Off-Target News: When It's Guns, Media Miss Big Part Of Picture

Investors' Business Daily | February 7, 2002 | John R. Lott, Jr.

[Washingtonian]

Investor's Business Daily

February 7, 2002

SECTION: A; Pg. 17

LENGTH: 712 words

HEADLINE: Off-Target News: When It's Guns, Media Miss Big Part Of Picture

BYLINE: By JOHN R. LOTT JR. , Investor's Daily

BODY:

There continually seems to be some new crime committed with a gun. When more than one person gets killed, the crimes get not only national but international news coverage. On the other hand, when was the last time that you heard the national evening news reporting about a citizen using a gun to save lives?

Few people realize that people use guns defensively to stop about 2 million crimes a year, according to national surveys. Some of this lopsided coverage is understandable: an innocent person's murder is more newsworthy than a victim brandishing a gun and the attacker running away, with no crime committed.

Unlike crimes avoided, bad events provide emotionally gripping pictures. Yet covering only the bad events creates the impression that guns only cost lives.

But this neither explains the dramatic heroic stories that are left uncovered nor the crimes that are newsworthy enough to be covered but for which important details are left out. Possibly the press doesn't want to encourage vigilantism, possibly it has some other reason, but stories where guns save lives never get more than minor local news coverage.

Three of the recent 16 cases I know of illustrate where guns have protected people, but the news coverage never extends beyond a short report in the local media.

Bogalusa, La.: On Jan. 25, four men ages 17 to 25 attempted robbing a woman dying of cancer at gunpoint. The woman, who weighs only 85 pounds, takes pain medication, including OxyContin, which the men reportedly wanted to steal. A small newspaper described the plan: "One guy went in on a pretense to visit. He was to open the door, then the others were to rush in, put a gun on him and say 'Get down.' The others were wearing ski masks." But the woman's 13-year-old son saw the masked men before they broke into the house and got the family's .20 gauge shotgun. He fired a shot, wounding one of the criminals and causing the criminals to run away.

Englewood, Fla.: An enraged husband goes to a bar where his wife works and attacks her with a knife. A couple of employees come to the wife's aid but they are severely cut by the husband. He was stopped only when a man with a permitted concealed handgun held the attacker at gunpoint until the police arrived.

Rock Springs, Texas: Three illegal aliens broke into a pregnant woman's home, 50 miles from the Mexican border. The woman, who was awakened from a nap, saw one man in her house after he kicked open the door. Two others were cutting through a screen window. She shot the one in the house, killing him and causing the other two to flee.

These examples are all too typical, but even more disturbing are the stories that get news coverage but leave out how guns were used to save lives. One example is the Jan. 16 shooting at the Appalachian Law School in Virginia that left three dead. With all the massive worldwide news coverage, everyone is familiar with the crime, but almost no one knows how it was actually stopped. Out of hundreds of stories, just four mentioned that the students who stopped the attack had guns, and only two of those (both in local Virginia newspapers) mentioned that the guns were used to force the killer to drop his gun.

Little Detail

The Washington Post simply wrote that the students "helped subdue" the killer. Other media simply noted that: "Students tackled the man while he was still armed," "Students tackled the gunman" or "Students ended the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, who dropped his weapon." Many stories did mention the students had law enforcement or military backgrounds, but provided no more detail on how they stopped the attack.

Yet, as one of the students, Tracy Bridges, described what happened: "I aimed my gun at him, and (the killer) tossed his gun down." It was only then that the students tackled the killer. Bridges told this story to over 50 reporters and said he was "shocked" by how the press reports completely left out how he had used the gun to stop the criminal.

Selectively reporting events endangers lives. It misinforms people about the safest course of action when confronted by criminals.

John R. Lott Jr. is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime."

[marktwain]

This sort of proof of the anti-freedom nature of the OldDominantLiberalMedia needs to be spread far and wide. It should be on Fox, on Rush, on the Keys show, everywhere. It is sooo,, obvious when presented like this.

[jrewingjr]

Good post. Bang!

[Euro-American Scum]

Few people realize that people use guns defensively to stop about 2 million crimes a year, according to national surveys.

Could it possibly be people don't know about it because it NEVER gets covered?

Some of this lopsided coverage is understandable: an innocent person's murder is more newsworthy than a victim brandishing a gun and the attacker running away, with no crime committed.

Lott give the liberalmedia too much credit. All this is just another tactic of the Hate America crowd.

[Redcloak]

Add to this the media blackout of the 11-year old boy who shot and killed a guy who was threatening to cut his mother's throat with a boxcutter.

[boltCutter]

bump

[alaskanfan]

Funny how the liberals can claim to be so pro-choice, yet against my choice to own firearms.

[AK2KX]

Just like their bumpersticker "Against Abortions? Then Don't Have One"

I'd like to see "Against Guns? Then Don't Buy One!"

[FreedomPoster]

Bumping a great little article that really highlights the anti-gun BIAS of the leftist lamestream media. It's great that this media bias is getting a lot of well-deserved attention via Bernard Goldberg's book and the upcoming book by, I think, Ann Coulter.

[Aaron_A]

bump

[D2BAH]

Our copy of the latest Consumer Reports came today. It is unquestionably the publication of a leftwing organization. And I think it is getting worse. It carries two items, this time, that brought my blood up to boiling. (1) An anti-gun piece ridiculing the acquisition of firearms for self or home protection. Their "statistical evidence" is pure doubletalk. And they conveniently avoid mentioning Prof. Lott's study. (2) They disparage strongly the increasingly widely-held view that oil drilling in Alaska is a sensible and environmentally harmless idea for the nation, and they bring up the same tired old liberal crap about Alaska's pristine beauty and the environment. I look at the photo of the rag's editor, and think: What the hell does THAT scrawny, bespectacled city slicker prissy know about EITHER of these matters--or about much of anything else, for that matter. They whine and fuss about the most insignificant of things--and are essentially little more than a crowd of goofball Ralph Naders looking for products, businesses and American freedoms to attack. Consumer Reports OBVIOUSLY has an agenda--and it is not one that makes me proud to be a subscriber. I think when our subscription runs out, it's bye bye.

[Fireone]

Great post! This subject really burns the liberal politicians that would have all of us disarmed. E-mail this to every politician you have time to.

[Washingtonian]

Well I hope that you write Consumer Reports a letter to the editor. Lott has done more than his part. It is time the rest of us do a little bit.

[Zon]

Unlike crimes avoided, bad events provide emotionally gripping pictures. Yet covering only the bad events creates the impression that guns only cost lives.

But this neither explains the dramatic heroic stories that are left uncovered nor the crimes that are newsworthy enough to be covered but for which important details are left out.

The lamestream media wants to show the criminal being sent to prison, wants to show the innocent victim being injured. Every person loves a hero that saves the day. I general, that is what each media's audience wants. There's two million of them each year which the media desperately avoids reporting 99+% of them. Instead, news media parades politicians, bureaucrats, Greens, PETA and other activists as heroes.

[bvw]

Bump for NJ SAS