How objective is media reporting on gun control?

The Idaho State Journal recently offered editorial support for gun control, taking the path of most media, assuming guns are a problem and gun control will solve that problem.  They referenced the Jason Hamilton murders when they complimented the University of Idaho for banning guns on campus, calling it a wise decision.

They overlooked an important fact explaining why Hamilton is actually proof legislated gun control fails.  They failed to report that Hamilton had been ordered by the court not to possess any firearms.  So much for court ordered safety.

Where is the evidence that any type of gun control works? In 1996, Australia confiscated and destroyed over 640,000 guns at a cost of $100,000,000.  The result of that massive undertaking was seeing their murder rate remain level, while several other crime rates went up.  Why doesn’t the media report this with the same zeal they report the erroneously assumed need for gun control?

The gun control advocates believe all that is necessary to solve gun crime is to remove guns.  If this is true, then we must also remove automobiles because drunk drivers use them to murder people.  We must also remove airplanes because terrorists used them as weapons of mass destruction. 

This is  tired, failed logic.  Why attack the weapon the murderer chooses rather than deal with the murderer?  Recently, I was discussing this with my pastor’s father. He told me he had owned his deer rifle for nearly 60 years and in all that time the rifle had never murdered anyone nor had it asked him to do so.

Why does the media bias their reports on gun control so we only see and read what they want us to believe?  Let’s look at two recent mass murders.  On Feb. 12, 2007 five people were murdered at the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City, Utah.  On April 16, 2007 thirty-three people were murdered on the Virginia Tech campus in Roanoke, Va.

How much media attention did each of these murders get?  Was the reporting objective or biased?  Was the reporting journalism or was it tabloid marketing?  How much were we told about Kenneth Hammonds, the off-duty police officer who saved lives at Trolley Square and how much were we told about Virginia Tech’s Cho Seung-Hui?  I asked one of my partners about these two murders.  He knew about Virginia Tech but had not heard anything of the shooting at Trolley Square.

I so tired of the unending media coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings, I stopped watching any news about it.  I did not need any more information about Cho Seung-Hui’s life.

Media numbed from the Virginia Tech murders, I started wondering about the Trolley Square murders and why there seemed to be so little media coverage.

Why do I know more about Cho Seung-Hui than I know about Kenneth Hammonds?  Are thirty-three people murdered more newsworthy than one hero?  Or, might it be more difficult for the media to advance its agenda of gun control if they reported on someone who saved lives with a gun, someone who used a gun for “good.”  Kenneth Hammonds is not certainly not the poster child for gun control.

Kenneth Hammonds, while discussing that day at Trolley Square, said “I had to do something.”  I bet there are more Kenneth Hammonds in this country than there are Cho Seung-Huis. And the Kenneth Hammonds are deserving of the media attention, not the Cho Seung-Huis. 

Hearing so little about the man who used a gun to save lives, is it fair to assume the media is manipulating the news to advance a pre-determined agenda rather than reporting objectively?

Further proof of this bias is the fact that most reports on Virginia Tech failed to discuss what happened the year before the murders.  During that year, the Virginia legislators had a bill before them that would allow Virginia Tech students and faculty to carry firearms on campus if they had a concealed handgun permit.

When the bill died in committee, The Roanoke Times reported that Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was pleased with the bill’s defeat, saying, “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”  Virginia banned the possibility of their own Kenneth Hammonds saving lives.

Think about it.

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