Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loves defending guns by any means necessary, and it was busy doing just that, what with all the recent gun massacres. In between the massacres, the MRC did its best to defend guns and attack anyone who criticized them or advocated for sensible (or any) gun regulation.
In a May 26 post, Margaret Buckley whined that MSNBC's "Morning Joe" detailed what it called "The Conservative Playbook for Deflecting Anger After Mass Shootings" -- which, of course, is exactly what the MRC has been following:
New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait then joined in on the conversation with Brzezinski reading an excerpt from his article: "The Conservative Playbook for Deflecting Anger After Mass Shootings." She went on reading that through the steps of this “playbook”, Republicans attempt to “to locate solutions outside of gun control. And blame Democrats for opposing them.”
When asking Chait about this article he replied “That's a great point on mental health.”, agreeing with Brzezinski that conservatives love to use it as an excuse for mass shootings, labeling mental health as a “distraction” from what really has to be done.
Do Joe Scarborough and friends really think that ranting and whining about the GOP will bring about positive solutions? Or are they just trying to fill up their three-hour duration by throwing harmless insults at those who don’t agree with them?
Throwing insults at those you don't agree with? Buckley just described the content of the vast majority of NewsBusters posts.
Alex Christy spent a May 27 post whining that a CNN host fact-checked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's false statements about gun violence and insisting it was unfair that he was taken literally:
While attempting to fact check Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday on his claim that there is no correlation between gun laws and gun deaths, CNN Newsroom host Alisyn Camerota failed to not only consider what Abbott actually said, but cherry-picked her statistics in an attempt to prove him wrong.
During an interview with State Rep. Nicole Collier, Camerota read a quote from Abbott, “One of the things that your governor said on Wednesday was that ‘there are more people shot,’ he said, “’every weekend in Chicago than there are schools in Texas. We need to realize that people who think maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it hasn't solved it in Chicago and L.A. and New York, it disproves that thesis,’ he said.”
Abbott’s point was about gun violence that occurs so often in Chicago that national reporters have stopped talked talking about it, but a rare school shooting gets all the headlines.
However, Camerota decided to talk about all gun deaths in the entire state, “Actually, he's wrong, Texas is the state with the highest amount of gun deaths. Here's the graphic. Texas is number one. Far and away, of all of the states with gun deaths. Then California, Florida, Georgia, Ohio. And so it seemed as though he was casting a lot of blame in different directions, but he wasn't talking about guns in Texas changing anything.”
Christy offered no evidence that Abbott was speaking metaphorically or that he should be judged only by whatever his "point" allegedly was and not by what he actually said -- which is what Camerota did.
Another May 27 post by Aidan Moorehouse declared that nobody had any right to deny guns to the shooter who racked up quite the body count in a Uvalde, Texas, classroom because he pased his background check:
The shooter, tragically, passed his background check and was of age to buy a gun, and an 18-year-old buying a gun on his birthday in much the same way a 21-year-old would go to a bar would not be seen as unusual in rural Texas. Sure, it's easy for Costas to say “we know now” that the shooter was a deeply disturbed individual, but to call it insane for the gun dealer to have sold legal firearms to someone who had passed his background check is lunacy.
Just as it did after his speech following the Buffalo massacre, the MRC lashed out at President Biden again for making a speech following the Uvalde massare, bashing news coverage of it for not spewing hate at the president like a loyal right-wing outlet would in a June 3 post by Curtis Houck:
On Friday, the “big three” broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC each led off their morning newscasts with laudatory praise for President Biden’s latest remarks calling for mass gun control, trumpeting it as “an impassioned” “urgent plea” for Republicans to capitulate to the demands of this “emotional” President.
ABC’s Good Morning America was the most insufferable. Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos boasted: “President Biden's address to the nation on gun violence. Emotional and urgent. The President called on Congress to act, saying we cannot fail the American people again.”Loyal Biden supporter and White House correspondent Mary Bruce replied that “Biden knows the fight” for gun control “well...and he’s trying to use the power of the presidency to keep up the pressure on Republicans in Congress” “emotionally pleading with Washington to do something and asking the question that so many Americans ask themselves after every one of these shootings: will this finally be enough?”
Bruce continued to lament as she did nothing to offer even a scintilla of a Republican response: “After three decades of congressional inaction, Biden is painfully familiar with the difficulties of gun reform, blaming Republicans who have been standing in the way.”
Houck did not explain why he tagged Bruce as a "loyal Biden supporter." after all, he would never tag Peter Doocy as a "loyal Republican supporter."
Houck returned for a June 6 post complaining once again that one measure of gun violence made guns look bad:
On the Monday morning broadcast network newscasts, ABC, CBS, and NBC continued to promote the inflated definition of mass shootings from the Gun Violence Archive in light of weekend shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, claiming there were 13 weekend mass shootings. And, worse yet, they absolved far-left cities and prosecutors from being a reason for spikes in crime.
The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as an event in which four or more people are shot and/or killed (minus the gunman), but as we’ve discussed “confusing” with the definition of gun violence even includes things such as home invasions, accidental shootings, using a gun in self defense, “and everything else.”
For one story, our Nick Fondacaro spoke with The Reload’s Stephen Gutowksi, who said Gun Violence Archive’s measuring stick “increases the number of mass shootings by a factor of ten or more.”
The MRC, of course, can't have that kind of increase, so it attacks the numbers. As we've documented, the MRC did more than "discuss" the Gun Violence Archive's numbers -- it falsely called them lies even though they are a perfectly valid way to measure mass shootings and their numbers are fully documented.
Buckley, meanwhile, returned for a June 9 post to whine that people were still talking about guns:
The upcoming January 6 hearings are not the only subjects being unnecessarily dragged on and on by the liberal media. On Thursday’s edition of Morning Joe, viewers had the privilege of seeing Scarborough and friends once again continue ranting about the GOP as monsters unmoved by children killed in mass shootings.
When reacting to Congressman and assassination attempt survivor Steve Scalise’s (R-LA) speech about gun control, where he compared banning guns to banning airplanes after 9/11, the show’s hosts acted absolutely appalled; with Mika Brzezinski commenting that it was “unspeakably stupid.”
[...]
Scarborough then circled back to Congressmen Scalise’s 9/11 comparison attempting to throw TSA regulations in his face. “TSA regulated the hell out of air travel,” Scarborough exclaimed, “You would get checked at the gate. Like, you had to get patted down. You're still getting patted down. Liquids -- Mika and I just traveled. Liquids taken out.”
Gun reform and post-9/11 are completely different things, Joe. It is widely accepted that those TSA “pat-downs” are mostly theatrics. Not only that, but when tested for the real thing, the TSA actually fails to catchmost prohibited objects.
Of course, Buckley won't make the parallel argument that if we shouldn't have gun laws because people will violate them, then abortion shouldn't be outlawed because women will still have abortions regardless. Instead, she whined further: "Viewers always get the same spiel from these people: Republicans equal bad, Republicans equal evil." Change "Republicans" to "Democrats," and you have the daily spiel put out by Buckley and the MRC.
