Aurora theater shooting

Of all the political angles that might be played in connection with the Aurora theater shooting, surely racism would be a card too far, right?

Wrong. Subbing for Ed Schultz on MSNBC tonight, Michael Eric Dyson managed to suggest that James Holmes would have attracted the attention of the authorities earlier had he been, yup, "a Muslim or another minority."  Until he twisted her arm, it was too much even for Dyson's super-lib guest, Illinois congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.  View the video after the jump.

Liberals like Melissa Harris-Perry savor vigorous debate about guns, provided that it excludes what they don't want to talk about.

For example, whether gun laws they hold so dear make our lives less safe. (video after page break)

He's not exactly a poster child but apparently rapper and heavy metal singer Tracy Marrow (stage name Ice-T) is a supporter of gun rights.

In an interview with a British television channel, Marrow stood up for the Second Amendment saying that the right to bear arms is "the last form of defense against tyranny" and not merely for hunting. Video and transcript below.

Appearing on Monday's Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, Time magazine editor-at-large Mark Halperin confessed a broad media consensus to curtail gun rights: "If you walk the halls of most major news organizations or of the OEOB at the White House or West Wing, I think you'd find overwhelming sentiment that there should be stricter gun control laws in the United States." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

On Monday's CBS This Morning, Norah O'Donnell glossed over President Barack Obama's record of supporting gun control when she claimed that "Mitt Romney, in some ways, has been more for gun control than Barack Obama...He signed, as governor...a law, to ban assault weapons, and he only just recently joined the NRA." O'Donnell also played up that the President has apparently "disappointed gun control advocates." [audio available here; video below the jump]

In an unsigned 2009 report, the correspondent's own network actually acknowledged that Obama supported gun control as an Illinois state senator, a U.S. senator, and as a presidential candidate in 2008. Even before holding elected office, the Democrat sat on the board of a foundation that granted just under $2.7 million to gun control organizations.

CNN pushed for more gun control on the very day of the Aurora shootings – to the dismay of media critic Howard Kurtz – and host Candy Crowley continued the fight on Sunday and Monday.

In her Monday report, Crowley stressed the lack of "courage" – borrowing from a one gun control advocate – in today's Democratic Party to pursue firearms regulation. And when Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) noted the lack of outrage over gun violence, Crowley agreed, "She's right." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Seizing on the Colorado theater shooting to push for stricter gun laws, on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie teased an upcoming story: "...an undercover report that reveals just how easy it can be for anyone, even violent criminals, to buy assault weapons, no questions asked." Later introducing the segment, she fretted: "...it turns out Colorado has some of the weakest gun laws in the country." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen began his hidden camera expose of online gun selling by admitting that it had little to do with the circumstances surrounding the Colorado tragedy: "It turns out this shooter, this alleged shooter in Colorado, had no rap sheet, so he was able to buy his guns in a store legally." Rossen quickly added: "But even if he had a violent criminal record he still could have bought them."

Americans trust guns more than they do, God, Washington Post "On Faith" contributor Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite insists in her July 22 post. The liberal theologian preaches for the need to correct the idolatry by, you guessed it, more gun control, just as she did back during Holy Week.

Brooks Thistlethwaite, a senior fellow for the liberal Center for American Progress, returned to her shtick of twisting Christian Scripture to insist upon liberal policy prescriptions, in this case, the disarming of law-abiding civilians (emphasis mine):

Good Morning America Sunday co-host Bianna Golodryga played up calls by liberal Mayor Michael Bloomberg for more gun control in the wake of Friday's mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. This occurred even as George Stephanopoulos conceded that no new gun control legislation would be passed.

Golodryga touted, "One person who is very outspoken about it, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that no other developed country in the world has this issue that we do." Stephanopoulos parroted, "That's exactly right." This segment occurred just two days after Stephanopoulos and Brian Ross smeared the Tea Party as possibly being connected to the mass killing.

In his Sunday show Reliable Sources, CNN host Howard Kurtz smacked the network for debating gun control less than 24 hours after Friday's tragic Aurora shooting.

"I feel so strongly about this – how about waiting a decent interval, maybe a day, until, you know, the families have had a time to absorb the shock, the victims have been identified," opined Kurtz, after calling out CNN by name. "Why this rush to do it immediately?" [Video below the break.]

Appearing on the Saturday, July 21, Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC, NBC correspondent Michael Isikoff - formerly of Newsweek - made a point of noting that one of the guns used in the Aurora theater massacre used to be illegal under the assault weapons ban, as if shooter James Holmes could not simply have purchased a different gun to assist in his murder spree.

Isikoff asserted that the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, "was lifted under President Bush," and noted that President Obama had "pledged during his campaign to restore it" but that "he has dropped that issue." Isikoff:

Appearing as a panel member on the Sunday, July 22, Melissa Harris-Perry show, MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter - formerly of Newsweek - charged that the NRA has "imposed" a "gag order" that makes politicians afraid to discuss enacting more gun control.

He went on to advise that those who support more gun laws should say to the NRA that "We're not going to let you silence us."

As NewsBusters previously reported, ABC's Brian Ross on Friday falsely accused a Tea Party member of being the "James Holmes" that orchestrated the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado.

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru said Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos shares some of the blame for not challenging Ross about his "awfully thin" assertion (video follows with transcript and commentary):

"Seinfeld" star Jason "George Costanza" Alexander took to Twitter to write one of those typical Hollywood responds to a mass-shooting with your usual gun-control arguments. But in the middle, Alexander launched into attack on uncompromising Tea Party conservatives.

