Popular Entertainment Pushing an Anti-Gun Agenda

John Lott, the economist who did the first county by county research into the effect of gun laws, and wrote a book about it entitled More Guns, Less Crime has posted an article today at Townhall.com entitled How Entertainment Shows Have Become Vehicles for Gun Control Propaganda. Yes, the title is a little unwieldy, but in fairness I don't think Lott wrote the title.

In this piece, Lott shows how time and time again entertainment seems to show, often contrary to reality, a bias against guns in the public's hands, while showing guns in the hands of the authorities, particularly the police, as being good.  As a gun owner and a person who has studied guns and their uses for a lot of years, I often spot the same types of propaganda as does Lott, but he and I do not watch the same shows.

For example, I often enjoy watching British detective shows on Netflix.  I don't necessarily need to see explicitly played out in front of me man's cruelty  to man to know that it is boundless.  Shows like  Midsomer Murders appeal because they do not show a lot of explicit blood and gore.  But not seeing it does not in any way lessen what I know to be true.  But while I enjoy the show, the interplay between the characters, and the seemingly silly things that get people stirred up in Midsomer County, some of the gun handling that occurs causes me to wince.  For one thing, when they do occasionally come across a pistol, they routinely bag the evidence without clearing if of ammunition, or if the eject the magazine, they do not clear the chamber.   But most people in Britain probably do not know the difference.

In the process of exploring what else Netflix has to offer, I came across a show entitled Crossing Lines.  This show was made as propaganda for the International Criminal Court.  Unfortunately if one knows a bit about these matters, it really shows a bunch of Keystone Kops gallivanting about Europe while supposedly solving crimes. In one episode, the camera clearly showed a murder weapon as a pistol of some sort, while the actor called it a revolver. Clearly the show's director and producer figured no one in the audience would know the difference, and in fairness, perhaps they did not know the difference either. And while these "investigators" are supposedly armed, their gun handling skills are very poor.

I also like to occasionally watch American shows like Criminal Minds. While this show is not quite as lame as Crossing Lines, the anti-gun bias is still subtly there. For instance, in most shows, the bad guy us caught as he is on the verge of taking another victim, which supports the theory that "the police are there to protect you," when nothing could be further from the truth.  The police are there to protect the public, not the individual, and they do not have to respond to a call for help, nor do they have to help even if they do respond.   Their actual job is to investigate the crime after the fact, find the perpetrator of the crime, and turn him over for prosecution.*  You are responsible for your own life, and the lives of your children.  You are not responsible for anyone else either.

Go read John Lotts article to see how entertainment shows push an anti-gun agenda which is contrary to reality.  While you are at it, notice how they are now pushing a gay agenda by having at least one or more gay people in every single show you watch, even though you may no encounter a gay person in your life but once of twice a year.


* In saying that, I do not wish to disparage the police.  Most would agree that their job does not include being a body guard to individual citizens.  While most officers, I believe, if the stumbled across a crime in progress would attempt to stop the bad guys, their real job is to catch the bad guys and refer them for prosecution.  Indeed, the Supreme Court ruled in Castle Rock v. Gonzales that the Town of Castle Rock, CO, nor its police department of individual police officers could be sued for failure to protect.  But the doctrine goes back many many years.