Please enable JavaScript and reload this page. Follow Us Search Search Keyword: Sign … While understandable, this reaction actually endangers people’s lives because it ignores how important guns are in protecting people from harm. When it comes to this topic, reporters are eager to write about guns.
The entire debate would be dramatically different if at least three points about mass public shootings ever got coverage. Why, for instance, does the torrential coverage of public shooting sprees fail to acknowledge when such attacks are aborted by citizens with guns? Most crime occurs in big cities, and urbanites are bombarded with tales of gun-facilitated crime. It is a kind of media archetype story to report on “naturally curious” children shooting themselves or other children—though in the five years from 1997 to 2001 the entire United States averaged only ten cases a year where a child under ten accidentally shot himself or another child.In contrast, in 2001 bicycles were much more likely to result in accidental deaths than guns. -
The least lopsided coverage was provided by the Washington Post, with 46,884 words on crimes committed with guns and 953 words on defensive stories—again, not exactly a balanced treatment.Moreover, the few defensive gun-use incidents that received coverage were almost all reported locally. When people who hold this view never even hear their opinions mentioned in polls and news stories, they begin to think no one else shares their view.There are other subtle biases in the construction of these surveys. When the shots rang out, chaos erupted. People are very surprised to learn that survey data show that guns are used defensively by private citizens in the U.S. from 1.5 to 3.4 million times a year, at least three times more frequently than guns are used to commit crimes. Virtually any gun sold today can be used to inflict mass casualties. After I informed him that Glod had been told by the students about using their guns, Getler said, “She should have included it.” But he said that he had no power to do anything about it.
In the states outside of California and New York, about one in 11 adults nationwide possess permits.Even in the unlikely event that the national news media covers an attack that was stopped by a permit holder, that critical part of the story gets left out. First, there is an “anchoring” effect.
Under the heading “America’s Weapons of Choice,” the table captions were: “Top firearms traced to crimes, 1998”; “Firearm deaths per 100,000 people”; and “Percent of homicides using firearms.” There was nothing at all on “Top firearms used in self-defense” or “Rapes, homicides, and other crimes averted with firearms.” The magazine’s graphic, gut-wrenching pictures all showed people who had been wounded by guns. A final area strongly affected by the media’s anti-gun bias is that of accidental shootings. But much more than a bias toward bad news and … The entire debate would be dramatically different if at least three points about mass public shootings ever got coverage: Shootings keep occurring in places where civilians are banned from having guns, almost any modern firearm can be used to inflict mass casualties and armed citizens prevent many attacks from becoming mass public shootings. Many of us have seen the public service ads showing the voices or pictures of children between the ages of four and eight, which imply that there is an epidemic of accidental deaths of these young children.Data I have collected show that accidental shooters overwhelmingly are adults with long histories of arrests for violent crimes, alcoholism, suspended or revoked driver’s licenses and involvement in car crashes.