Seeking something to blame for the shocking on-air pistol slaying of a Virginia TV reporter and her cameraman, Democrats and the media are fingering the National Rifle Association and the one-third of all Americans who own guns as the culprits.
Several news outlets Thursday editorialized on the hope the killings would revive a national push for gun control, though some conceded that the type of anti-gun initiatives called for even by Virginia’s Democratic governor wouldn’t have stopped the Wednesday morning killings.
Modest Proposal#2:TIME says the cost per soldier in Afghan is $3.9M/yr. Why not use that money instead & start issuing everyone a bodyguard?
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) August 26, 2015
The Washington Post led the way, editorializing against the gun lobby and gun owners. A June study showed that one third of all Americans, or about 106 million, own guns.
“The dramatic shootings that make the news remind us that guns are not noble instruments of freedom; they are highly dangerous machines that have some legitimate uses and many illegitimate ones. Any rational government would carefully regulate them. Instead, our leaders have declined to fix obvious loopholes in background-check systems, refused to ban wholly unnecessary high-capacity magazines, thwarted efforts to study the effects of having a society saturated with firearms and generally cowered before the lobbying might of a political fringe,” the Post said.
It also lauded Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe for reacting to the shooting in his state by immediately calling for new gun control measures, even if they wouldn’t have done a thing to stop it.
“We certainly don’t know if the gun-control measures that Mr. McAuliffe or other would-be reformers favor would have prevented Wednesday’s deadly attack. But it doesn’t matter,” said the paper owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos whose website offers hundreds of gun accessories like speed loaders.
The Chicago Tribune hit gun owner’s “Dirty Harry envy” and the NRA’s belief that gun ownership can prevent gun crimes by criminals.
“In order to abide someone’s gun hobby, or their inner-Dirty-Harry envy or whatever it is, we must live in a world where guns abound,” said the Tribune. “That’s selfish. And it’s ridiculous. And it’s the heart of the NRA’s self-serving slogan.”
Hillary Clinton and the White House also indicated support for more gun control. And then there was liberal director Michael Moore with his idea: Take the money used to fund the military and give everybody a bodyguard.
The NRA had no comment on the media and political criticism of its efforts.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
