By Katy Grimes

The mainstream news reports about the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting on Thursday night is the worst reporting and irresponsible commentary I’ve ever seen. And once again, guns are the bad guy.

As American liberals have stepped up preaching that everyone deserves high self-esteem, personal responsibility has taken a back seat, and inanimate objects are to blame for bad behavior.

“Death by Xbox.”

“Drugs kill mother of three.”

“Speeding SUV kills five!” the headlines read. “An SUV ran through a restaurant window, killing seven…” a reporter announced. “SUV kills kindergartner waiting for bus,” another headline read.

“Assault rifle opened fire, leaves seven dead, 15 wounded,” a headline stated.

There is stupid, and there is really stupid reporting.

There are people behind the wheel of the SUV’s, and holding the guns. And somewhere, there are parents of a dead kid, who allowed him to play Xbox games.

Along with the cries for gun bans, why not ban the deadly SUV’s, or dangerous Xbox games?

Why Liberals don’t like guns

Guns and people have lived together for centuries. It is liberals who don’t like guns, or gun owners. And when liberals don’t like something, they want it banned.

But pinning down anti-gun people is challenging. They never specify what it is about guns they don’t like. Because guns don’t kill people any more than SUV’s run people down, or golf balls break windows on their own.

The objection anti-gun liberals must have is that it’s the people who own guns that offend.

Media stories kill

The morning after the theater shooting, ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross reported that James Holmes, the Aurora, Colorado shooter could be a Tea Party member.

“There’s a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year,” Ross said on “Good Morning America.” “Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.”

Ross isn’t just some pretty talking head on a local news channel — he is billed as the ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent. But his reporting lacked any real investigating.

It took Breitbart.com to debunk ABC’s outrageous accusation:

“On Good Morning America, ABC News’ Brian Ross and George Stephanopoulos suggested that the Tea Party might be connected to the mass shootings early this morning in an Aurora, CO theater during a screening of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. The mainstream media attempted to blame the Tea Party for the Tuscon shootings in January 2011, shortly after Republicans swept the midterm elections. Now, in the critical 2012 elections, the mainstream media seems poised to do the same–and ABC News has led the way.”

This is the exchange between Brian Ross and George Stephanolpoulos:

Stephanolpoulos: I’m going to go to Brian Ross. You’ve been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant.

Ross: There’s a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.

Stephanolpoulos: Okay, we’ll keep looking at that. Brian Ross, thanks very much.

The result of ABC’s irresponsible journalism made older Jim Holmes’ life a media circus.

The suspect, now in custody, is a 24-year-old man with the same name.

“What kind of idiot makes that kind of statement?” Holmes told The Daily Caller. “Really, seriously, how do we take a journalist seriously when it’s pretty clear they really haven’t done any sort of check on their facts?”

In a joint statement, Colorado Tea Party Patriots and the Tea Party Patriots denounced the report as “shameless and reprehensible.” It was not just irresponsible and shameless to report this, it was a lie that ABC was willing to extend.

Ross and Stephanolpoulos should be fired.

Gun owners and the law

The law is on the side of gun owners. In fact, gun owners have adjusted well to all of the roadblocks imposed on gun ownership, including waiting periods to take possession of a gun after purchase, some ammunition bans, and bans on certain types of guns. Gun owners follow the law.

In 2007, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Second Amendment, stating that it very clearly protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Heller vs. DC deemed that a gun ban deprived legal citizens the right to keep and bear arms, which prevented them from defending hearth and home against armed criminals. And the decision stated that a gun ban went against thousands of years of the right of self defense, as well as the defense of others.

Oyez, the Supreme Court news reported, “For the first time in seventy years, the Court heard a case regarding the central meaning of the Second Amendment and its relation to gun control laws. After the District of Columbia passed legislation barring the registration of handguns, requiring licenses for all pistols, and mandating that all legal firearms must be kept unloaded and disassembled or trigger locked, a group of private gun-owners brought suit claiming the laws violated their Second Amendment right to bear arms.”

