Tennessee Two-Step: The Gun Story Matt Lauer Won't Cover

Cam Edwards at NRANews.com offered something interesting to add to the Geoff Dickens list of Matt Lauer's frequent episodes of anti-gun bias. In August 2000, Lauer interviewed Knoxville, Tennessee auto dealer Greg Lambert about how apparently outrageous it was that Lambert offered guns as part of his car sales pitch. (I break down laughing when Lauer says "Even children who come to your dealership are going to get a free water pistol, and some people say that's just going too far.")

But here's the Greg Lambert story Matt Lauer hasn't done. In November 2006, Lambert used his own gun to defend himself against a 19-year-old man who came to buy a car, and then decided to hold him up. When faced with Lambert's gun, the man fled and was later arrested. (A Knoxville TV station offered early details here.) The Knoxville News Sentinel then added that the county sheriff was charging the assailant with a murder that occurred ten hours earlier.

Gun-rights advocates call this an "armed citizen" story -- when law-abiding gun owners use their weapons in self-defense against violent criminals -- and if this kind of story sounds like it would never make a network newscast, it usually doesn't. Our 2000 gun-coverage study by Geoff Dickens made that point. You would think that NBC would feel especially responsible for a new follow-up on the Greg Lambert story, since they pounced all over him six and a half years ago.