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

Thanks for the debate DocZhiva! Unfortunately, my opponent's final round falls woefully short of winning him the debate and he drops or fails to answer a number of KEY arguments that I made. 1. Frank Zimring The first argument my opponent fails to answer is from Frank Zimring, where he points out how ridiculous it is that the pro-gun lobby labels anyone pushing for sane gun policies as "anti-gun. " My opponent claims, in his last paragraph, that every major gun incident, like Virginia Tech, leads to more gun control laws. But it's possible to be pro-gun and in favor of sane controls on gun ownership. Following Virginia Tech and the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, many people questioned how two individuals that had been diagnosed as mentally ill could STILL so easily acquire a gun. Laws that further restrict criminals and the mentally deranged from owning guns should not be labeled "anti-gun. " Yet that's precisely what the Lott study does. Dropping this argument destroys my opponent's studies, since they label many stories as anti-gun that are clearly not anti-gun. Zimring acknowledges that we need to start labeling certain positions as "moderate," such as positions that support gun ownership for law abiding citizens but try to take guns from the mentally deranged. 2. Reporting a gun crime is not "anti-gun" My opponent never answers this argument. Every argument my opponent makes, except the one CNN example, hinge on this argument that the media reports more gun crimes than DGU's. But reporting a gun crime is not "anti-gun. " When I hear a story about someone like Jared Loughner murdering a bunch of people, I think, "wow, there are a lot of scary people out there;" I DON'T think "wow, there are a lot of scary guns out there. " Guns are just a tool. If someone hears a story about someone being bludgeoned to death with a hammer, they don't suddenly become scared of hammers. So unless someone is already anti-gun, they are unlikely to be convinced by a gun crime to ban guns, and people who are already anti-gun are unlikely to be dissuaded by hearing about one DGU. Also, reporting gun crimes rather than foiled gun crimes (DGU's) is motivated by sensationalism and gaining more viewership, NOT to bias the audience intentionally. My opponent responds to this with my own analogy. He says, "Yes, a successful terrorist plot deservedly merits more coverage than a foiled one. " Then why does a FOILED shooting spree deserve MORE coverage than a successful shooting spree? My opponent claims it does, but without warrant. 3. There are far more gun crimes than DGU's My opponent never answers this directly. Remember, I provided FBI statistics that there are approximately 1 million gun crimes each year. I also provided the Hemenway study, which shows that of the supposed 2.5 million DGU's each year, a MAJORITY of them are actually hostile gun displays. So if there are 1 million gun crimes, 2.3 million hostile guns displays, and 200,000 DGU's each year, it's not surprising that the media reports far more on gun crimes than DGU's because gun crimes are FAR MORE COMMON IN ACTUALITY. This is not bias; this is just good, fair reporting. My opponent questions the methodology of the Hemenway study, but never directly refutes it. All my opponent does is say there are criticisms of a DIFFERENT study (NCVS), which I never cited, and then says, "Hemenway's study is not exempt from it [the criticism] either. " But my opponent never tells us what these criticisms are. Remember, I provided Hemenway's methodology IN DEPTH. While Kleck merely sent out thousands of paper surveys and found that 66 people claimed to have had a DGU, Hemenway spent YEARS conducting in-depth interviews, asking respondents to describe their DGU's IN DEPTH, if they claimed to have had a DGU. Remember that one person who claimed to have had a DGU got a call from the alarm company that the alarm in his building had gone off. He drove to his apartment building, saw two men standing near a car outside talking and shot at them (without even verifying they were trying to break in). That's not a DGU, but a hostile gun display. Remember the other example: someone threatened to shoot at an acquaintance who interrupted his movie. That's not a defensive gun use. So Hemenway concluded that a MAJORITY of people who CLAIMED to have had a DGU had actually used their gun in a hostile way, if you actually evaluated the DGU on its merits. So most DGU's should actually be classified as "gun crimes. " So again, if gun crimes are FAR more common than DGU's, the media is doing nothing wrong reporting more on gun crimes than on DGU's. This refutes ALL of my opponent's studies and leaves him only with his one CNN example. It was a HUGE mistake for my opponent not to DIRECTLY answer the Hemenway study and to defend his Kleck study's methodology, since this takes out 99% of his case. 4. NRA-backed websites My opponent claims that these websites do not publish every single DGU, but that actually IS the intent of these websites; to publish EVERY SINGLE DGU that they can find. Remember, we saw with the Hemenway study that DGU's are actually FAR RARER than some people would like us to believe. The Lott study tried to show, using these websites, that national news is ignoring these stories. But still, 100% of these stories WERE published, usually by local newspapers. National newspapers rarely report small local stories, like a store clerk using a gun to defend his store against a robbery. Imagine that on the front page of the NY Times – they would quickly lose readership. The Fort Hood shooting, in contrast, is obviously newsworthy, even though the shooting did not occur in New York. In addition, remember a lot of these stories aren't REAL DGU's. Remember the story about