The journalists at ABC on Wednesday didn’t hesitate to exploit the shooting in California as an opportunity to promote gun control. As details were still unfolding in the San Bernardino shooting, George Stephanopoulos lamented, “[Obama] has spoken after Sandy Hook. Always coming out calling for more measures to make it more difficult for people to have access to the kind of weapons that can pull off these kindof mass shootings. It has been one of the great frustrations of his presidency.”
Reporter Pierre Thomas said of gun control: “It's been viewed by some as a political issue.” By some? How is gun control not a political issue when the two major parties strongly differ on it? Thomas argued for gun control: “The solutions have been difficult in coming. And the moment appears to be nearing where there are going to be so many of these things that people are going to have to come together and try to figure out a way to deal with them.”
Also appearing in the love coverage was Brian Ross. In 2012, Ross used the live coverage of another shooting to falsely smear the Tea Party as connected to the killing.
A transcript of the exchange is below:
ABC Live coverage
12/2/154:40
[Clip of Obama talking to Norah O’Donnell.]
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Pierre Thomas, the President referring to the legislation sponsored by Democrat of California, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Republican Peter King of New York to make it more difficult for those on the no fly list to buy weapons here at home. But the President also showing signs of frustration that we’ve seen so many times. He spoke at the funeral for the victims in Charleston. He spoke out at Washington State. He has spoken after Sandy Hook. Always coming out calling for more measures to make it more difficult for people to access to the kind of weapons that can pull off these kind of mass shootings. It has been one of the great frustrations of his presidency.
PIERRE THOMAS: Yes. And it’s been viewed by some as a political issue. The President has been accused of making it that. Irregardless [sic] of that fact, the country right now is reeling from the steady spate of these events. The solutions have been difficult in coming. And the moment appears to be nearing where there are going to be so many of these things that people are going to have to come together and try to figure out a way to deal with them.
