Wisconsin Tragedy

Two terrible tragedies were played out for us last week. On Saturday, March 12, seven people were murdered during a church service. In their rush to be part of the feeding frenzy––there were over 1,400 articles indexed by Google four days after the event––the press did its usual firearms coverage, recounting “22 bullets within a minute” to raise the specter of a proliferation of rapid-fire assault weapons.[1] They also eulogized the shooter as “quiet and devout,” who grew vegetables and “couldn’t kill a chipmunk,”[2] helping to procreate the myth that normal, well-adjusted people become homicidal maniacs when they hold a gun. In doing so, the media perpetrated the second tragedy.

Where is a Hero When You Need One?

Wisconsin is not a shall-issue state, meaning that private citizens are rarely allowed to carry concealed firearms. No articles mentioned this, nor did they mention the resulting fact that the shooter committed a felony in this premeditated murder, by carrying a loaded, concealed handgun. With no other recourse due to state law, church members’ only defense was to call out for the shooter to stop.[3]

In The Bias Against Guns, Lott examined mass murders for the years 1977-1997, finding:

The number of states with right-to-carry laws increased from eight to thirty-one and the percentage of the U.S. population living in these states rose from 8.5 to 50 percent in this period. But states without right-to-carry laws still account for the large majority (often around 90 percent) of deaths and injuries.[4]

Lott also found that for the same 20-year period, the average rate of murders and injuries in these events was nearly twice as high in non-issue states.[5]

States rated “A” by the Brady Campaign, meaning those states with the most gun control and no right-to-carry laws, have an average violent crime rate that is 12.5% higher than shall-issue states.[6] The Brady Campaign neglected to include Washington, D.C. in their report card. Our nation’s capitol, with the most draconian gun control in the country and a Brady “A” candidate, has a violent crime rate over four times that of right-to-carry states.[7]

Contrast this with the shooting in Tyler, Texas, where a legally-armed citizen intervened and stopped a mass murder from occurring.[8] Why did the media not take the Wisconsin government to task for purposefully disarming its citizens and setting the stage for tragedy?

No Duty to Protect

It is also important to note that the police did not arrive until after the crime was completed. Why did the media not explain that police have no legal requirement to suddenly appear on a Star-Trek transporter beam in order to protect specific individuals from harm? That, in the final analysis, the individual must rely upon their own capabilities to protect themselves when violence erupts with such unpredictable immediacy?

In just one higher court decision among many, two women heard noise and screaming in the apartment below and called the police. Two men had broken in and raped the female tenant. After seeing police come by and hearing no more screaming, they thought the problem was resolved. When they called down to check on the neighbor below, the rapists attacked and raped them as well. The women sued the police for negligence and the case made its way to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which confirmed: “the fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.”[9]

Would More Gun Control Make Us Safer?

Why did the media not counsel people to avoid emotional reactions to the tragedy and avoid the comforting reflex response of calling for more gun control? Since their gun ban, the United Kingdom has experienced more gun crime as well as more violent crime, giving the lie to the idea that civilian disarmament would reduce violent incidents like the one in Wisconsin.[10]

Conclusion

This kind of biased news coverage simply serves to make people fear guns and “large capacity” magazines and plead with the government to save them by enacting more gun control, and gives gun-ban organizations much-needed “evidence” to rejuvenate their faltering civilian disarmament agenda. In order to enact reasonable policies which allow for the fact that the vast majority of people act responsibly and in emergencies actually provide a benefit to society, the media must return to more balanced reporting where both sides of an issue are discussed. Until this happens, the media fails in its responsibility as a trusted institution serving society’s needs.


[1] One Wis. shooting victim hit four times, Carrie Antflinger, Associate Press, Kansas City Star March 16, 2005. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/11144203.htm

[2] Victims Named In Wisconsin Shootings, Associate Press, NBC6 South Florida, March 13, 2005. http://www.nbc6.net/news/4279829/detail.html

[3] Church service killings baffle police, flock: Congregation struggles to come to terms with tragedy, Peter Slevin, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, March 14, 2005. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/03/14/MNGEEBP2401.DTL

[4] The Bias Against Guns, John R. Lott, Jr., Regnery Publishing, 2003, page 105.

[5] Ibid, Table 6.2, page 107.

[6] Cross-referencing The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence 2004 Report Card, January 12, 2005. http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/reportcards/2004/details.pdf with FBI: Crime in the States, 2003. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_03/xl/03tbl05.xls.

[7] FBI: Crime in the States, 2003. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_03/xl/03tbl05.xls

[8] Factory worker killed saving a man in Texas town square firefight, Max B. Baker, Bill Hanna, Kansas City Star, February 25, 2005.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/10994229.htm

[9] Warren et al v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C.App. 1981)
http://www.healylaw.com/cases/warren2.htm

[10] Gun Crime Rockets 35 Percent, Bob Roberts, UK Mirror, January 10, 2003.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12518284&method=full&siteid=50143