By Eh?Nonymous
You may be thinking that this article concerns the pros and cons of gun control. It doesn’t. I’m more concerned with left-wing media conspicuously avoiding a subject that is close to their heart when circumstances suit their agenda, and even more conspicuously eschewing their natural tendency toward firearm prohibition in favour of the right to bear arms in rare instances where it assists an otherwise wonky narrative. One of the most intriguing anomalies of the media coverage of Dallas spree killer Micah Xavier Johnson and the killings that inspired him isn’t so much what is being said by mainstream and alternative left media, but what isn’t being said.
Almost invariably when we see a heavily armed spree shooter killing a bunch of innocent people, calls for gun control reform, whether reasonable or otherwise, immediately dominate the media narrative on the left. One could almost set their watch to it.
This was the case in Orlando. When the spree shooter Omar Mateen openly pledged allegiance to ISIS minutes before these senseless killings, the issue of Gun Control allowed left-leaning media to frame an act of Islamic terror as not being about Islamic terror at all, but as being entirely about gun control, with a hint of homophobia.
Interestingly, in the wake of the Charlie Hedbo and Bataclan massacres, the left media went the other way. Gun control was not mentioned as a causative effect. Why was this? Surely Cultural Marxist mouthpieces desperately trying to ignore the obvious Islamist element of these horrific events would want to instead latch on to how they acquired these weapons, so that they could frame these atrocities as being perpetrated by ambiguous crazies who flouted lax gun laws to obtain military assault rifles?
There was just one problem. A big one. Gun laws in France are incredibly stringent and would hardly offer a smoking gun (pardon the pun) on which to blame these acts of terror. If any scrutiny was to be directed at how these spree killers obtained their weapons, it would not reveal any flawed background checks, loopholes that allow average Joes to legally buy military-style weapons, or any evidence whatsoever that any kind of amendment to gun laws in France would have done anything to prevent these tragedies.
Even the most superficial examination would reveal that, despite France having some of the most stringent gun laws in the West, terror cells were able to effortlessly acquire these weapons illegally (arguably with far more ease than someone attempting to legally acquire exactly the same weapons in, say, Texas). Any serious level of scrutiny as to where the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan terrorists picked up their weapons would not lead to gun control reform. It would be a merciless diatribe against the irresponsible open door policy of the EU, where contraband weapons and people (several million of them at last count) can easily infiltrate and pass through virtually non-existent borders, causing instability and mayhem wherever they go.
This, of course, would make the EU look bad and poorly run, and we can’t have that. Cultural Marxists (particularly those in the media) can’t handle the idea of an oppressive system of forced multinational socialism in Europe failing spectacularly for the second time in half a century. It drives them crazy. Better to ignore the elephant in the room. This is why the left media were unable to control the narrative of these events as closely as they would have preferred.
The revelation that some of the strongest gun control legislation in the West is largely pointless and ineffectual, unless backed by some of the strongest border control in the West, might just be another baby-step in the impending implosion of the EU.
Places like Chicago are similarly problematic for Gun Control advocates, so they try not to talk about them. Chicago has arguably the toughest handgun laws in the U.S, yet the rate of shootings surged by 88% in the first three months of 2016 alone. Again, like in the EU, criminals don’t tend to take notice of local legislation when they can simply source firearms from elsewhere.
Gun control advocates, and alternative and conventional left media tend to focus instead on New York City, which has similar handgun laws to Chicago. New York has a relatively low gun crime rate. But the usual suspects refuse to concede that this probably has more to do with gentrification (essentially making it too expensive for low-rent criminals to live there) and zero-tolerance policing (the kind that astronomically saves more black lives than it will ever take) than any kind of handgun legislation, just as they refuse to concede that Democrats and their decades-long policies that harm the black community must shoulder a lot of the blame in Chicago.
The left-wing media coverage of the death of Philando Castille and the Dallas spree killer is even more interesting than the usual awkward omissions. Let’s look at each of these stories. The way that they were covered, and how the left media dodged around the usual gun control narrative, because the profiles of the victim and perpetrator allowed for a bigger hierarchical agenda to be pushed.
Philando Castille, a black man with a carry permit, is shot dead during a traffic stop in front of his de-facto wife and his infant in the back. The media narrative of the story is all police brutality and racism. No mention of gun control; in fact most of the ordinarily firearm-averse media inexplicably championed his constitutional right to bear arms, even though they usually scoff at things like the First and Second Amendments.
Now imagine for a moment that Philando and his family were white evangelicals and every other aspect of this tragedy remained the same. It’s pretty safe to assume that this is how regressive left social media and some traditional left media would have reported it:
In a clear cut case of Darwinism, white conservative Christian Phil Castle was shot during a traffic stop, because he was dumb enough to have a loaded pistol in his lap during a trip down to Walmart with his infant child in the back of the vehicle. Because we all know a pistol is a necessary requirement for any shopping trip…or something… Here’s a tip for all of the white people. Guns don’t kill people. Stupidity does. Pew! Pew! Murcia!
The reporting of the Dallas Shootings by Micah Xavier Johnson was even more bizarre than the coverage of Castille. No mention of gun control whatsoever, despite the fact that Texas has some of the most lenient gun laws in the West. Many outlets, particularly those in the alt-left media, even went so far as to describe it as a justified act against tyranny. His Second Amendment rights were defended, and he was even hailed in many circles as a freedom fighter or patriot. Many reports from even ‘reputable’ left-wing news sources read or sounded quite literally like press releases from the Montana Militia.
It’s great to hear that you guys are finally kind of getting why the Second Amendment might be important for Americans to maintain, and how it is intrinsically linked to defending the First Amendment, but sadly you’re way off on which individuals exercising their Second Amendment rights you decide to get behind. It beggars belief.
There’s no doubt that gun control can definitely work well in reducing gun violence in some cultures if done correctly. Australia (as the left always reminds us) is a textbook example of this. But they don’t like to talk about the less popular policies that must be in place in order for gun control to actually work. Australia, unlike EU member states and the Chicago city limits, has strong border control. We don’t kid ourselves into thinking that tight gun laws alone will do anything whatsoever without secure borders to stop the import of illegal arms.
Simplistic calls for gun control by regressive leftists, without a simultaneous willingness to end counterproductive Cultural Marxist ideals like open borders, hamstringing law enforcement, and liberally emboldening Apex criminals with ridiculous policies of cultural relativism, is nothing more than irresponsible lip service.
And for left media to abandon their anti-gun principles altogether in some instances, and virtually champion the Second Amendment in other cases when the shooter enables one of their other pet projects, is hypocrisy at its most obscene. Either all shooting sprees are atrocities that require greater scrutiny of how killers were able to get these weapons, or none are. Gun Control and shameless identity politics are two issues that definitely shouldn’t mix.
Photo by Dean Hochman 
