Dr. John Lott’s newest piece at The Hill newspaper starts this way.
If you can’t beat the other side’s arguments, silence them.
The idea is to keep yelling that the NRA is racist, that they are murderers and have “blood on their hands,” that they are a “terrorist organization” that they won’t support even simple measures to save lives. At the Oscars last night, wave after wave of the “cool people” called for banning guns. It doesn’t matter that the people doing the yelling are pushing proposals that wouldn’t save lives. Or that the people at the Oscars who called for banning guns were themselves protected by a phalanx of 500 armed guards. With a media that refuses to let the intellectual arguments on the other side get through, it might be an approach that works.
While liberals protest that even requiring a free voter ID is racist because it discourages minorities from voting, they see no problem making concealed handgun permits cost $450 in Illinois or even more in other heavily Democratic states such as California, Connecticut or New Jersey. When Democrats have discretion on who gets permits, very few blacks, Hispanics or women seem to qualify. After each mass public shooting, they call for expensive background checks on private transfers even though this wouldn’t have prevented a single mass public shooting in this century. They shout down proposals that would make a difference, such as arming school staff and teachers.
The media’s political bias clearly shows up even in movie reviews. newly released “Death Wish,” starring Bruce Willis, illustrates how a man is forced to use a gun to take on urban crime when the police fail to do their job. The reviewers hate the movie, with only 14 percent rating it fresh according to Rotten Tomatoes. The movie was slammed for being, “As subtle as an NRA recruitment video.” Only 8 percent of top critics rated it fresh. But the audiences loved it, giving it an 85 percent rating. Of all of the 10,000-plus movies rated since 1970, Willis’ movie is tied for 11th in the largest gap between critics and audience scores. It is tied for the second largest gap when the audience is compared only with top critics.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Michael Bloomberg’s gun control groups launched a petition to get NRA TV removed from AppleTV, Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku. His group’s petition includes language such as, “NRA TV promotes dangerous conspiracy theories, racially charged rhetoric, and violent demonization of the NRA’s political opponents.” Many companies have already succumbed to this pressure, with fifteen companies ranging from Alamo and Avis rental cars to Best Western and Wyndham Hotels ending their discounts to NRA members.
Gun control organizations are allowed to pick whom they debate on television and radio shows. I know this from personal experience. On a half dozen occasions, I have been asked to appear on CNN or elsewhere, only then to be told that I’m out because the representative from Bloomberg’s group wouldn’t appear with me on the show. Only a couple of producers have stood up to these tactics, but the vast majority let gun control groups have their way. When I have published opinion pieces at publications such as The Los Angeles Times and New York Times, the editors are deluged with organized email and telephone campaigns complaining of their decisions to run my pieces. . . . .
The rest of the piece is available here.
“On a half dozen occasions, I have been asked to appear on CNN or elsewhere, only then to be told that I’m out because the representative from Bloomberg’s group wouldn’t appear with me on the show. ”
You should go to the Rubin Report and tell your story.
Antonia Okafor and Dave Rubin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnHMNShKz9k
As the critic who wrote “As subtle as an NRA recruiting video” and a 35 year veteran of reviewing films, let me correct the “passing grade” you’re giving your readers, along with your feed-their-delusion spin on “Death Wish.” A Cinemascore of 85 from an audience amped up to go see a revenge with guns thrillers falls somewhere between “OK” to “meh.” The movie bombed at the box office. It was not previewed for critics because the studio knew it was crap, and knew the only people going to see it would be mouth-breathers and not in very big numbers. You can lie to your readers, comrade, until the Black Helicopters swoop in and take their AK/AR shrinking-penis-compensaters. But you and your masters in the Kremlin do them no favors when you do.
It was previewed before it was released. There were over 60 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes that had been written before the movie was released. As noted in our other post on this movie, the Cinemascore was much higher than a lot of movies that got much higher Rotten Tomatoes scores from critics. Indeed, this gap between audience and critics is one of the highest recorded since 1970, top 11 for all critics and tied for second for top critics.
https://crimeresearch.org/2018/03/political-bias-guns-gap-movie-review-audience-scores-huge-bruce-willis-death-wish/
“the only people going to see it would be mouth-breathers”
Well Roger, you’ve certainly convinced me with your intelligence and sparkling irrefutable arguments.
let me be critic of your reply :”You can lie to your readers, comrade, until the Black Helicopters swoop in and take their AK/AR shrinking-penis-compensaters. ” so basically everybody who dosen’t agree with you is a penis compensater , a racist a bigot etc … then you proceed to associate the writer to russians … @lol , i have rarely heard of such a brainwased person , at least normal people know that not everybody works for the kremlin … which basically is the least of offenders when it comes to politics of foreign countries. but i guess that telling you that you are a brainwashed moron with not one iota of originality spewing mass media bullshit will have you retract to your safe space. At least if you had some originality … 😛 not even. “35 year veteran of reviewing films” : lol like spouting what everybody else is saying is “actual review”. anyway his point still stands : left is a cry baby screaming like a kid who dropped his lollipop.