NewsBusters has been on CBS Mornings’s case as they go full bore against gun rights and poison the discourse with dubious polls, questionable studies, and disinformation about gun laws. On Friday, they promoted the new anti-gun group Lives on the Line with correspondent Adriana Diaz suggesting they’re “stretching across district, state, and party lines demanding an end to gun violence.” But a delve into the history of the moms they highlighted revealed they’re either long-time liberals or don’t have a strong political history.
“The mothers chose to protest yesterday because it is 24 years as of yesterday since Columbine,” Diaz noted at the top of her report, failing to mention that the Columbine shooting occurred DURING the national assault weapons ban.
With Diaz misidentifying all but one of the women (Sara Ennis, Anna Simpson, Annie Noll, and Eileen Knoblauch), she touted their ridiculous suggestion that “if they don’t speak up, they're part of the problem.”
And what of people who oppose their anti-gun agenda?
“So many women out here today. This was their first protest. This was my first protest. They’ve never done anything like this and it felt scary and uncomfortable, and we want other moms like us to get uncomfortable a little bit,” Annie Noll (right in above screenshot) told Diaz.
It may be Noll’s first protest, but she has a publicized history of left-leaning politics. Her Instagram account has multiple posts opposing pro-life legislation and she has a post from 2018 opposing then-President Trump on immigration. And she didn’t just wake up after the recent shootings and become anti-gun rights; in 2018 she shared a post from the anti-gun group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The anti-gun rights rhetoric took a turn into bizarre territory as two of them, Anna Dudenhoeffer Simpson (left in above screenshot) and Sara Ennis made it about race with the former bashing white people for not doing enough:
DUDENHOEFFER SIMPSON: We don't have enough white people who are willing to stand up and say, "This is not right."
ENNIS: Because we know that black children and LGBT people are affected by gun violence at a much higher level.
While Ennis’s political history was more obscure, Simpson’s wasn’t. Her Instagram account may be private but her bio links to the far-left liberal organization Act Blue and a fundraising page for anti-gun rights Moms Demand Action. Over on Facebook, her profile pictures feature her in a Kamala Harris t-shirt, a Biden/Harris yard sign, a tribute to late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Black Lives Matter banners.
Diaz didn’t bother to provide evidence of the purported bipartisan nature of Live on the Line or its members.
What she did do was bemoan states that were respecting gun rights instead of trying to abolish them. “This week, Washington State will become the tenth to ban assault weapons, and Florida's governor recently signed a bill allowing permit-less concealed carry; the 26th state to do so. In Tennessee, despite the Nashville school shooting last month, representatives just passed a law protecting gun manufacturers against lawsuits,” she huffed.
CBS’s segment promoting covert liberal activists was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Ashley Homestore and Angi. Their conatact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CBS Mornings
April 21, 2023
8:10:50 a.m. EasternGAYLE KING: All this violence is making parents afraid but also very, very angry. Adriana Diaz spoke to mothers protesting gun violence in Kansas City. That's where 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot last week. Adriana, good morning to you.
ADRIANA DIAZ: Good morning. The mothers chose to protest yesterday because it is 24 years as of yesterday since Columbine. Now, they've been planning this protest for weeks, never expecting the shooting of Ralph Yarl to thrust this community into the national gun violence debate.
[Cuts to video]
SARA ENNIS: It may not be our kids, but it is going to be someone's kids and that hurts just as much.
DIAZ: Sara Ennis, Anna Simpson, Annie Noll, and Eileen Knoblauch [first three misidentified] are suburban Kansas City moms who say if they don’t speak up, they're part of the problem.
ANNIE NOLL: So many women out her today. This was their first protest. This was my first protest. They’ve never done anything like this and it felt scary and uncomfortable, and we want other moms like us to get uncomfortable a little bit.
DIAZ: That's why just three weeks ago, after the Nashville school shooting, they created Lives on the Line, a group stretching across district, state, and party lines demanding an end to gun violence.
ANNA DUDENHOEFFER SIMPSON: We don't have enough white people who are willing to stand up and say, "This is not right."
ENNIS: Because we know that black children and LGBT people are affected by gun violence at a much higher level.
DIAZ: A recent CBS News poll showed 61 percent of parents say their children are worried about gun violence.
ENNIS: My 8-year-old woke up the other night and she said, "Mom, I had this dream, and there were guns."
SIMPSON: You have mental issues everywhere. But when you pair those with absolute chaos in terms of gun legislation, this is what you get. And now, we're dealing with children who are being shot doing day-to-day things And it's just intolerable.
DIAZ: With gun gridlock in Washington, states are paving their own way in both directions. This week, Washington State will become the tenth to ban assault weapons, and Florida's governor recently signed a bill allowing permit-less concealed carry; the 26th state to do so. In Tennessee, despite the Nashville school shooting last month, representatives just passed a law protecting gun manufacturers against lawsuits.
The states with the weakest gun laws have gun death rates that are three times higher than states with strong restrictions. And as gun sales have spiked, so have gun homicides.
EILEEN KNOBLAUCH: I think about it every day I drop my children off at school.
DIAZ: Every day?
KNOBLAUCH: Every single day.
NOLL: Every day.
ENNIS: Every day.
SIMPSON: Every day.
KNOBLAUCH: Every day I say, "I love you," and I pray. I'm not exaggerating, I pray it's not the last time I see them.
[Cuts back to live]
DIAZ: One mom told us perhaps there needs to be a change in narrative, maybe an approach ending gun violence as what could be the greatest achievement of our era.