After suggesting he's received tweets from the "extreme right" with dark overtones of government control, he also suggested "these people" are okay with the government enslaving "liberals, homosexuals, and democrats" -- but not "God-fearing" militia types:

There has yet to be any evidence circumstantial or otherwise to indicate that James Holmes had a political motivation or enticement to murder innocent people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, Friday.

Despite this, in the middle of a panel discussion about this massacre Sunday, NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory brought up former President Bill Clinton's words following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that most at the time felt were directed at conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Correction: Moyers unleashed on the NRA and America in a "video essay" on the Moyers & Company website, but not on the July 20 PBS program.

With the first heart-breaking headlines out of Colorado, gun-rights advocates just had to know that leftist lecturers in our media would mount their soap boxes and trash this country for its gun culture and trash the National Rifle Association as an "enabler of death -- paranoid, delusional, and as venomous as a scorpion."

But it's additionally sad that the soap box in this case is paid for by taxpayers. On the website for his show Moyers & Company, 78-year-old PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers reached back to America's inhumane and vicious Westward expansion, when so many blood-thirsty Americans were killed because of their ineptitude with firearms:

CNN's Candy Crowley got a much-needed education Sunday on the uselessness and futility of stricter gun laws in the wake of Friday's movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado.

As she pushed Governor John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) to agree that tighter gun restrictions are needed to prevent such incidents in the future, the Democrat pushed back, "If there were no assault weapons available, there were no this or no that, this guy’s going to find something...He’s going to know how to create a bomb" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Saturday's Today show, as NBC correspondent Michael Isikoff - formelry of Newsweek - filed a report on the drive to make people safer at movie theaters after the Aurora massacre, heconcluded his report by suggesting that, because "the powerful National Rifle Association has blocked any move for stricter gun laws," people will have to settle for "beefed-up security and greater vigilance," as if the NRA were preventing people from being safer.

Toward the end of the report, Isikoff relayed the complaint of gun control activists that it is too easy to obtain certain types of guns. Isikoff:

"Gun control advocates sputter at their own impotence."

Such was the shocking opening sentence of a piece published by the Associated Press moments ago addressing the political aftermath of the tragic shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

CNN anchor Piers Morgan devoted a considerable portion of his Friday program to pushing for more gun control, breaking with those who have advised delaying such talk until after a period of mourning for shooting victims in Aurora, Colorado.

Morgan not only began Piers Morgan Tonight with a "Piers' Special Commentary" calling for more gun laws, but, later in the program, he included three guests who argued in favor of more gun control, with only one to argue against, with whom the CNN host ended up becoming agitated as Denver University Professor David Kopel scolded Morgan for not waiting longer before launching into a divisive political debate.

Shortly after beginning the show, Morgan played a clip of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg advising the presidential candidates to talk about the gun control issue, and then began his commentary:

As NewsBusters previously reported, ABC's Brian Ross on Friday falsely accused a Tea Party member of being the "James" Holmes that orchestrated the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado.

"Jim" Holmes during an interview with the Daily Caller had some harsh words for his accuser saying, "What kind of idiot makes that kind of statement?”

CNN's Piers Morgan spent much of his show Friday advocating for stricter gun laws in the wake of the massacre in Aurora, Colorado.

Bucking this activism was Denver University law professor David Kopel who scolded his host, "I think this is the wrong night to be doing this. And I really wish you'd waited to have this segment until after the funerals" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Leave it to HBO's Bill Maher to use the massacre in Aurora, Colorado, to attack the belief in American exceptionalism.

On Friday, the vulgar comedian took to his Twitter account to claim that James Holmes' actions should be a "reminder that so many of the things that make us exceptional these days are bad":

Poor David Espo and Nancy Benac. A six-paragraph squib this morning headlined "Calls for gun control stir little support" at the wire service's national site and "Despite a string of high-profile shootings, calls for gun control stir little support" at Newser.com really should have been titled "Why Aren't You Guys Politicizing This, D**nit?"

The two AP "reporters" bitterly wail and gnash their teeth over how little outcry there has been for stricter gun laws after the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre (shown in full because of its brevity and subsequent later expansion, to be discussed later in this post, and for fair use and discussion purposes).

Brian Ross is not the only blameworthy party in the irresponsible smear of a 52 year-old Tea Party activist as the possible perpetrator of the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre early Friday. Everyone on the set of ABC's Good Morning America could have said "wait, this is premature and irresponsible" -- and didn't.

GMA co-host and former Bill Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos's response to Ross's identification of 52 year-old "Jim Holmes" as perhaps the same "James Holmes" who had been arrested earlier that morning arguably added legitimacy to Ross's speculation: "OK, we'll keep looking at that. Brian Ross, thanks very much." As if they would actually find more of a tie-in, which of course they didnt. In his column yesterday, the underappreciated John Kass at the Chicago Tribune succinctly described Stephanopoulos's likely mindset, as well as how ABC was originally hoping to blame "social media" for Ross's GMA team-assisted smear (bolds are mine):

On a day where politics was supposed to take a back seat to "prayer and reflection" in the wake of a deadly Colorado shooting, CNN let liberal mayors drive the debate about gun control on Friday afternoon.

"[W]hy hasn't your party, the Democratic party done more to legislate guns?" anchor Brooke Baldwin pressed Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. CNN also played a clip of Mayor Michael Bloomberg calling on President Obama and Mitt Romney to speak out about guns. [MP3 audio here; video follows page break]