Univision broke from its afternoon coronavirus newscast and delivered on a longstanding policy item: opposition to the Second Amendment and to the private ownership of firearms. But in their coronavirus-themed rant against gun ownership, they also revealed something about themselves.
Watch as Univision’s panel rant about a coronavirus-fueled increase in gun sales, and notice how Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Juan Rivera otherizes his fellow citizens:
JORGE RAMOS: But as we were saying before going to commercial, something’s going on. Because in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, people’s fears are reflected in different ways.
MARIA ANTONIETA COLLINS: Well yeah, some buy hygiene products, toilet paper. Others are buying...can you believe it? Guns, firearms, ammunition.
RAMOS: The issue is that firearm sales have skyrocketed across the nation. The website animo.com… ammo.com- is reporting that their sales increased by more than 220% over the past three weeks.
COLLINS: But what does that have to do (with anything), right?
RAMOS: Is there some explanation? I know that we’re getting you into things that are beyond your specialty, but…
DR. JUAN RIVERA: I was telling you...I was telling you off-camera that I’ve come to think that the correlation between any natural disaster and buying guns is always a direct relation. It's a hurricane- they buy guns. It’s an earthquake- they buy guns. A pandemic, they buy guns. In other words, I personally can’t see anything particular from the pandemic and buying guns except that the Americans, every time that something happens, feel that there is going to be an apocalypse.
The entire rant is noteworthy, starting with Jorge Ramos and María Antonieta Collins’ bewilderment at why everyday Americans would want to purchase firearms and ammunition during times of national emergencies. But it is Univision’s Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Juan Rivera, who really inflames here.
Dr. Rivera’s wholesale dismissal of “the Americans” who buy guns during times of crisis manages to strike a tone similar to Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" while perfectly exemplifying how the entire Latino ethnopolitical construct is built around the premise that Hispanics are an “other”, separate from the rest of America. This institutional devotion to cultural alienation is what allows Joe Biden to cleanly get away with suggesting that Latinos are not “fully integrated” into America, for example:
I was today years old when I learned that the Latino community is not yet fully integrated into the United States. Bernardo Galvez and Jordi Farragat would like a word. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/QHxdMyU1Rg
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) March 16, 2020
If Univision were truly serious, they could have simply booked a pro-gun Hispanic -of which there is no shortage in South Florida or via online interview- to explain why Americans acquire firearms and ammunition during times of national crisis, to wit: BECAUSE WE CAN, and because individuals are ultimately responsible for their personal safety and that of their families, especially during times of national crises when governments are taxed to the limit. But Univision is not serious about the Second Amendment except to demonize private gun ownership and push for greater gun control.
It is worth noting that many of these “Americans” that Univision mocks include the descendants of Hispanics that fought in the Revolutionary War, under the command of men such as Bernardo Gálvez and Jordi Farragat. The network that now wants to wrap itself in the Constitution would be well-served to remember that all of its Amendments are to be cherished and defended- not just the ones we like and that, furthermore, the Second Amendment stands as ultimate guarantor of the rest of the Constitution.
The Spanish-language media marketplace continues to cry out for an alternative.