“In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self- defense within the home. The Court based its holding on the text of the Second Amendment, as well as applicable language in state constitutions adopted soon after the Second Amendment.”

Guns bans don’t work

In 2003, the Washington Times reported, “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study last week that states there is no evidence to prove gun-control laws are effective in preventing violence. No kidding. There always has been substance to the cliche that guns don’t kill people, people do. Correlative to that rule is that the criminals who use guns to kill usually possess their weapons illegally. These serial lawbreakers are not deterred by statutes prohibiting or regulating gun ownership. They will continue to use guns to commit violent crimes even if the rest of the population of sitting ducks are disarmed.”

The task force also concluded that “firearms-related injuries in the United States have declined since 1993” despite the fact that “approximately 4.5 million new firearms are sold each year.”

Expensive government studies to convince us that gun-control laws don’t make communities safer are a waste of taxpayer money. Taking away law-abiding citizens’ rights to defend themselves results only in making criminals more safe.

However, thugs will think twice before victimizing someone who might be packing heat.

If the Colorado movie theater had been filled with citizens who may have been carrying, chances are that the gunman would have been cut down after his first shot, if he even got that far.

Liberal Democrats Hate Gun Owners

Liberals don’t hate guns, they hate gun owners.

Gun owners tend to be more conservative, believe in personal responsibility, and are more likely to vote conservatively.

Gun owners support the military, and join the military.

Gun owners supported the cold war and America’s efforts to fight Communism. Gun owners voluntarily enlisted during the Vietnam War, the Gulf Wars and the Iraq War.

However, these traits are what liberals despise. They hate people who refuse to rely on the government for protection.

Gun Control for Political Power

People unfamiliar with guns have an understandable aversion to them, but many ignorantly support strict gun control regulations. Liberals use this issue and people who fear guns to win elections.

But Gun control is just another control issue. The best example of this is the irrational ban on assault weapons, solely based on how the guns look. Gun owners familiar with assault weapons say that bayonet lugs and flash suppressors do not make semi-automatic guns more deadly or more suitable for criminal use. However, the assault weapon ban is the ideal wedge to use in a heated political debate.

Liberals despise the Constitution

The Constitution protects the rights of individuals, and it protects individuals from the government.  Because liberals believe they know what’s best for the rest of us, they despise the Constitution.

John R. Lott published research demonstrating that an increase in gun ownership results in a reduction in crime, because guns save more lives through deterrence and self-defense than they kill. His 1999 book, “More Guns, Less Crime,” became the authority on gun issues.

“Criminals are deterred by higher penalties,” Lott said in an interview. “Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate—as more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent.”

Concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime for two reasons. First, they reduce the number of attempted crimes because criminals are uncertain which potential victims can defend themselves. Second, victims who have guns are in a much better position to defend themselves.”

Lott also observed how large newspapers and major media outlets consistently underreported the defensive use of guns to save lives. He found that factual accounts of the defensive use of guns would be reported in small rural newspapers but omitted from stories in larger papers, and stories that appeared days or weeks later.

Lott also debunked the oft repeated liberal notion that most murders are done by someone the victim knows.  According to Lott, the “acquaintance murder” number also includes gang members killing other gang members, drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by customers they picked up for the first time, prostitutes and their clients, and so on. “Acquaintance” inaccurately covers a wide range of relationships according to Lott. But the vast majority of murders are not committed by previously law-abiding citizens. Ninety percent of adult murderers have had criminal records as adults.

Is mainstream news media the enemy?

The news media has gotten really sloppy over the years; poor grammar, unprofessional attire, stumbling over proper names, incorrect pronunciations of the names of cities, slanted reporting, and ridiculously stupid commentary on serious news stories.

But the manipulation of real news, as is the case with gun crime reporting, is just a lie. When the mainstream media lies, has it become the enemy? It certainly is no longer a mainstream media.

Facts are stubborn things.

