are liberal and you know nothing about guns, you automatically 'know' that guns are bad. And loaded guns must therefore be worse. This isn't going to get any better soon. Watch for the 'fairness doctrine' push to begin next year to stifle what is left of varying viewpoints on talk radio.

Love 'em or hate 'em, it's time to join the NRA if you haven't yet, and get active locally in defending 2nd Amendment rights.

 

[Kind of Blued]

It goes along very well with the "guns are for killing people" train of thought.

Apparently the media takes it upon themselves to begin the criminal justice process by deducing that the person in question was "up to no good" or "looking for trouble".

To me, it's as frivelous a detail as hearing about a man who stabbed a woman with a knife which was sharpened along one edge, and included a pointed tip.

 

[shotgunjoel]

I hear crap like when somebody gets arrested for some white collar crime and they find "several loaded guns" at the person's house and now it's like they must be really bad because look, they have guns, plus they're LOADED!! Oh no! What do you think they would do if someone called in and told them something like 30 million people have loaded guns in their homes? Would they say that all those people are evil too, or would they try to skirt around the issue? They would have to skirt around the issue because no one is going to say on national news that 1 out of 10 americans is some sort of evil. They single out one person and pick on them to try to influence non gun owners. I don't know, maybe I'm way off but those are my thoughts right now.

 

[nachosgrande]

Wow, that's nothing in my opinion. When I read a news article about someone being arrested for an unrelated offense, they will typically say something like "upon inspection of the home, investigators found thousands of pictures of child porn, several rooms full of stolen passports, credit cards, and 9 people were found chained up in the basement. Oh yeah, and they had guns." This is a slight exaggeration (and I mean only slight), but media will typically relate owning a gun (completely legal) with rape, murder, child porn, stolen identity, etc (completely illegal). It never ceases to amaze me.

 

[moooose102]

because it is their job to sensationalize everything in order to gain ratings. the higher the rating, the more they can charge for advertising, the more money they make. boils back to the almighty buck. plus, the media in general is anti-gun. it always has been. one of the reasons we are constantly battleing gun control. they poison millions of minds at a crack into thinking all guns are bad, and people that own them are freaks. ISN'T THAT NICE?

 

[mcwjr13]

Because they have bought into the Brady Campaigns irrational line of thinking. Any high capacity or evil looking, non single shot firearm has a mind of its own and it is hell bent on killing their children.