Off-Target News: When It's Guns, Media Miss Big Part Of Picture
Mary Rosh
February 7, 2002
SECTION: A; Pg. 17
LENGTH: 712 words
HEADLINE: Off-Target News: When It's Guns, Media Miss Big Part Of
Picture
BYLINE: By JOHN R. LOTT JR. , Investor's Daily
BODY:
There continually seems to be some new crime committed with a gun.
When more than one person gets killed, the crimes get not only
national but international news coverage. On the other hand, when was
the last time that you heard the national evening news reporting about
a citizen using a gun to save lives?
Few people realize that people use guns defensively to stop about 2
million crimes a year, according to national surveys. Some of this
lopsided coverage is understandable: an innocent person's murder is
more newsworthy than a victim brandishing a gun and the attacker
running away, with no crime committed.
Unlike crimes avoided, bad events provide emotionally gripping
pictures. Yet covering only the bad events creates the impression that
guns only cost lives.
But this neither explains the dramatic heroic stories that are left
uncovered nor the crimes that are newsworthy enough to be covered but
for which important details are left out. Possibly the press doesn't
want to encourage vigilantism, possibly it has some other reason, but
stories where guns save lives never get more than minor local news
coverage.
Three of the recent 16 cases I know of illustrate where guns have
protected people, but the news coverage never extends beyond a short
report in the local media.
Bogalusa, La.: On Jan. 25, four men ages 17 to 25 attempted robbing a
woman dying of cancer at gunpoint. The woman, who weighs only 85
pounds, takes pain medication, including OxyContin, which the men
reportedly wanted to steal. A small newspaper described the plan: "One
guy went in on a pretense to visit. He was to open the door, then the
others were to rush in, put a gun on him and say 'Get down.' The
others were wearing ski masks." But the woman's 13-year-old son saw
the masked men before they broke into the house and got the family's
.20 gauge shotgun. He fired a shot, wounding one of the criminals and
causing the criminals to run away.
Englewood, Fla.: An enraged husband goes to a bar where his wife works
and attacks her with a knife. A couple of employees come to the wife's
aid but they are severely cut by the husband. He was stopped only when
a man with a permitted concealed handgun held the attacker at gunpoint
until the police arrived.
Rock Springs, Texas: Three illegal aliens broke into a pregnant
woman's home, 50 miles from the Mexican border. The woman, who was
awakened from a nap, saw one man in her house after he kicked open the
door. Two others were cutting through a screen window. She shot the
one in the house, killing him and causing the other two to flee.
These examples are all too typical, but even more disturbing are the
stories that get news coverage but leave out how guns were used to
save lives. One example is the Jan. 16 shooting at the Appalachian Law
School in Virginia that left three dead. With all the massive
worldwide news coverage, everyone is familiar with the crime, but
almost no one knows how it was actually stopped. Out of hundreds of
stories, just four mentioned that the students who stopped the attack
had guns, and only two of those (both in local Virginia newspapers)
mentioned that the guns were used to force the killer to drop his gun.
Little Detail
The Washington Post simply wrote that the students "helped subdue" the
killer. Other media simply noted that: "Students tackled the man while
he was still armed," "Students tackled the gunman" or "Students ended
the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, who dropped
his weapon." Many stories did mention the students had law enforcement
or military backgrounds, but provided no more detail on how they
stopped the attack.
Yet, as one of the students, Tracy Bridges, described what happened:
"I aimed my gun at him, and (the killer) tossed his gun down." It was
only then that the students tackled the killer. Bridges told this
story to over 50 reporters and said he was "shocked" by how the press
reports completely left out how he had used the gun to stop the
criminal.
Selectively reporting events endangers lives. It misinforms people
about the safest course of action when confronted by criminals.
John R. Lott Jr. is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime."