Apparently, Rupert Murdoch doesn’t want to risk alienating his Fox News viewers with any call for gun control on the air but he’s using his New York Post newspaper to make a loud plea. Sadly, Fox News has already shot down the notion (pardon the pun).
Earlier, the top of NYPost.com showed a print-edition headline saying, “President Trump, America is scared and we need bold action. It’s time to BAN WEAPONS OF WAR.”
The editorial begins with a grim summary, followed by a call for action:
Two mass shootings within 24 hours in El Paso and Dayton, days after the Garlic Festival killings. Three months after Virginia Beach, six months after Aurora, nine months after Thousand Oaks, 10 months after Tree of Life, 15 months after Santa Fe High School, 18 months after Parkland and in the wake of larger horrors like the Vegas concert and Pulse nightclub massacres.
…
America is terrified.
President Trump, you are positioned to assuage that fear. On gun control, you are a pragmatic centrist, someone who knows there is a vast majority of Americans who are not to the extreme left or right on this issue. They just want the killings to stop.
Whether this editorial will have any effect on Trump remains to be seen.
However, Fox News has already worked to discredit it. On this morning’s Fox & Friends, cohost Steve Doocy held up a copy of the paper and said, “No doubt there will be calls for more laws." He didn’t sound terribly supportive. A banner on the lower third of the screen blared, “POLITICIZING TRAGEDY.” As if Fox hasn’t been doing that.
We saw a clip of former Congressman, current Fox News contributor Trey Gowdy suggesting he might be open to stricter gun laws if “the causal scientific link” to better safety can be shown. “But just more laws that are not going to be enforced is a panacea [sic] and it’s not gonna work,” he lectured. But then he added, “Show me a law to prevent the next Sandy Hook and sign me up as a husband and father … I’ll give up any other right I have.”
There is evidence. In March, 2018, after the Parkland, Florida massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Vox reported on a series of studies showing that gun control works. Even the Post's Editorial Board put forth some: “One of the big reasons that crime has fallen so far in New York City is a crackdown on guns. Their ownership is restricted, and the NYPD is focused on getting illegal ones off the street," it stated.
You have to wonder whether Gowdy did any actual research before falsely suggesting to right-wingers that there’s no already-available evidence to support gun control while, at the same time, holding himself up as open to it.
Not surprisingly, not one of the three Fox & Friends cohosts mentioned any studies or science. Instead, cohost Pete Hegseth said, “There’s so many sides to all of these stories” as a pretext to promote pro-gun talking points with the suggestion it has the same weight as pro-control arguments.
As Doocy and cohost Ainsley Earhardt nodded, Hegseth blamed the gun-free policy at the El Paso Walmart for the tragedy with only his own “some people say” supposition as evidence that an even bigger gunfight would have saved lives.
HEGSETH: Some people want to ban guns, other people point out the fact that the mall and the Walmart where the shooting happened in Texas were gun-free zones, where guns were banned. So people wonder, "Hey, this is Texas. We would expect someone to be immediately shooting back." Well not in a place where you're told you can't have a personal firearm. So it's not as simple as saying ban weapons of war. Some people would say "Hey, I as an individual should have the right to defend myself," myself included. So I don't know where we go from here, because people are pretty invested in views of the world.
Watch Fox & Friends send a clear message to Murdoch that they’re not going for any gun control – at least not yet. It’s below, from the August 5, 2019 Fox & Friends via Media Matters.
WORLD: “We have those. We don’t have mass shootings.”
USA: “Then it’s a video game issue.”
WORLD: “We have those. We don’t have mass shootings.”
USA: “Well, it’s very complex.”
WORLD: “No, it’s not. It’s your gun laws.”
USA: “Prayer in school?”
WORLD: “God, you’re stupid.”