New information has surfaced about the depth of bias that surfaced on ABC’s 20/20 hit piece that aired Friday, April 10 with Diane Sawyer as the host.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation revealed Monday that it had been “asked numerous times by 20/20 Senior Producer Muriel Pearson to participate in the story, but understanding the piece was a set-up, we refused.”
NSSF is a firearms industry umbrella group that offers education about firearms safety and programs including “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy,” aimed at helping the industry deter illegal straw purchases. Its biggest annual effort is the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, a huge exhibition of new products in the shooting, hunting and law enforcement fields.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, fewer than 100 kids 15 and under are killed in gun accidents every year. - ABC's John Stossel
NSSF Public Affairs Director Ted Novin reported Monday afternoon that, even though the organization declined to participate, it reminded Pearson of the 20/20 team’s “responsibility to ask hard-hitting questions of those supporting gun control.” NSSF also provided 20/20 with information on the thousands of state, local and federal gun laws, along with data from the Department of Justice and Bureau of Justice Statistics related to firearms.
“Unfortunately,” Novin said, “given 20/20’s refusal to disclose any of the information we provided – information that interfered with their already pre-established and desired anti-gun conclusion – it has become all too clear that journalistic impartiality on firearms issues is limited to John Stossel.”
Stossel is the reporter who did the expose “Myths, Lies and Straight Talk” and the author of Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity.
The Centers for Disease Control...completed a review of studies of various types of gun control: background checks, waiting periods, bans on certain guns and ammunition. It could not document that these rules have reduced violent crime.
Sawyer’s Friday evening hit piece suggested that many criminals get their guns from gun shows, but that’s not accurate, according to a study done for the Justice Department. Anti-gunners have tried to rebut that study with a report called Debunking a Myth: The Gun Lobby’s Claim That Less Than 1% of Crime Guns Come from Gun Shows.
This was produced by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. Their argument: “It is possible that many of the firearms reported as coming from a ‘flea market’ ‘friend/family member,’ ‘fence/black market source,’ ‘off the street/from a drug dealer,’ or ‘in a burglary’ were obtained at gun shows and subsequently trafficked to inmates.”
The government wants to say regulations and laws like the Brady Gun Control Law are making a difference, but they aren't. Some maximum security felons I spoke to inscoffed at measures like the Brady law. New Jersey
Yes, and it is also “possible” that I might win the lottery tomorrow. It is also “possible” I might get hit by a meteorite. If that’s the best they can do to “debunk a myth,” the gun prohibition lobby is firing blanks, as did Sawyer’s one-sided program.
It is curious that on the ABC 20/20 website, it offers links for people on “How to stop gun violence.” The only links listed are for gun control groups. There is no link to the National Rifle Association, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, or any other genuine gun safety organization.
Perhaps ABC should register as a lobbying organization.
Read new entries from other Gun Rights Examiners
For more info: Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity, America Fights BackL Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age
Comments
It seems that ABC thinks that by taking away the rights of others they will some how keep their rights in the first amendment well they are wrong the second amendment is the only thing that keeps the others from being taken. But the media are less than objective or realistic they just have their own agenda and it will cost them in the end.
The previews I saw for that show with the clips of kids picking up guns and pointing them at each other made it so obvious that it was going to be an extremist anti-gun piece, I couldn't even bring myself to watch it. My blood pressure is high enough already. Kids picking up guns and playing with them could be prevented with a little education, but we wouldn't want to do that would we? It's much easier to make gun owners the bad guys.
April 10,2009. The day any last lingering shred of integrity at ABC was executed on prime-time broadcast television. One observer was heard to comment "O.M.G! 32 stab wounds in the back! That's the worst case of career suicide by a so-called journalist I ever saw...". All concerned heartily agreed that the incident eclipsed even those commited by Dan Rather, Chris Matthews and Don Imam. One of the few actual reputable journalists found wept for the state of his craft: "The spew was everywhere! How are we going to get this cleaned up....?". The remainder of the MSM declined to comment, mumbling inarticulately about the First and Fifth Amendments.
Just stay the hell out of Idaho..We teach gun safety to our children and some common sense to their parents.
note to Diane Sawyer:
Do not worry, when this fragile country starts to come apart, the gun owners will protect you from a tyrannical government. We will also restore your 1A rights in the process.
I was angry at the blatant attempt to scare the uneducated people into maximum gun control. Timed perfectly with a liberal push going on in Washington.
Funny they didn't have many facts and numbers of the effectiveness of gun control versus crime rates just a lot of video of kids pointing guns at each other. I almost puked when they kept going to commercial with a silhouette of Obama.
More BIASED garbage based on images not facts
Diversity only applies when you agree with them.
I can't believe all the propaganda on the Mexican drug war caused by the gun show loop hole.(which does not exist)
Why not secure the border. Wow what an idea!
Stop illegal's, drugs, the whole sheebangie...
I'm sure Mexico would jump on board to help us solve the problem's caused by them.
On a lighter note I hear CBS and ABC are merging they know will be known as AllBS
Far more guns get to criminals by way of retail shops as opposed to the supposedly unregulated gun shows.
Seems there's a whole lot more work to be done--BY GOVERNMENT--in controlling illegal and phony IDs and ensuring criminal histories are in NCIC.
YES!! WE SHOULD TEACH ALL OF OUR KIDS THAT GUNS ARE VERY BAD. THAT WAY WHEN WE NEED NAVY SEALS OR SPECIAL FORCES OR GREEN BERET IT WILL BE EASY TO GET THOSE KIDS TO REALLY LOVE GUNS SO THEY COULD DO THE JOB THAT THE NAVY SEALS JUST DID. LEARN TO HATE GUNS AND YOU WILL HAVE A FLOCK OF CONTROLABLE PEOPLE THAT WILL JUST BE CRYING THAT WE SHOULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING DIFFERENT. I COULD GO ON WITH MORE EXAMPLES BUT FROM A VIETNAM VET. "STAY AWAY FROM MY GUNS" THANKS, HARV ANGER
ABC is just the propaganda machine of the socialist party, and other than the commercials that are aired, nothing more.
Lest the media outlets forget where their money comes from. I say we should outright BOYCOTT ABC, CBS, NBC (MSNBC) AND CNN, and refuse to buy products from ANY company that advertise on those stations. Add to the list GE (General Electric and all it's companies) and any company that seeks to abolish the constitution! If enough of us withhold our money from the sponsors, we could, with effort, bring those propagandists to their knees. I refuse to patronize businesses that use their money to destroy this country. I hope you will too!
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