Piers Morgan

In an interview with media reporter Dylan Byers, Piers Morgan has admitted what has become painfully obvious to observers of his program: the CNN host is desperate to save his job by ginning up any sort of controversy he can to attract attention to himself.

Even though he freely admits he’s seeking ratings, it appears that pointing out Morgan’s pathetic ploy is very irritating to him. In the interview, he lashed out at his predecessor Larry King who said that Morgan has made his show more about himself more than his guests: “I think he just slightly needs to button it, because he’s talking nonsense. The reason we’re different is, I’m a journalist and he’s not. Larry isn’t a journalist, never has been.”

Despite CNN waging a crusade for gun control over the past month, and host Piers Morgan drawing attention with his incessant activism and bullying of his opponents on the gun issue, CNN’s own poll shows that support for some gun control measures has dropped over the past month.

CNN.com reported on its poll Wednesday: "According to the survey, 56% support a ban on semi-automatic guns, but that's down from 62% in a CNN poll taken in the days after the shooting at Sandy Hook. The same is true for a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips - 62% in December, down to 58% now - as well as a requirement for all gun owners to register their firearms with the local government - 78% last month, down to 69% now."

Despite Piers Morgan's consistent advocacy, CNN's own polls show support for certain gun laws down from a month ago. That didn't stop Morgan from targeting two female gun rights advocates on his Wednesday night show, asking absurd questions, constantly interrupting them, and throwing a juvenile hissy fit.

"Where does it say you can have an assault weapon that can fire 100 bullets in a minute in your Constitution?" Morgan posed to Tea Party News guest Scottie Hughes. " Do you want the right to have a tank?" he followed up. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN host and gun control advocate Piers Morgan kept smearing gun rights advocates after President Obama announced his proposals on guns Wednesday. CNN's Wolf Blitzer was interviewing a GOP Texas state representative, who had proposed a bill that could make a felony any enforcement of a federal ban on semi-automatic guns or magazines within the state of Texas.

"Texas Republican congressman Steve Toth on CNN right now is everything that's wrong with America re guns. A stupid, dangerous man," Morgan ranted on Twitter. Blitzer interviewed Toth shortly after Obama's announcement and had tough questions for him, but didn't resort to name calling like Morgan did from his Twitter account.

CNN continued its trend of marginalizing gun rights advocates on Wednesday. Anchor Soledad O'Brien derided a CNN guest who had cited her fear of tyrannical government as reason to own a semi-automatic rifle.

"Some people make your head hurt when they speak. Wow. And that was one of those moments," O'Brien sneered in front of Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth (Ill.). [Video below the break. Audio here.]

It's obvious that the people working for CNN consider supporters of gun control to be calm and rational while gun rights proponents are hostile and wild-eyed.

The cable news network provided proof of this viewpoint when it posted only half of weeknight host Piers Morgan's debate with Breitbart.com editor Ben Shapiro but provided the entire wild interview with Alex Jones, the Austin, Texas, man who started an online petition to deport Morgan back to his native England because of his attacks on the Second Amendment.

Maybe the sanest words out of any media member's mouth in the weeks following the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, came from actor Rob Lowe on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight Monday.

"I’m no social anthropologist, but I do think that the last thing viewers want is another Hollywood actor telling them anything about guns pro or con" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

When Breitbart.com's Ben Shapiro used his pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution on the set of Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN's Piers Morgan asserted that he, like the NRA, was deviously trying to frame gun control as an assault on the Second Amendment.

"You come in. You brandish your little book as if I don't know what's in there," Morgan sneered. "My little book? That's the Constitution of the United States. Our founding document, Piers," Shapiro shot back. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Piers Morgan, after weeks of abusing guests that don't agree with him about imposing tighter gun restrictions in the wake of the Newton, Connecticut, massacre, finally got what was coming to him Thursday.

At the beginning of another highly contentious interview on Piers Morgan Tonight, Breitbart.com editor Ben Shapiro told his arrogant host, "You tend to demonize people who differ from you politically by standing on the graves of the children of Sandy Hook saying they don't seem to care enough about the dead kids" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Former CNN anchor Larry King took a shot at replacement Piers Morgan Thursday saying that his show "is a lot about him as much as the guests."

Rather comically, King with a straight face told HuffPost Live, "I never gave opinions" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Thursday's CBS This Morning trumpeted Piers Morgan's "crusade against gun violence in America", and gave the CNN host four and half minutes to spout his pro-gun control views unopposed. Morgan endorsed implementing something akin to the "really draconian" firearms regulations that the U.K. passed after the 1996 Dunblane massacre.

Despite denying that he wanted to take guns away from Americans, the British anchor repeatedly called for complete bans on "assault weapons" and handguns, along with high-capacity magazines [audio available here; video below the jump]:

As Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America appeared on Wednesday's Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, host Morgan complained that he never sees a "sense of humanity" from the pro-gun activist during the discussion of shooting rampages.

Morgan implicitly suggested that Pratt does not seem compassionate toward shooting victims as the CNN host asserted:

CNN’s Piers Morgan has for days cited U.S. and British gun homicide statistics in an attempt to get stricter controls on firearms here in America.

