Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
The idea that the media in New York City is anti-gun is hardly surprising. The media has a whole tends to have an anti-Second Amendment bias, and in a major metropolitan area like the Big Apple, that’s only going to be more pronounced.
But a lot of the time, they’re better at hiding it than they are at others.
A prime example of not hiding it well comes in a report about the Bruen decision. For the most part, it’s standard fare, nothing particularly objectionable. It has different sections addressing different things, as many reports do.
But it was the last one that should raise eyebrows.
What Protects New Yorkers Now?
Earlier this month, New York state legislators passed a package of gun legislation to shore up protections ahead of the anticipated high court ruling. Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed the 10 bills into law, including one banning anyone under the age of 21 from buying or owning semi-automatic rifles. Learn more about that package here.
Lawmakers could add new permitting conditions now that the court has ruled, such as requiring firearm training or a mental health evaluation or disqualifying applicants with certain types of criminal convictions.
They also could pass a law specifying where people can’t carry concealed weapons — a list that could include public transit systems, school zones, bars, parks, government offices or polling places.
The implication of this section itself is clear, that gun laws “protect” New Yorkers.
However, up until yesterday, New York City has the most extensive gun control laws of any city in the United States. It also had a soaring violent crime rate over the last couple of years.
It doesn’t sound like those gun control laws did much for the average New Yorker, now did it?
Meanwhile, those very same laws spent more than a century making the average New Yorker vulnerable to the depraved criminals that roam its streets.
Yet I don’t expect the media to make a value judgment on such things. I don’t expect them to note that the laws didn’t really do much to keep criminals from getting guns or to keep people safe from harm.
I also don’t expect them to be anything but anti-gun, and that is where we run into a problem. As we can see, they do put a value judgment on gun laws. They explicitly state, without evidence, that such laws make New Yorkers safer.
Yes, that is a direct example of anti-gun bias by the New York media, but again, who is surprised? It’s what they do.
The kicker is that when violent crime drops, they won’t attribute any part of it to law-abiding citizens being able to carry firearms for the first time. They’ll blame any increase in the verdict and attribute any drop to literally anything but the decision.
That’s how the anti-gun media works, shilling for gun control organizations while pretending neutrality. They want people to associate safety with gun control, though that’s not the slam dunk they like to think. And it’s on folks like us to call them out on their obvious biases.
https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2022/06/24/nyc-media-anti-gun-n59710