Ben Shapiro- On Christmas Eve, seven people were shot in the city of Chicago. The media made little mention of the shootings, since they’re now routine in Chicago — the city has seen some 500 shootings in 2012 alone. The vast majority of the shooters are black, and the vast majority of the victims are black. Many of the victims are under the age of 18: Anton Sanders, 15, shot on Jan. 20; Deshun Winfert, 15, shot on Feb. 5; Damion Rolle, 14, shot on Feb. 21; George Howard and Albert Guyton, both 15, shot on Feb. 27 and Feb. 28; the list goes on. A few are under age 10. You’ve never heard of any of them.
But when an evil white person with a history of mental instability shoots up a school, killing 20 children, most of whom were white, the media is suddenly concerned with gun control.
Perhaps that’s because the media is racist. Or perhaps it’s something else. If the media pays attention to the shootings in Chicago, it will have to talk about the fact that Chicago is heavily gun controlled. It will have to discuss the fact that guns are illegally flowing into areas of heavy gun violence. And it will have to talk about the impact of social ills like single motherhood, gang recruitment and poor public education.
Instead, the media focuses on Sandy Hook, Aurora and Columbine. Focusing on such statistically aberrant scenarios rather than the more widespread gun violence that plagues our cities allows the media to target one of its most hated groups: the National Rifle Association.
This is what the left does: they pick a target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it. They use individual cases as a baton to wield against groups they hate. The Trayvon Martin case was used as a club against the American Legislative Exchange Council for their support of “Stand Your Ground” laws — even though George Zimmerman never claimed “Stand Your Ground.” The war on women was used as a club against Komen for the Cure — even though Komen cares for more women than Planned Parenthood ever will. The left uses specific cases to destroy important institutions. It makes their future battles far easier.
That’s what they’ve done here. The left’s attack on the NRA is ludicrous. Neither the Sandy Hook massacre perpetrator, Adam Lanza, nor his mother, Nancy Lanza, was a member. The state of Connecticut has long rejected the NRA’s legislative influence. The NRA takes zero — (SET ITAL) zero (END ITAL) — tax dollars. Yet somehow, the NRA has been targeted as the root of all evil.
