When the smoke has cleared and the Media has justified its relevance to the Left, it will be business as usual. The gun control issue will recede. Extensive coverage will once more be given to every nut that perpetrates a crime - the more gory, the more the whole circus of profitability becomes: newspapers, TV shows, guest appearances, cable documentaries, and commentaries. Criminals and violence are the mother’s milk of prime time TV. The Media needs to change the formula.
Remember how the Media conditioned us to enter the Vietnam War because it was the patriotic thing to do to stop the spread of Communism? And Baby Boomers remember the turning point, not after Tet in 1968, but in 1966 when the Media turned against the war with Pacem in Terris and the Guns and Butter Speech. The Left, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., was outraged when Lyndon Johnson declared that America had enough money to fight the War on Poverty and simultaneously wage the war in Vietnam.
Pavlov’s dream machine, television, began removing guns and violence from the air ways. World War II TV shows that depicted combat could no longer be seen. In came a plethora of anti-military shows, each one designed to attack a specific service: M.A.S.H and F Troop, the army; I dream of Genie, the Air Force; McHale’s Navy; and Gomer Pyle USMC. After being raised up on Frank Capra’s Victory at Sea documentaries, I remember how insulting it was to watch servicemen mocked at every turn by these new television shows. Even Westerns were eliminated during that revolutionary time. The speed and methodical comprehensiveness of the Media’s agenda was amazing.
The Media’s power lies in conditioning and de-conditioning. Ironically, after U.S. foreign policy was tweaked, the Media turned to the adulation of terrorists like the SDS, Weathermen, and Yippies. Praising the violence of the Black Panthers and the mob became a cottage industry. Headlines were awash with the trials and tribulations of poor blacks destined by circumstance to live in poverty created by a white oppressive state: Eldridge Cleaver and his Soul on Ice; Malcolm X; Huey Newton; H. Rap Brown; Angela Davis; and Stokely Carmichael. As generations passed, the history books were cleansed. Journal of the Silent Majority is not so forgiving. The Media loves its criminals and violence.
The Media doesn’t believe Americans need guns to defend us; our government would never use deadly force against fundamentalist Christians, federalize the National Guard to use against us, mobilize Federal Marshals, or institute official policies like Extraordinary Rendition (kidnapping) or torture. Because they live in an insulated make-believe world, the literati think we should too. However, they are pragmatists. They know when it comes to controlling guns in America that the cat is already out of the bag. Every nook, cranny, and cemetery has an undetected steel guest. If the Media was serious about a deterrent to future tragedies, the business of criminals and violence would not be so attractive or lucrative. All they have to do is look in the mirror.
