Sunday, March 8, 2015

The NRA's Voice in the Gun Debate

Protest Easy Guns

American politics has always had pockets of extremists, from the antebellum Anti-Mason Party and Know-Nothings to the Weather Underground and John Birch Society during the Cold War. In a democracy like ours, everyone has free speech rights – but not all opinions are equal or deserve equal footing.

You wouldn’t invite anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists to the table to talk health care. You wouldn’t invite the Westboro Baptist Church to the table to talk gay rights. You wouldn’t invite a white supremacist hate group to the table to talk affirmative action. And you shouldn’t invite the NRA to the table to talk guns.

Too often we see the NRA being reached for comment in news stories on gun violence when they don’t have to be. It is insulting to professionals and especially gun violence survivors to give the NRA an equal voice in news coverage, since the gun lobby smears the former and shares responsibility for the latter. The NRA are not physicians, criminologists, law enforcement or counselors; they are the gun-rights wing of the Republican Party and lobbyist wing of the weapons industry.

This is particularly disappointing when the consensus is so heavily against the NRA’s view, such as with weapons on campuses. If all the stakeholders involved – administrators, faculty, police, mental health experts, criminologists, students – overwhelmingly oppose the idea, then why voluntarily ask non-stakeholders with no expertise in higher-ed administration what they think?

5 comments:

  1. "We are calling on all news media to stop soliciting the NRA for comment on gun violence stories that have nothing to do with them for the sake of being objective, or at least challenge the NRA’s comments with facts and credible rebuttals. If readers or viewers read that a reporter reached out to the NRA for no reason other than to “balance” the narrative, contact the media outlet to tell them to stop and why.
    We instead urge reporters to talk to professionals who have spent their careers studying the effects of gun violence in American society and citing the reams of medical or criminal justice research on the issue. Even experts may not agree all the time on policy, but at least their credentials have merit in a serious exchange of ideas and opinions."

    Ah yes, when the people who don't agree with you get in the way of selling your side, the obvious solution is to eliminate the opposing views and then you can claim that everyone approves of your side of the argument.
    Of course, to act in an unbiased manner, the media would have to also stop quoting the likes of Bloomberg, Watts, Giffords, etc. And of course, even if they did stop taking statements from the NRA, there are many other outlets to get an opposing view out. And of course, not getting both sides would result in even more bewilderment when more seats change parties in the next election.
    Fortunately, I don't think the media are going to listen to these guys....

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  2. You wouldn’t invite anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists to the table to talk health care. You wouldn’t invite the Westboro Baptist Church to the table to talk gay rights. You wouldn’t invite a white supremacist hate group to the table to talk affirmative action. And you shouldn’t invite the NRA to the table to talk guns.

    Then why would you invite "Protest Easy Guns" to a discussion on gun rights?

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    Replies
    1. Good point. I think that's what ss was saying too.

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  3. I think the media should keep asking the NRA about such reports. It exposes their hypocrisy and lack of care for the safety of citizens.

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  4. Personally, I'd rather see a far more hard-charging, militantly in-your-face gun rights advocacy group, like Gun Owners of America, given a bigger megaphone in the debate, rather than middle-of-the-roaders like the NRA.

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