There’s no single issue that the liberal media are less informed and more vicious about than the Second Amendment. And while mass shootings or the general topic of guns will bring about takes that are all emotion and no facts, there are also plenty like the one offered on Wednesday’s Hardball by MSNBC political analyst David Frum that was so stupid it was funny.
Host Chris Matthews had just fretted that the NRA has prevented gun control even though a number of U.S. presidents have been shot and injured or killed when Frum decided to, well, hit the gas pedal in a different direction.
Frum stated that he “believe[s]” the floodgates will open among Americans and lawmakers for gun control. Why? Well, Frum falsely suggested one should just look at gun ownership eroding among young people in much the same way that motorcycle ownership has.
His evidence? Well, just go out for a drive and, according to this liberal Republican, he’ll be proven right (click “expand”):
FRUM: I think we — when this breaks, and I believe it will break, it will break in a very sudden and dramatic way, because gun ownership is increasingly a generational issue of the baby boom generation. It’s like motorcycles. You never see anyone under 50 on a motorcycle and a gun ownership is concentrated in a generation that have —
MATTHEWS: You mean young people aren't riding motorcycles anymore?
FRUM: Take a look when you're on the highway. Do you ever see a motorcylist under 50?
MATTHEWS: You mean the guys with the long ponytails?
DONNA EDWARDS: Well, we live in a different place because young people aren’t driving motorcycles.
MATTHEWS: Well, they got e-bikes now.
FRUM: But gun ownership is — is part of the very abrupt turn to the right that the baby boom generation executed about 2008. They are more radical than they were back in the 1990s. When this change comes, it's going to come not from law but a change in cultural consciousness like what happened with drunk driving in the 1980s. It’s going to happen at the states.
How about a fact-check? Shall we?
Released in June 2017, a Pew Research Center poll asked people whether they personally owned a gun and if someone in their household did. While it said only 30 percent responded that they personally owned a gun, 42 percent said that either they owned a gun or lived with someone who did. And that's where things got interesting.
The poll found that, among the age range 18-29, 27 percent said they owned a gun and 16 percent lived with someone who did for a net sum of 43 percent. The net total for 30-49 was 39 percent, but to address Frum’s claim about older Americans, the percentage of those ages 50 to 64, it was identical to the youngest range (43 percent). And for those 65 and over, it moves up slightly to 45 percent.
To break this down even further, the two older ranges polled said 33 percent of them owned a firearm, which was only six points lower than those 18-29. In reality, this isn’t entirely surprising because age minimums for guns can vary from state-to-state.
The following year, a February 2018 NPR story stated that polling has shown “that people younger than 30 in the U.S. are no more liberal on gun control than their parents or grandparents — despite diverging from their elders on the legalization of marijuana, same-sex marriage and other social issues.”
Matthews tried to make sense, wondering if it’s akin to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which Frum confirmed was what he meant, comparing MADD to far-left cable news darling Shannon Watts:
You’ve incredible women's groups now, someone who has been a guest on you show, I believe, Shannon Watts and others like that where the toll is not these massacres. It's the toll of suicides and accidents and I have to say, as terrible as these massacres are, and I'm a consumer of every day of these stories, of seven-year-old shooting, a 9-year-old.
To Matthews’s credit, he stepped in to inform Frum that he had no idea what he was talking about while former Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D-MD) also tried to help steer things away from motorcycles (click “expand”):
MATTHEWS: I just don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you talk about New York City? Are you talking about California? Connecticut. Yes, there’s — in Connecticut, there are states like California, Connecticut, New York, which are very pro-gun control. You go to my homestate of Pennsylvania, you try to put that flag up that you’re for gun control, you're gone.
FRUM: Pennsylvania will not be a leader, but Florida maybe and Texas may yet surprise you.
EDWARDS: I do think there’s something about the generations, though because we also have a generation that really has grown up practicing how to be safe in their schools from gun violence and that's really different from previous generations. It's sort of my generation diving up under, you know, the desk.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on August 7, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
August 7, 2019
7:36 p.m. EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: David, David, you have president after president starting with, God, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman. Kennedy was shot and killed. Reagan was almost. Ford shot at twice. Reagan almost, if it wasn't for the Secret Service, would have been dead. We live in this world of violence. I wrote my congressman after Bobby Kennedy, you know. Even Bobby Kennedy, nothing happens. People say just yeah, but the NRA is the boss.
DAVID FRUM: I think we — when this breaks, and I believe it will break, it will break in a very sudden and dramatic way, because gun ownership is increasingly a generational issue of the baby boom generation. It’s like motorcycles. You never see anyone under 50 on a motorcycle and a gun ownership is concentrated in a generation that have —
MATTHEWS: You mean young people aren't riding motorcycles anymore?
FRUM: Take a look when you're on the highway. Do you ever see a motorcylist under 50?
MATTHEWS: You mean the guys with the long ponytails?
DONNA EDWARDS: Well, we live in a different place because young people aren’t driving motorcycles.
MATTHEWS: Well, they got e-bikes now.
FRUM: But gun ownership is — is part of the very abrupt turn to the right that the baby boom generation executed about 2008. They are more radical than they were back in the 1990s. When this change comes, it's going to come not from law but a change in cultural consciousness like what happened with drunk driving in the 1980s. It’s going to happen at the states.
MATTHEWS: There you had a constituency, Women Against Drunk Driving [sic] —
FRUM: Well, you’ve got —
MATTHEWS: — Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
FRUM: You’ve incredible women's groups now, someone who has been a guest on you show, I believe, Shannon Watts and others like that where the toll is not these massacres. It's the toll of suicides and accidents and I have to say, as terrible as these massacres are, and I'm a consumer of every day of these stories, of seven-year-old shooting, a 9-year-old.
MATTHEWS: I just don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you talk about New York City? Are you talking about California? Connecticut. Yes, there’s — in Connecticut, there are states like California, Connecticut, New York, which are very pro-gun control. You go to my homestate of Pennsylvania, you try to put that flag up that you’re for gun control, you're gone.
FRUM: Pennsylvania will not be a leader, but Florida maybe and Texas may yet surprise you.
EDWARDS: I do think there’s something about the generations, though because we also have a generation that really has grown up practicing how to be safe in their schools from gun violence and that's really different from previous generations. It's sort of my generation diving up under, you know, the desk.
