Note that this press charade has been going on for many years. Following the 2012 gun massacre at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, President Barack Obama put the full weight of the White House behind trying to pass a background check bill. Despite the mass murder of children and teachers, Obama couldn’t get most Republican senators to budge. “There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it,” explained Sen. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania, who was one of just four Republicans who voted for the compromise bill. In the end, the gun bill's failure didn't spark much anger in the press.
What it did produce was endless commentary about how the gun vote was nearly entirely Obama's fault—how he didn't know how to use the levers of power inside Washington and remained hopelessly incapable of working across the aisle with honest brokers in the GOP. In the end, the background check failure was portrayed as a process story, and a process story that featured Obama as the big loser. Nine out of 10 Republican senators refused to support a bill that nine out of 10 Americans supported, but that was Obama'a fault?
Meanwhile today, the press seems overly anxious to portray Republicans as responding to criticism and standing poised to spring into action to help curb gun violence. "Republicans who have long resisted gun restrictions appear rattled," the New York Times stressed in a report that could identify a grand total of five Republican elected officials who seemed to suggest they were willing to supporting a relatively minor new gun safety law, a so-called "red-flag" bill which would give law enforcement the power to take away guns from people deemed to be dangerous by a judge.
Indeed, the narrative that Republicans "appear rattled" and will soon act decisively represents more fantasy than reality, and journalists ought to understand that over the last decade there is literally no common-sense gun legislation that Republicans, at the behest of the NRA, are willing to support. And that the minimal chatter this week among a very small handful of Republicans absolutely does not reflect the institutional strategy of the GOP regarding guns.
We just went through this GOP charade following the Parkland Florida, school gun massacre where 17 students and faculty members were murdered. Back then some Republicans, led by Donald Trump, initially and tentatively mouthed words of encouragement regarding gun safety laws, only to the have most bills completely shut down by the GOP-controlled Senate, after Trump met privately with NRA officials. Against that recent backdrop reporters are actually going to take seriously passive comments from Republicans about enacting new laws? The whole thing seems like a cruel Charlie Brown/Lucy exercise.
Yet a CNBC report this week simply typed up Trump's quote about supporting a background check bill without including any context regarding how last year he publicly supported the same initiative, only to recant everything.
Other crucial context that's often missing from news reports is just how staggeringly large and sweeping public support is in favor of news guns laws. "Most Americans support such efforts, polls show," noted the New York Times, massively downplaying the nearly universal support for background check bills sponsored by Democrats. It's virtually impossible to find a single public policy issue in this country that's as widely supported as gun reform, including background checks.
But that crucial fact often gets glossed over, as the press blames "Congress" for failing to act, instead of radical obstructionist Republicans.
Eric Boehlert is a veteran progressive writer and media analyst, formerly with Media Matters and Salon. He is the author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush and Bloggers on the Bus. You can follow him on Twitter @EricBoehlert.
This post was written and reported through our Daily Kos freelance program.
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