It is bad enough that politicians use breaking news events to promote their agendas. It is worse that supposed newsmen allow them to get away with it.
Sen. Kamala Harris appeared Wednesday on CNN as Philadelphia law enforcement officials engaged in a standoff with an active shooter. The incident, which left six police officers injured, began after narcotics officers tried serving the suspect a warrant. As the story played out on national television, with law enforcement closing in on the armed suspect, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer hosted the California senator to talk about the situation in Philadelphia as well as Democrats’ ongoing efforts to pass stricter gun control laws.
“Look, it’s just — when will it stop, right?” asked Harris. “Part of my focus on what we need to do around smart gun safety laws is recognize that we have to have more enforcement around gun dealers. Wolf, 90% of the guns that are associated with crime are sold by just five percent of the gun dealers in the United States.”
She added, “And so, among the many plans that I have in the form of executive action and also in the form of legislation, one of them is to put more resources into the [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] to take the licenses of gun dealers who violate the law. And that includes a number of things, including when they are responsible for doing background checks, not doing them.”
Blitzer, who was well aware the entire time that they did not have all the facts of the Philadelphia shooting, indulged the senator, asking, “So — but does your plan go, from your perspective, far enough?”
“I have hugged too many mothers of homicide victims over the years,” Harris said, reiterating that she would give Congress 100 days to act before taking executive action if she is elected president.
“Why not take executive action on Day One?” Blitzer asked.
Harris responded, “I believe in giving people a chance, especially when they know what’s coming if they don’t act.”
“People are going to be killed in those first 100 days,” Blitzer said.
Now is a good time to remind you that neither Harris nor the CNN host knew anything about the details of the Philadelphia shooting at the time of their discussion. They certainly knew nothing about how the shooter obtained his firearm. As it turns out, the suspected gunman, Maurice Hill, 36, has a rap sheet about a mile long, including several firearm related infractions. Big surprise, he hasn’t been following the existing laws against felons buying guns.
“Hill has been arrested around a dozen times since he was 18, including being convicted six times on charges that involved illegal possession of guns, drug dealing, and aggravated assault. Hill has been to prison multiple times, including a 55-month sentence in 2010,” the Washington Examiner’s Julio Rosas reports.
He adds, “Hill pleaded guilty to federal gun charges in 2008 after he was caught with a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver and a Taurus PT .45 semi-automatic, which he was not lawfully allowed to possess due to his prior felony convictions. He was sentenced to four years and seven months in prison.”
In other words, had Harris waited for the facts, and had Blitzer done even the bare minimum expected of his profession, they would have known that her gun control proposal would have had no bearing on a shooting event in which the suspected gunman is also a convicted felon who had been legally barred from owning a firearm for more than a decade.
Then again, even if they did know the facts of the matter, Harris probably would have pitched her plan anyway. Never let details get in the way of your agenda.