William Endicott, former deputy managing editor of The Bee, wrote a column about liberal bias in the media – his claim is about the lack thereof.

Endicott dug deeply into his political file cabinet to reference a disgraced Republican, former Vice President Spiro Agnew, “ripping into one of their favorite bogeyman, the liberal media.” Endicott reminded readers that Agnew “resigned the vice presidency in disgrace in 1973 after being charged with tax evasion and money laundering while governor of Maryland.”

This is true. Agnew was a bad boy. Liars and cheats are on both sides of the political aisle, but it seems that only Republicans resign.

Notorious and nefarious Democratic politicians Barney Frank, Jon Corzine, Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangel, William Jefferson, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and many other Democratic politicians have been linked or charged with dubious deeds and crimes, but are never described as “disgraced.” And they don’t resign elected office.

Endicott’s own bias is telling with his immediate reference to the hated Nixon Administration and Spiro Agnew.  But Endicott never pointed out that Agnew, Nixon and former Democratic President Bill Clinton all lied under oath… that would have been unbiased.

“Such visceral reaction can bear little or no resemblance to what actually appears in the newspapers, online or on television day in and day out, but ‘the liberal media’ image is fueled, interestingly enough, by ‘the conservative media,’ as represented especially by Fox News and the crown prince of talk radio, Rush Limbaugh,” Endicott said.

He may be right that it’s only conservatives and non-traditional news media who point out liberal bias in media. But Liberals aren’t going to poke holes in their own stories, are they?

And notice that Endicott couldn’t resist mentioning liberals’ most hated media, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. How predictable. Endicott and many others in the traditional media have complained loudly about the impact of  Fox News, since the network came on the scene in 1996.

The bias Endicott fails to address is not just in obvious partisan biases, but how the subtle bias is when crucial details are left out of stories and even op eds. Journalists are usually able to choose how to tell the story, and everyone has an angle. But the best journalists present the good, the bad and the ugly details, and let the reader decide.

Most of the criticism I hear about the mainstream newspapers and television is the way in which they report the news, and the obvious omissions. Television reporters and anchors now offer bold opinion about the news stories they present. Newspaper reporters make blatant, non-sourced opinion statements in news stories.

Endicott’s last barb sums up his own glaring bias: “Strangely enough, you rarely hear Democratic candidates and/or their allies bashing ‘the conservative media,’ even though, for instance, they have ample reason to question Fox’s ‘fair and balanced’ slogan. Either they have a more even temperament, or the right just enjoys a more receptive, quick-to-anger audience.”

The blending of news and opinion, as well as the omission of events and facts that differ from a liberal ideology, is the bias that non-liberals reference.

A perfect example are the hundreds of stories about current Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich and the many accusations that he cheated on one of his three wives. Gingrich may have cheated on his wife. It’s been in the news for many years.

But when Bill Clinton was running for President in 1992, before Fox News was even created, the media appeared to work harder at ignoring and covering up stories of his dalliances while he was Arkansas Governor, despite his notorious reputation in Arkansas. The media made him out to be so cool, sexual affairs and dalliances were just part of his repertoire and mystic. It only came out years later, that Clinton paid a large settlement of more than $800,000 to accuser Paula Jones.

The media and Democratic politicians continually covered for Clinton, and said that his only crime was sex. Tell that to Monica Lewinsky, the world’s most famous intern.

By 5:00 p.m. this evening, the Bee story had more than 250 comments left online. It appears that Endicott’s denial struck a nerve.

FEB. 4, 2012

Today’s Los Angeles Times story reports:

GOP plans attacks on the EPA and climate scientists

Two days ago I reported here on CalWatchDog.com:

Global-warming hearings

Rohrabacher said that, if Republicans take charge in the House, he has a good chance of becoming chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology. If that happens, hearing topics will include, “global warming; how we develop technologies to produce more wealth; and the infrastructure for commercial space exploration.”

Check us out every day. We’re always days ahead of the Mainstream Media.

Oct. 30, 2010