As I was reading a March 12th article in The New Yorker entitled “The Gun-Control Debate After Parkland,” a subscription pop-up appeared rather serendipitously, leading with the line “Fighting Fake News With Real Stories.” I had to pause to contain my amusement. The very reason I had searched for this article was to get a clearer picture of how the mainstream media (a.k.a. the ‘Real’ Fake News) was characterizing the gun-control debate in the wake of the ongoing publicity being given to the recent school shootings in America.
Let’s get one thing straight here: mainstream media has long been run by a small but powerful elite group of people with a loosely coherent set of agendas, and the fundamental role of media for this group has always been to advance their agendas. How they do it is actually quite subtle, nuanced, time-honed. While Donald Trump may label them as “Fake News” based on their disproportionally negative bias towards him, in truth their duplicity is far more subtle and sinister. It is nothing short of mind-control and the maintenance of a cultural perception of reality.
It is instructive to look at the gun-control debate as an example of how our perception is being limited and controlled. One of the tools used constantly in mainstream media is to frame an issue within a simple black-or-white polarity. The average mainstream reader does not know the issue is actually being framed in a very limited way—they believe they are reading about an issue as it is, supported by facts.
In Margaret Talbot’s New Yorker article, the driving question is whether there will finally be tougher gun-control legislation getting through Congress, presumably with the ultimate goal being the disarming of the entire civilian population. The polarity of the debate is struck this way: in one corner we have gun-control advocates, those ‘reasonable’ people who obviously care about the nation’s children and grieve every time word gets out that one or more have been killed in a ‘senseless’ (read: preventable) school shooting. In the other corner we have gun-ownership advocates, an eclectic collection of citizens who seem to think that their perceived right to own a gun trumps the significance of the occasional unfortunate death of one or more of the nation’s children. Surveys and statistics are conveniently used to shore up this distinction. A 2017 Pew Research study is employed to tell us that ‘half of all gun owners say that gun ownership is essential to their identity,’ leaving us to obviously conclude that gun owners have a deficient sense of self.
And of course, no mainstream gun-control debate article is complete without bringing in a tried-and-true narrative about the NRA, the presumed voice of gun-ownership advocates (even as the article concedes that most gun-owners are not NRA members). The NRA and its powerful political lobby is cast as the sole reason gun control legislation is so weak in the United States. And again, based on ‘scientific analysis’, the article purports to be able to objectively characterize the NRA (and by extension most proponents of gun ownership) as out of touch with reality, and willing to say anything to promote their cause:
The organization’s leaders and members used a remarkably consistent series of words to describe their identity: “law-abiding,” “peaceable,” “patriotic,” “freedom-loving,” and “average citizens.” Their opponents were “un-American,” “tyrannical,” “Communist,” and “élitist.”
However, the reality is that the NRA has little or nothing to do with the debate on gun control that is in the hearts and minds of thoughtful citizens. In fact it isn’t really a debate, as much as it is a potential conversation—too seldom waged, amid the distraction and fiery rhetoric promoted by mainstream media. And the conversation centers around this question: Is the nation better served by having an armed citizenry?
Some might wonder what possible argument could be made for the benefits of an armed citizenry. Well, the most obvious first step is to investigate why the people of the United States of America were afforded this right in the first place. There is an abundance of testimony from the founding fathers indicating that the Second Amendment’s ‘right to bear arms’ is predicated on the ability and will of the citizens to preserve their freedoms and have ultimate control over the power of their government. This quote from Jefferson touches upon that sentiment:
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787
The founding fathers were clearly aware of the propensity for governments to become tools of outside power and ultimately tyranny. This is why they built into the constitution a clear statement that it is the right and duty of citizens to resist all attempts on the part of government to limit and control the liberty and self-determination that had been bestowed onto the general population.
If we are to have a serious, balanced conversation about gun control, it will not come by foisting words and images of shattered children reeling from horrendous incidents—incidents which, by the way, often contain remarkable inconsistencies that give credence to the idea that the incidents themselves may have had the hand of this same powerful elite group behind them. But that is the subject of a whole different article. Suffice it to say that any serious conversation around gun control must involve determining whether or not the citizens of the nation are dealing with a tyrannical authority. A survey of ardent gun owners would likely yield the answer ‘yes’ more often than not.
Naturally, the elite does everything in its power to prevent this question from even being considered by the general population. Their efforts are aided by the fact that it is very uncomfortable for many people to consider that their government is not there to serve and protect them. Nonetheless, it is no coincidence that Talbot’s piece, like most other mainstream articles on gun control, don’t even broach the subject of government tyranny. And that is of course because mainstream media is controlled and operated by those very tyrannical forces whose modus operandi is to stay hidden and invisible, all while pulling the strings behind government and media to control what certain events mean (like school shootings) and how people should think about them.
Mainstream media thus earns the moniker ‘Fake News’ for one simple reason: they are not even attempting to convey the truth. Rather, they promote the narrative that fits their agenda. And make no mistake, their agenda here is gun control. Why? Because their goal is the unfettered enslavement of the population. As our founding fathers were so aware, ‘to disarm the people…is the most effectual way to enslave them.’ (George Mason, June 14th, 1788)
As a consequence, it is no surprise that most mainstream articles on gun control only see the light of day if they are advocates for increased limits on gun ownership. Pay attention to how they subtly try to persuade us that any decent and civilized person should be in favor of removing all guns from the citizenry. Talbot’s slant is to indicate that the Parkland shooting may have finally changed the country’s mood to get serious about gun control. But she has a word of caution:
Still, gun-control advocates might not want to place too much hope in any single moment, even this one. They will have to play a long game, made up of many moments.
Interesting how Talbot inadvertently reveals the game that the powerful forces behind mainstream media have been playing all along.