the Ex-Temple Law study being declared not guilty of murder? (published on The Armed Citizen website) My opponent claims that this WAS a DGU because the law student claimed it was self-defense. However, just because the court failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" it wasn't self-defense doesn't mean it was (OJ was declared not guilty then wrote a book about how he killed his wife). The Ex-Temple law student shot another student SIX TIMES outside a night club because he claimed the other student had tried to tackle him. That doesn't sound like self-defense. Not every incident that someone claims is a DGU actually is; most are actually hostile gun uses. Lastly, Pew Research says more people read and watch local news than national news, so it doesn't really matter what national news does, when local news is preferred, ESPECIALLY for these type of stories. If someone gets shot in a gang shooting, that's not going to be reporting nationally just like if someone defends his car from a would-be thief with a gun, that's also not going to be reported nationally. I proved in this debate that local DGU's and local crimes are both equally likely to be reported by local news, so there's no bias. 5. Fox News My opponent CONCEDES that Fox News is biased pro-gun, as a conservative news channel, but he claims that since MSNBC attracts liberals and CNN attracts moderates, these are the people who need to be swayed pro-gun, so there's still bias. This makes no sense though. A lot of Pew studies show that people seek news channels that confirm their views, so those viewers weren't going to change their minds anyway. Secondly, my opponent basically agrees that on a holistic scale, the different stations balance each other out. How is the media, on balance, biased if one station is massively conservatively biased and one station is liberally biased (MSNBC) and one station is moderate (CNN). Also, CNN DOES present a moderate viewpoint on guns; remember, it was not one of the 3 "major" networks studied by Lott. They have tried very hard to seem unbiased, such as firing Lou Dobbs. So ultimately, I clearly win this point because any bias in liberal media, like the one fabricated CNN report, is going to counter-balanced by conservative sources like Fox News and conservative publications (mostly owned by Rupert Murdoch) like the National Review, The Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, The New American, The CS Monitor, etc. My opponent SHOULD have the burden to prove bias on a holistic scale, not in one isolated case. Remember, the Lott study (as my opponent admits) excludes ALL conservative sources. That's convenient. 6. The CNN story Ok it was fabricated, but again, my opponent must prove the resolution holistically. Also, it was fabricated to show that semi-automatic weapons are LESS dangerous than they actually are; if anything, that serves a pro-gun agenda. My opponent claims that people who OWN semi-automatic guns were falsely induced by the story to ban fully automatic guns BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS. Most owners of semi-automatic AK-47's belong to the NRA, and even if they're not official members, they are definitely anti-gun control and pro-gun. The VAST MAJORITY of gun control advocates do not own a gun, and definitely not an AK-47. So if anything, the story made people feel safer about semi-automatic weapons, thinking they cannot punch through a cinderblock. Even if you think the story was unfair, it's still counter-balanced by the Appalachian law school fabrication and more holistic bias in conservative publications. 7. Appalachian law school My opponent claims I'm assuming that Bridges is wrong and Besen is right. I presented two sources for this; one said that eyewitnesses saw Besen tackle the shooter but DID NOT see Bridges with a gun; another said the POLICE REPORT backed up Besen's version of events. Besen is clearly telling the truth about tackling the gunman; Bridges is clearly lying that he brought down the shooter using a gun. The fact that John Lott and another author would WIDELY TOUT this event to show media bias shows that the pro-gun lobby is just as guilty of deception as CNN. My opponent's other defense is that Bridges' account is cited by an encyclopedia, but that encyclopedia is Wikipedia, and it ultimately proves, using eyewitnesses and the police report, that Bridges is lying. So, as my opponent puts it, the reason "the media accounts still chose to favor the student ‘pouncing on the gunman' rather than ‘pointing their guns'" was because the first was true and the latter wasn't. Besen pounced on the gunman and saved the day. Bridges WASN'T EVEN THERE AT THE TIME (according to eye witnesses). Bridges lied about the timeline, hoping to be viewed as a hero. And Lott spread the lie far and wide. Ultimately, two lies don't make a right, but they do make a Con Vote. ==RECAP== 1. Gun crime "studies" => refuted by DGU's being so uncommon compared to crimes (Hemenway study) => refuted by conservative biased sources (Fox News, The Weekly Standard, etc) counter-balancing liberal ones => refuted by fair reporting by local news => refuted by argument that "reporting a crime" does not equal "anti-gun agenda" => refuted by many DGU's from the studies actually being hostile gun uses (shooting an unarmed man 6 times is not self-defense, even if you're found ‘not guilty' of murder) 2. CNN example => refuted because it's not all that anti-gun, given it paints semi-automatic weapons in a very positive light => refuted by lies on the other side as well (Appalachian law example) => only one example, not enough to prove systematic bias 3. Appalachian law example => completely turned against my opponent (Bridges lied, Lott spread the lie) Those were all the argument in the debate, and they have been clearly refuted.