No matter how much you hate the media, you don't hate them enough.
This was repeated endlessly during the campaign, but it originated before it and it will continue to be uttered now that we're about to have Trump in the Oval Office again. The reason for that is so many in the media like to pretend they're holier than thou, all while outright lying about the stories they're reporting on. Take, for example, a recent report in Arizona.
See, the report argued that guns are responsible for killing kids. They're not, of course, and the report in question goes into a lot more than that.
However, it bothered a couple of lawmakers who lashed out at how a state agency was pushing to infringe on people's Second Amendment rights. If that was in the report, then there's every reason for them to be upset.
But at least one state media voice took issue with it.
A state report says fewer Arizona kids would die if they had no access to guns. Two state lawmakers are furious and demanding action to protect, well ... https://t.co/t1Cuy3MXgB via @azcentral
— Laurie Roberts (@LaurieRoberts) January 7, 2025
In that piece, Roberts here offers this:
“We are appalled that the CFRT, speaking on behalf of the Arizona Department of Health Services, is actually advocating for stripping Arizonans of their Second Amendment rights in their own homes,” the two Prescott-area Republicans fumed in a Monday letter to DHS Executive Director Jennie Cunico.
In their letter, first reported by the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers, the lawmakers called the plan “radical” and “irrational,” noting that it would “violate the Constitutional rights of millions of Arizonans.”
Or not, as it turns out.
The Child Fatality Review Team didn’t recommend that Gov. Katie Hobbs send out jackbooted thugs to start kicking in doors and seizing firearms.
It simply noted — logically — that guns are the second leading cause of accidental death in children, so parents ought to get rid of them or, in the alternative, store them safely.
Oh, well, that's terrible. Why would state lawmakers lie like that.
Well, they didn't. It was Roberts who was lying.
(3) The state should implement policies, programs, and initiatives focused on responsible firearm access and ownership. This could include:104,105
a. Requiring mental health screening and gun safety training as part of the firearm purchasing process
b. Licensing and tracking firearm ownership
c. Increase public awareness of reporting stolen firearms and establish penalties for failing to report.
No, that's not remotely the same as sending out jackbooted thugs to bust down doors, but no one claimed it was. These are very much gun control policies that infringe on people's right to keep and bear arms.
Licensing and tracking, especially, are problematic because the only reason to track gun ownership is to eventually confiscate those guns. Even the mandatory reporting effort listed in the third point is an infringement on gun rights.
Roberts pretended that nothing in the report was really related to gun control, only some suggestions that maybe people shouldn't have guns or, at a minimum, keep them secured. That's not remotely where things ended, though. This calls for very particular gun control policies that are beyond what even many anti-gun activists will actively campaign for.
This story from a different outlet does a lot of the same stuff, pretending that licenses, mental health screening requirements, mandatory safety classes, and all of that isn't an infringement of any significant note, that it doesn't strip people of their right to keep and bear arms by treating it like it's really a privilege.
No matter how much you hate the media, you don't hate them enough.