CMI Urges Media Not to Fire from the Hip on Gun Ruling

“In much of the coverage of gun ownership issues, the media typically lock and load with emotion-packed statements by gun control advocates,” said Robert Knight, director of the MRC's Culture and Media Institute. “Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed what most Americans have taken for granted – that Americans have the constitutionally guaranteed right to own guns for self-protection, hunting and other purposes – we will be watching the coverage closely for bias.”

Here are some of the ways the media have reported unfairly about guns and the Second Amendment in the recent past, as documented in CMI's Eye on Culture report, The Media Assault on the Second Amendment [1]: 

Featuring heart-felt arguments by gun control backers, while limiting pro-Second Amendment supporters to procedural observations;   Citing statistics about gun-related crime while ignoring thousands of instances in which gun-wielding citizens protected life and property;   Ignoring evidence that gun control laws don't work to reduce crime;   Using apples-to-oranges comparisons with other nations;   Ignoring the fact that most guns in crimes are illegally acquired.

 “The media have an opportunity here to show that they can report without bias on a decision with which many reporters and editors probably disagree,” Knight said.