On Tuesday, Cincinnati Fox affiliate WXIX thoroughly debunked many of Morgan’s claims (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

The British-born CNN anchor named Piers Morgan took another swipe at America Wednesday.

Discussing the options President Obama has to enact stricter gun laws, Morgan said the Supreme Court has been "dangerous" concerning this issue (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN has been doing its best to spotlight host Piers Morgan after he's clamored repeatedly for more gun laws. Morgan went on a liberal gun control rant during the 12 p.m. hour of Newsroom on Wednesday, and CNN replayed some of the rant again that afternoon.

Morgan called semi-automatic rifles "machine guns," preached that a "humane society" would ban such guns, and claimed the Second Amendment didn't protect ownership of such guns. In addition, he praised liberal politicians for pushing gun control measures. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Piers Morgan, CNN's most-outspoken and impolite gun control advocate, got a much-needed education about the Second Amendment and firearms Tuesday.

In the middle of a lengthy and uncharacteristically civil interview on Piers Morgan Tonight, former Marine Joshua Boston said, "The American people aren't as gun-happy and trigger-happy as they're being painted out to be by the media. They are smarter than that. They know when to hold their fire. They know when to fire" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The media agenda against guns is nothing new. But recent mass shootings have encouraged supposedly neutral journalists to push for gun regulation instead of reporting the facts surrounding the tragedies.

One thing the media seldom mention is that both the Newtown and Aurora shootings occurred in gun free zones. In the Clackamas Town Center Shooting in Oregon, however, a gunman was stopped when someone with a concealed carry permit intervened. There were only two casualties in this shooting which received little media attention. If this incident was mentioned, the concealed carry part of the story was almost completely ignored.

It's the last day of 2012, and NewsBusters is recounting the worst media bias of the year, as catalogued in the MRC's Best Notable Quotables of 2012.

Earlier, we documented journalists' most partisan potshots against the Romney-Ryan ticket, as well as the most effusive "Obamagasms" of the preceding twelve months. Today, some of the most infuriating and/or wacky quotes of 2012, including the ridiculous entry that was chosen by our esteemed panel of 46 judges as the most outrageous "Quote of the Year."

This is the time of year when people dream of a Merry Christmas, wish others a Happy New Year and celebrate other enjoyable holidays.

One apparently notable exception this year is CNN's Piers Morgan, whose tirade against the Second Amendment has probably made him yearn for getting a piece of coal in his Christmas stocking instead of a White House petition calling for him to return to his native England and another poll from that country demanding that he remain in the U.S.

As NewsBusters has been reporting, CNN's Piers Morgan has been on a gun control tirade since the recent massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

On Friday, a man in Austin, Texas, created a petition at the White House website calling for Morgan's deportation as a result of his attacks on the Second Amendment:

CNN reporters castigated the NRA on Twitter during the organization's Friday press conference. Piers Morgan went so far as to blame future mass school shootings on the organization.

"Coming to a town near you, courtesy of the #NRA - Gunfights At The U.S. School Corral," Morgan tweeted. He also ripped their agenda as "murderous."

Bill Plante apparently couldn't be bothered to find more than one conservative/Republican for his report on Wednesday's CBS This Morning. Plante aired one soundbite from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but followed it with three straight clips from liberals/gun control supporters - White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, the Brady Campaign's Dan Gross, and Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth, who attacked the NRA's leadership as "bullies".

The correspondent hyped supposed "public outrage over the massacre [that] has also emboldened members of Congress to challenge the power of the gun lobby." Plante also spotlighted the NRA's multi-million dollar lobbying campaign in 2012:

British CNN host Piers Morgan continued ranting about America's "gun problem" on Wednesday and claimed ownership of semi-automatic rifles has "nothing to do with the Second Amendment."

"And so you have to deal with the primary problem that America faces, which is guns. Guns. Guns. Guns. And it's nothing to do with the Second Amendment right to defend yourself, and everything to do with military-style weapons that could slaughter," he insisted. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Piers Morgan has been on a rabid anti-gun rant since July's Aurora, Colorado, shootings that has gotten even more venomous after Friday's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

On Tuesday, he rudely and disgracefully tore into guest Larry Pratt, the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, calling him "an unbelievably stupid man" who's "dangerous," concluding the interview by saying, "You shame your country" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Friday's horrible massacre at a Connecticut elementary school has predictably fired up the left in this country to call for tighter gun restrictions as they blame the event on pro-Second Amendment advocates.

Possibly the worst example of this came Friday evening on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight when Democratic New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler disgracefully said, "We have a lobby, the leadership of the NRA, who function as enablers of mass murder. And that's what they are. They're enablers of mass murder" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

After CNN's Piers Morgan served up liberal defenses of Susan Rice that she is a "bright young woman" who was bullied by Republicans out of a secretary of state nomination, guest Rudy Giuliani scoffed at that on Thursday's Piers Morgan Tonight.

"I mean critics are saying, look, she's basically been stitched up here by a load of older guys in the Republican Party who've looked at a bright young woman and thought we're going to get you out of here," Morgan absurdly argued. [Video below the break. Audio here.]