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February 16, 2011

After Arizona Shooting, Media Lays Blame but Not on the Shooter

The saga continues on the shootings in Arizona in January, where Representative Gabrielle Giffords and others were shot. Sadly, no, the saga is not on the status of the victims nor the families that lost loved ones. Our “News magazines” have now joined the blame game. Not in blaming Jared Loughner – they want to blame everyone and everything else.

There are “lots of guns” in the country, “someone should have noticed him in advance”, “society failed him”, “there should be more security” and on and on. Fact is, neither America nor anyone in it failed; it is the fault of one person and one person only. Maybe we should fix blame where it belongs. People do things, and what happened to our world when we were a stand-up society; we now blame everyone but the criminal.

One recent article (sadly in a magazine I subscribe to) was an article that clearly was blaming guns in America. I guess they have never read the Constitution, which gives us the right to have them. “Us” being the law abiding people of America. The article discusses the number of shootings and the number of deaths that come from guns. Thus, we are blaming a piece of metal and plastic for these deaths. Interesting thought pattern from these scholars of the press. Let’s carry that same logic a little further. There are clearly more obese people in this country than there are shootings and many of them are dying also. So let’s generate some news articles blaming the makers of spoons and forks, they too must be killing people. Then there are the big killers, the automobiles, so let’s get wanted posters printed of the all the corporate heads of the car manufactures.

Clearly I am pushing the issue, but the short answer is that let’s put blame where it belongs. Guns and spoons do not kill people, only people kill people, and those are the people to be punished. Not every American exercising their right to own a gun is a threat, and let’s not take the spoon from those who eat ice cream responsibly. There are many other things that Jared Loughner could have used (to include the silverware in the kitchen) to have inflicted harm to those loyal Americans that just wanted to hear what the Congresswoman had to say as a part of our way of governance.

My request to the press would be a great line from Joe Friday (for those from my generation): “Just the facts please.” Then we could all have justice and think with our own minds.

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  • Guest

    Hey, I have a great idea. Let's stop all the searching of people at the airport. The little old lady with the gun in her handbag is clearly not a terrorist, why take away her legal gun? Because she's on a plane?

    Oh wait, what about the shampoo? Conditioner? Mouthwash? Bottle of water? Let's stop blaming these items for terrorism treating them like threats. It's the people. Unless, of course, they have a Koran–then they are jihadists. Because it's okay for us to profile Muslims as wanting holy war, rather than blame the individuals who have actually perpetrated the crimes.

    Think about it. Can't have it both ways.

    • Guest

      The issue is not the little old lady, she can have a gun. There are places that you just can not take guns, church, courthouse and federal offices to name a few. Nor is it shampoo or mouthwash, there are security rules on the size of the container. The issue is that the press used to report the news, some still do but others pass of editorials as the news

  • Guest

    This is a very complex series of issues that when pushed to the fringes yield unpredicatable and tragic results. The suspect is likely a majority shareholder for the blame. But you can easily add as accessories to the crime the media, the politicians who use the media's incessant desire to be the first with an edgy soundbite that becomes a story in a digitalia laden world, the gun lobby who wants to put a weapon in every available hand, and the privacy and civil liberties lawyers who will not let us add mental illness to the list of things we can check when selling a gun to someone. It is not just a thread or two that is fraying on the fabric of this democracy, it is the entire moth eaten quilt soiled by special interests and extremists unwilling to compromise because they know the truth. What interests me is the glaring absence of stories about well trained armed citizens exercising their 2nd amendment rights and coming to the rescue at one of these tragic events. Where were all the heros in Arizona where the gun culture and proliferation of weapons is likely greater than most states? It's a rhetorical question. I don't have a problem with any law abiding citizen in this country having as many weapons as they want or can afford. But I woudl suggest that if we were to do that, the results would be very similar to the proliferation of automobiles in this country, and we have already established how dangerous those are in the opinion above. Imagine having as many close encounters with armed citizens who are legal but have anger management problems, as we do every day going to and from work. Yikes.

    The answer to all of these and other problems we face is compromise, consensus and common sense. That's how we have survived since the ratification of the Constitution, and that is how we will get ourselves out of this era of unease.