Despite a documented mainstream-media failure to cover stories of armed self defense by the general public, Congress and the Washington, D.C., Beltway audience were treated this morning to a spate of such stories in the Life section of USA Today.
Individuals who are alive because they had guns and could shoot their assailants were featured in paid space, based on local broadcast news reports, in a column sponsored by GunLaws.com.
This is the website of Bloomfield Press, the nation’s largest publisher and distributor of gun-law books, based in Scottsdale, Ariz.
USA Today, like other large news outlets, virtually never runs such stories, though such events are known to be common occurrences. These have all the splash and drama of horrifying crime stories the media enjoys featuring, except instead of glorifying criminals, these show good triumphing over evil. Media watchdogs have long complained the media’s imbalance is unethical and distorts the public debate.
It is the first in a planned series designed to create awareness of the benefits of an armed public and the right to personal safety — a subject for which the public gets a lopsided view, the publisher claims. “Think how different things might be if these stories were always featured instead of never printed,” the publisher, Alan Korwin, said. Korwin has written 10 of his 14 books on the subject.
According to an analysis of related New York Times stories, in a single year, that paper ran 104 gun-crime articles totalling 50,745 words, balanced by a single 163-word story involving a retired cop. In USA Today for the same year, the word total was 5,660 words on gun-involved crime with nothing at all for balance. USA Today has earned some respect for giving this issue the light of day, even if it’s only as an ad.
Even the smallest scholarly studies estimate hundreds of thousands of armed self-defense incidents annually. The largest estimates run into the millions, with 2.5 million annually the most often cited figure, from a Florida State University study. All 13 studies are summarized and reviewed in a book Bloomfield Press sells entitled Armed, New Perspectives on Gun Control, by Gary Kleck and Don Kates.
The company’s USA Today advertorial column can be viewed at GunLaws.com.
