This post is not about gun control or the insane rantings of "Joe the Plumber" which have been covered exhaustively on Daily Kos. No this is about the enabling media frenzy that feeds ever more loners with second amendment access to guns.
MEDIA PORN, or the right to broadcast anything and everything because of the media's first amendment rights.
Once XXXXXX XXXXXX (deliberate refusal to name a screwed up killer) committed his acts of violence, the media was all over who he was. Within an hour we knew he had a famous father. An hour after that, we started hearing about his manifesto. By the next day XXXXXX's video manifesto was being played on channels everywhere.
After another 48 hours, we got to meet family members, former classmates, learned where he went to kindergarten, grade school, high school, and what homes he lived in.
The gossip news shows have already begun their "Exclusive Looks Into The Mind Of A Killer" segments that run daily. I expect Nancy Grace will be coming out with an expose on the parental failure of XXXXXX's parents.
Media Porn at its finest.
Immortalizing the despicable acts by XXXXXX does nothing to prevent another psychopath from perpetrating a similar crime. It does however reinforce the idea that if you do something this horrific, you too can be immortalized by the media.
The media takes its playbook from the same source as the NRA cloaking itself in the first amendment. But just because you can do a thing,does not mean you should do that thing.
I believe in the first amendment "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." But that does not mean I also think the press doesn't also have an obligation to temper its rights if that will prevent future occurrences. To pretend your reporting does not contribute to future violence is ridiculous.
The same can be said of the second amendment. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." With emphasis on the "well regulated militia." To believe as some of these so called "Patriot" groups do that owning multiple AK-47's will protect them from a government with infrared equipped drones capable of launching missiles from beyond your ability to see them is ludicrous. Thanks to the Snowden revelations, we now know any security agency can remotely turn on your cell phone or computer and listen in or see through the built in cameras what you are doing.
For the media to say they have an obligation to print anything and everything because of their first amendment rights, puts them on the same shaky platform of the second amendment groups willing to stand on the bodies of children to proclaim their second amendment rights.
Media Porn! Just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you have to do a thing.