Over the past few weeks, we’ve extensively covered the chaos caused by the new gun control measures signed into law by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey; from the new (and yet-to-be-written) training mandates for those wanting to purchase and possess a handgun to the potential for a near-total ban on the sale of rifles and shotguns, which led to a huge run on firearms in the days before the new law took effect on August 1st.
Yet the news media in Massachusetts has broadly ignored the problems that H. 4885 has already created in favor of towing the Democratic party line and talking up the supposed benefits of new infringements.
State Representative Bud Williams and Families Against Violence met with Springfield residents to discuss a new “Gun Law” that aims to decrease the number of guns in the city.
This landmark Firearm Safety Reform Bill signed by Governor Maura Healey on July 30th is the state’s most significant gun safety legislation in ten years. It includes restrictions on the sale of ghost guns, revisions to the definition of assault-style firearms, and limitations on carrying firearms into polling places and government buildings.
Representative Williams says this law will help to address gun violence in Springfield’s urban areas. “More the more guns off the street, the less likely there will be encounters. We have broad daylight shootings. Broad daylight. Doug Moreland Street, about a month ago, broad daylight, just shooting. So people are really held captive in their own homes. It’s some parts of the city aren’t safe,” expressed Williams.
Williams made some pretty audacious claims, and WWLP-TV in Springfield, Massachusetts allowed them to run without any sort of pushback from Second Amendment advocates who have a very different story to tell.
Even if the station’s news team didn’t want to give the folks at GOAL or Commonwealth 2A any airtime, they could still have asked some tough but fair questions of the representative on their own:
– How will this law “get guns off the street”?
– Does the bill impact legal gun owners as much, or more, than those illegally possessing firearms?
– Did supporters of the bill intentionally create unfunded mandates for police?
– How will, for instance, prohibiting non-resident youth hunting address violence in urban areas?
– How many lawful gun owners have been arrested and charged with a shooting in Springfield this year?
– If some parts of the city “aren’t safe”, what does that say about the efficacy of the gun control laws that were already in place across the state?
Those aren’t “gotcha” questions. They’re the type of things that Massachusetts gun owners are wondering these days, and WWLP-TV was in a perfect position to press the state representative for a substantive answer. Instead, they let him bloviate unchallenged about the supposed benefit of the new restrictions.
I know that the vast majority of reporters don’t have any first-hand experience with gun ownership. Frankly, that’s all the more reason to reach out to a gun store owner, firearms instructor, or Second Amendment advocate to respond to the lawmaker’s claims, especially if the reporter isn’t going to challenge those claims directly.
The blatant pro-gun control bias displayed by WWLP-TV is a perfect example of why many gun owners don’t trust the media. It’s one thing to be ignorant about the difference between a semi-automatic rifle and a full-auto machine gun. Ignorance, after all, can be corrected with a little education. But when the media refuses to acknowledge the problems that are already evident, and chooses instead to solely focus on the pontifications of an anti-gun politician, it’s not an issue of ignorance. Rather, it’s the innate hostility towards the Second Amendment that’s on display.
