FEBRUARY 21, 2018
JIM NAURECKAS
If a measles epidemic were
sweeping the nation, with a mounting death toll of children, it’s unlikely
that NPR News would respond by bringing on Jenny McCarthy to explain why
vaccination wouldn’t save lives. And if they did feature her or other
anti-vaccination voices, you can be fairly sure that NPR would follow up
with experts expressing the scientific consensus that vaccines do in fact limit
the spread of infectious diseases.
But when it came to reporting
on the epidemic of mass shootings, All Things Considered (2/19/18)
gave a platform to the gun debate’s equivalents of anti-vaxxers, in a segment
that gave no scrutiny to their claim that more guns are the solution to gun
violence.
NPR quoted Rush Limbaugh on Fox
News Sunday (2/18/18):
“The solution, to me and I know this is going to cause all kinds of angst, the
solution is we need concealed carry in these schools.” And Fox‘s Tucker
Carlson (2/15/18):
“Tragedies like this happen for a reason, and it probably doesn’t have a lot to
do with guns.”
Regular people, too, gave
their opinions on what causes shooting massacres: “We took prayer out of the
school system,” says one Manuel Garcia of North Carolina. “And this is why all
this is happening.” If we can’t put God back, at least we could put guns in: “I
feel like they should put guns in the classrooms now with the teachers,” NPR quotes
Fort Lauderdale “stay-at-home mom” Sabrina Belony. “I feel like teachers should
be trained to be armed for something because teachers lost their lives trying
to protect his class.”
The only response to this in
the All Things Considered segment is a paraphrase of the perspective
of students who survived the Parkland massacre: “They say the real problem is
that weak gun laws allowed one deeply troubled teen to buy a semi-automatic
rifle legally.”
This is what passes for objectivity in
establishment media: a willful denial that there is any way to answer questions
that people feel strongly about. In fact, the question of whether more guns
result in less violence is one researchers have studied—not as much as they
could have, granted, given the NRA-imposed
limits on gun research—and other media outlets have reported the answers
they’ve found.
In a piece headlined “Guns Do
Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows,” Scientific American (10/1/17)
quoted physician and gun researcher Garen Wintemute’s summary of the state of
the evidence: “There are a few studies that suggest that liberalizing access to
concealed firearms has, on balance, beneficial effects. There are a far larger
number of studies that suggest that it has, on balance, detrimental effects.”
In “No, More Guns Won’t Prevent Mass Shootings,” NBC (11/6/17)
cited Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and
Research:
The more guns are readily
available, the more shootings occur. That’s what the latest research shows.
When states make it more easy for people to carry guns, the number of incidents
of aggravated assault grows.
After the Newtown
massacre, Salon‘s “The Answer Is Not More Guns” (12/17/12)
quoted University of Washington epidemiologist Fred Rivara: “There is no data
supporting [the] argument that the further arming of citizens will lessen the
death toll in massacres like the one this week in Connecticut.” Mother
Jones (12/15/12)
pointed out, based on its database of mass shootings, that despite a 50 percent
increase in the number of private guns since 1995 and numerous laws making it
easier to carry a concealed weapon, there are virtually no cases of an armed
civilian stopping a shooting spree.
NPR didn’t cite any
evidence, or ask any experts to weigh in on conservatives’ claim that more guns
are the solution to gun violence. It’s a strikingly irresponsible approach to
covering a deadly epidemic.
You can contact NPR ombud
Elizabeth Jensen via NPR’s contact form or via Twitter: @EJensenNYC. Please remember that
respectful communication is the most effective.
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