As the Crime Prevention Research Center has pointed out many, many times, television crime shows seem to think criminals are constantly using machine guns to commit crime. In real life, criminals generally use machine guns so rarely that a 2016 survey of prison inmates only broke down the numbers for uses in crime of handguns (11.2%), rifles (0.8%), and shotguns (1.1%). There are few rifles, and the survey did not even mention fully automatic weapons. A similar finding is available from the FBI UCR report where 2.6% of all murders involve rifles of any type and 0.3% of all murders involve unspecified “other guns.” There is a reason for that. Since 1934, there was only one possible known use ever of a civilian using a machine gun in a murder. And even before 1934, they were very rare.
Here are a couple more examples from Amazon’s new “Reacher” Season 1, Episode 8 (February 3, 2022).
More examples of this type of bias are available here.
Here is a video on Hollywood’s bias against guns.
Shows from the current season.
NBC’s Chicago PD (Season 9): E3, October 6, 2021
NBC’s The Blacklist (Season 9): Episode 10, January 10, 2022
NBC’s Endgame (Season 1): Episode 1, February 21, 2022.
CBS’ The Equalizer (Season 2): E1, Oct 10, 2021
CBS’s “FBI: Most Wanted” (Season 3) E1 September 28th, 2021 & E2 September 28th, 2021, Episode 12, February 1, 2022
CBS’s S.W.A.T. (Season 5) E1 October 1, 2021, E2, Oct 08, 2021, E7, December 3, 2021, E10, January 10, 2022.
CBS’s “FBI: International” (Season 1) E2, September 28th, 2021. In another “FBI: International” (S1 E1) criminals were shown carrying machine guns but not using them. E5, November 2, 2021.
From past seasons, here are some of the shows with criminals using machine guns (this is not meant to be a complete list):
ABC’s The Rookie (Season 3): Episode 11 April 18, 2021; Episode 12 April 25, 2021; Episode 14 May 9, 2021; Episode 3, January 17, 2021
NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime (Season 1): Episodes 1 & 2, April 1 and 8, 2021
CBS’s Bull (Season 5): E6, January 18 2021
CBS’s FBI Most Wanted (Season 2): E4 January 19, 2021, E5 January 26, 2021.
CBS’ Coyote (Season 1): E2 January 7, 2021 and E5 January 7, 2021
CBS’ SWAT (Season 4): E7 Jan 13, 2021, E8 January 27, 2021, E9 Feb 17 2021
CBS’s Blue Bloods (Season 11): Episode 16, May 14, 2021
CBS’ Magnum PI (Season 3): E3 Dec 11 2020; Episode 7, February 5, 2021
CBS’ The FBI (Season 3): E1 Nov 17 2020, E4 Jan 24, 2021
CBS’s NCIS LA (Season 12): Episode 8, January 10, 2021
NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime (Season 1): Episodes 1 & 2, April 1 and 8, 2021
NBC’s The Blacklist (Season 8): Episode 1, November 13, 2020
NBC’s Chicago PD (Season 8): Episode 7, February 17, 2021
In last years’ season (2019-2020), we haven’t been keeping close track, but other recent examples include:
CBS’ SWAT (Season 3): E11 January 15, 2020; E21 May 20, 2020
In last years’ season (2019-2020), we haven’t been keeping close track, but other recent examples include:
CBS’ SWAT (Season 3): E11 January 15, 2020; E21 May 20, 2020
CBS’ FBI (Season 2): E12 January 14, 2020; Episode 18, March 24, 2020
Fox’s Deputy (Season 1): E1 January 2, 2020
FBI: Most Wanted (Season 1): Episode 4, January 28, 2020; Episode 6, February 18, 2020, Episode 9, March 24, 2020
Chicago PD (Season 7): Episode 10 January 8, 2020; Episode 16, March 4, 2020; Season 7, Episode 17, March 18, 2020; Episode 20, April 15 2020
Hawaii Five-O, Season 10, Episode 18, February 28, 2020; Episode 20, March 13, 2020; Episode 21, March 27, 2020
Magnum PI, Season 2, Episode 18, May 1, 2020
Blue Bloods, Season 10, Episode 19, May 1, 2020
The Blacklist, Season 7, Episode 18, May 8, 2020
Here is a list of shows from the 2018-19 television season that showed criminals using machine guns.
The Rookie (Season1): E2, E4, E9, E17, E20
Magnum PI (Season 1): E1, E15
Chicago P.D. (Season 6): E14
Other examples of television media bias on this particular point can be found here.
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