The News Media Is Biased Against the Positive Aspects of Gun Ownership

Thanks for the quick reply DoctorZhiva. ==Rebuttal== R1) School shootings My opponent claims there is widespread bias in the media in their coverage of campus shootings because they PURPOSELY misrepresent the facts and refuse to cover the fact that guns were involved in self-defense. However, he cites ONE INCIDENT at Virginia's Appalachian School of Law to prove this. Let me show the problems with this argument. First, my opponent says that of 208 news stories, only 4 mentioned that students used guns in the process to subdue the gunman. However, he HIMSELF says that only 72 of those articles even mentioned AT ALL that the gunman was subdued. Secondly, this seems really curious – is it really the case that 68 publications purposely lied about how the gunman was subdued? That really would prove widespread bias. Let's assume for a second that the Associated Press made a MISTAKE when covering the issue and talked to the wrong person, who gave them a false account (that the gunman was pounced on rather than subdued with two guns). Most small time local publications merely print the Associated Press story, without editing. So this only proves that there was ONE mistake, re-printed 68 times, not that 68 publications purposely distorted facts. But most importantly, the above Associated Press example is theoretical. In all actuality, it is most likely that the two students who claimed they used guns likely lied about their role in subduing the shooter, to gain popularity or to emphasize the good use of guns (when being interviewed by authors like Trent Lott, who have a clear pro-gun agenda). There are two CONFLICTING accounts of how Peter Odighizuwa (the Nigerian gunman) was subdued. The first account is from Tracy Bridges. He claims that he and Mikael Gross, both unbeknownst to each other, ran to their cars to retrieve their guns, since Gross was a cop at the time and Bridges a county sheriff. They approached Odighizuwa and Bridges yelled for Odighizuwa to drop his gun, which he did, and was then subdued by several other unarmed students, including Ted Besen and Todd Ross. [1] The second account is the Ted Besen account. According to Besen, Odighizuwa, out of ammo, set down his gun and started mocking people. [2] Besen, a former Marine and police officer at the time, took this opportunity to engage in a physical confrontation with Odighizuwa and knock him to the ground, where he was then subdued and held down by other students, like Todd Ross. Only after Odighizuwa was ALREADY subdued did Besen report seeing Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross arrive with their guns, too late to be of any assistance. While Besen and Ross held Odighizuwa down, Gross then went back to his car yet again to retrieve handcuffs to detain Odighizuwa until police arrived. [3] The account that is most likely TRUE is the Besen account. Bridges is most likely lying to gain attention from pro-gun advocates and to gain glory. It is surprising that Gross doesn't seem to back his account. There is also additional evidence to back Besen's account. "Additional witnesses at the scene stated they did not see Bridges or Gross with their guns at the time Besen started subduing Odighizuwa." [4] The official police report also notes that Odighizuwa dropped his gun because the magazine was empty (NOT because he had a gun pointed at him). [4] So additional witnesses AND the police report both back Besen's account. So ultimately, the 68 sources that reported that students subdued Odighizuwa by jumping on him were CORRECT and the 4 that noted Bridges account were WRONG, did not give Besen the credit that he DESERVES, AND were examples of bad journalism. The more legitimate sources, like the Washington Post, actually did their homework, read the police report, and interviewed multiple witnesses before going to press, rather than merely printing what Bridges told them (which 4 local publications and Trent Lott did). Lott and my opponent never tell us why we should prefer Bridge's account to the truth. The last thing my opponent complains about is that the media reported what type of gun was used by the shooter. That's just good reporting; there's no reason for the media to leave out this fact. A reporters job is to report all the facts. My opponent's next evidence is that Virginia Tech, Columbine, and the Gabriel Giffords shooting get a lot of coverage in the press, whereas incidents of self-defense don't get the same coverage. This has nothing to do with guns and everything do with sensationalism. A story where no one died (because someone pulled a gun in self-defense) is not going to get as many listeners as a story about a school shooting where 32 people died and 25 were injured (Virginia Tech). My opponent never proves that the coverage of these incidents focused on the guns to the exclusion of the shooters. In fact, I followed the coverage of all three very closely and nearly every article blamed the shootings on highly disturbed individuals and tracked the lives of those individuals, trying to explain how they became so mentally disturbed. People are far more interest in WHY someone would choose to go on killing spree and not so much in how they obtained their gun. For example, the Columbine coverage focused a great deal on how the shooters were social outcasts, how they were goths and wore weird clothing and seemed to revel in suffering, how they listened to Marilyn Manson, how