By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
When Kamala Harris ran for president in 2020, she called for a mandatory buyback of “assault weapons,” which is political-speak for a compulsory confiscation of personal property by armed agents of the government.
The media never pressed Harris about the details, such as how she planned to define “assault weapons,” how she intended to skirt the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, or how far she was willing to go if law-abiding gun owners refused to surrender their arms to the government. It didn’t matter. Harris was tabbed as an anti-gun radical, which forever endeared her to the legacy media and their corporate bosses.
Harris hasn’t mentioned her armed confiscation plans recently, but she doesn’t need to. After Joe Biden resigned from the presidential race via social media and Harris was given the frontrunner mantle, of course the media jumped to offer whatever assistance they could. After all, here is a politician who advocated seizing “assault weapons” by force, which fits the media’s anti-gun narrative 100-percent.
Case in point: When March for Our Lives – the New York City-based nonprofit with $1.3 million in assets that pays its secretary David Hogg an annual salary of $56,974 for a mere 10-hour work week – decided to endorse a political candidate, Harris, for the first time in its six-year history, the media absolutely erupted with support.
Even Rolling Stone published a glowing report, which was based entirely on a written statement from the nonprofit. Evidently, the March kids were too busy marching to answer the phone.
“Harris leads the who leads [sic] the new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and in March visited Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, touring the classroom where the mass shooting took place. March for Our Lives lauded Harris as a lawmaker actively engaged with their mission,” Rolling Stone wrote.
In an actual interview with ABC News, Natalie Fall, executive director of March for Our Lives, said, “We see a lot of energy around Vice President Harris in this election; there’s no denying that. I think everybody’s seeing it right now.”
England’s Sky News, which is owned by Comcast, couldn’t get an interview with Harris, but still wanted to offer their support. In a story published Monday, Sky News cited comments from one of Harris’ previous speeches.
“Our nation is being torn apart by the tragedy of it all and torn apart by the fear and trauma that results from gun violence,” Harris said in a 2023 speech. “President Biden and I believe in the second amendment, [sic] but we also know common sense solutions are at hand.”
Betsy Reed, a U.S.-based editor for The Guardian, also British, published a story Thursday in support of Harris’ first campaign ad – a television ad.
“Throughout that ad, a Law & Order SVU-like deep male voice directly compares Harris and Trump, beginning, ‘He’s a world leader in temper tantrums. She never loses her cool. She prosecuted sex predators. He is one.’ It ends by calling Harris the ‘anti-Trump,’” Reed wrote.
Media bias explained
Why is the corporate media so slavish in its support of Harris? Why are reporters, editors and producers so willing to go to the mattresses for a one-term Veep who even the Dems admit hasn’t done a whole lot? The answer is simple: Guns are bad, the media believes, so any politician who opposes civilian firearm ownership is a hero.
Today’s corporate media practices a groupthink that vilifies anyone who supports the Second Amendment. Over the years, I’ve tracked examples of this collective thinking. Here are the most current examples.
This is what the media actually believes:
- Guns are evil. All guns should be banned. No one needs a gun.
- All gun owners are gun-nuts, rubes, hicks and hillbillies.
- All pro-gun lawmakers are crazy. Vilify them at will. Anything goes.
- All anti-gun lawmakers are heroes. They should be praised and protected from scorn.
- All anti-gun legislation – even if its unworkable, such as micro-stamping or “smart gun” technology – should be mandatory and strongly supported.
- All pro-gun legislation should be framed as crazy and ridiculed using outright lies and extreme examples.
- All pro-gun groups are obstructing the goal of total civilian disarmament and should be ridiculed and vilified. No mention should ever be made of their training, hunter education and gun safety programs.
- Concealed carry – especially Constitutional Carry – is deadly and leads to more violence. It should be criticized at every opportunity, as should those who carry concealed firearms.
- If a concealed carrier uses their firearm to save a life, it should not be reported unless they’re sued or criminally charged.
- Anyone who challenges this accepted conventional wisdom – especially another journalist – is the enemy.
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