they played violent video games, and how they were likely extremely depressed. There was some coverage of how they obtained their weapons because it actually was kind of problematic; the two shotguns they got from a gun show, and it WAS fair for the media coverage to point out how firearm laws that are enforced on gun shops were not being enforced at gun shows; they also purchased a handgun from a friend (Mark Manes), who was jailed for selling a gun to a minor. To be fair, a lot of the coverage also focused on the 99 improvised explosive devices they build using the internet; the bombs, in many ways, inspired more fear than the guns did. If so much of the coverage focused on the guns laws, then why did Michael Moore have so much success in educating the U.S. on the Columbine shooting and gun laws in the US with his documentary Bowling for Columbine? No one would have watched that movie if all the coverage already focused on guns. The coverage of Seung-Hui Cho and Jared Loughner also focused FAR more on their troubled pasts than in how they obtained their weapons. Both were extremely mentally deranged. Some news articles did correctly question why people who had many marks on their records as having mental problems could be allowed to buy a firearm; mental illness needs to have a better way of being catalogued so it appears on background checks. Cho was diagnosed with severe depression and selective mutism since he was a child; Loughner's college told him he could not come back until he got a mental health assessment. You have to also realize that much of the coverage didn't even focus on guns, but for example on the acts of heroism, like the teacher who got shot holding the classroom door closed at Virginia Tech or the aid to Giffords who likely saved her life. http://news.yahoo.com... The Fort Hood shootings, for example, also covered, in depth, how the shooter was ultimately brought down by five shots from police Sergeant Mark Todd. The coverage doesn't ignore the use of guns for self-defense. Let's look to an analogy. 9/11 is sensationalist, so it gets A LOT of coverage because a lot of people died. The 39 incidents where the FBI foiled the terror plot before it even got off the ground get no coverage. [5] This doesn't mean that the media doesn't believe that the FBI should foil terror plots. It just means they are a business. In the same way, the media covering massacres and not making a HUGE deal over self-defense incidents where no one died is not because they don't believe that guns are good and can be used in self-defense, it's just business. The fact is, small incidents are small incident. A gun being used in a home invasion, or to kill one non-famous person, is going to get the same coverage as a gun used to protect a home in self-defense. My opponent's complaint is unfair. National news syndicates don't report local incidents. R2) Double standard My opponent claims that no articles focus on bombs when bombings occur. Are you kidding me? SO MANY articles on Columbine focused on the 99 bombs they made and how it was too easy to make bombs with ingredients you can buy at a hardware store, using the internet; articles even explained in depth how they made the bombs (even though this was exactly the kind of info people didn't want available on the internet). For the Oklahoma City Bombing, which my opponent cites, Wikipedia cites TWENTY articles on how McVeigh gathered the materials, WHAT materials he bought, and how he fabricated them into a bomb. http://en.wikipedia.org... After 9/11, everyone focused on box cutters and how they got on the planes. The anthrax attacks made everyone focus on the new threat from bioweapons. The Sarin Gas attacks on the Tokyo subway made people obsessed with the threat that terrorist groups could obtain chemical weapons. The media and people ARE obsessed with weapons. In fact, they're obsessed with nearly every detail of a gruesome event, not just the weapon used. My opponent claims all the Virginia Tech coverage focused on how Cho obtained the guns, but many articles focused merely on his background. And it's not illegitimate when a tragedy occurs to ask how someone so deranged obtained a gun. Unless my opponent can show another case study that the coverage of Cho was biased, this point will fail. He should have at least cited one article on Virginia Tech. Lastly, my opponent never refutes my point that local news report at least 10-20 local self-defense incidents a week. That's a lot; if the media was biased, they would refuse to report these incidents at all. The last thing I leave you with is that bias must be intentional. To prove I'm biased against black people, you'd have to prove that my personal mindset is racist; if I own a small business and hire two white people, this doesn't prove I hate black people. In the same way, my opponent never proves that anyone in the media is PURPOSELY ignoring self-defense stories and PURPOSELY covering high-profile bad uses of guns, to INTENTIONALLY distort public perceptions. [1] Helping to Stop a Killer: Students Went After Law School Gunman" by Rex Bowman, Richmond Times Dispatch [2] Gun Lobby says media downplayed role of gun owners in subduing shooter," by Rick Montgomery, The Kansas City Star, Mar. 06, 2002 [3] Man who confronted 2002 law school shooter says Gingrich wrong on arming students by Chris Kahn, the Associated Press [4] A Tragedy Compounded by Jim Oliphant, the Legal Times, June 20, 2002 [5] http://www.heritage.org...