Lott hammers ABC News for the network's deceptive anti-gun propaganda

John Lott, President of the Crime Prevention Research Center, is hammering ABC News for the intentionally one-sided and deceitful anti-gun propaganda-fest that was the network’s attempt to scare parents away from gun ownership.

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Gun control advocates not only push new fees and taxes on guns to reduce ownership, but they also employ another tactic: scaring people into not owning guns.

Last week, on January 31, ABC News saturated its news programs with the alleged danger of gun ownership.

It started early in the day with a segment on “Good Morning America,” then came a report on the evening news, and finally an entire hour devoted to the subject on “20/20.”

The reports all focused on the dangers guns pose for children.

Although a producer for ABC News spent hours asking me questions about this subject before the reports aired on various news programs, our discussions seemed to have had no impact.

What I told them just didn’t fit the type of story they wanted to tell.

The producers appeared to want to argue that gun ownership had fallen, dropping as low as 33%, implying that gun ownership really is not all that popular any more.

Yet, as I explained to the producer I spoke with, the General Social Survey poll they wanted to cite was unusual. Other polls had found much higher rates of gun ownership.

Indeed, I pointed out, much to her surprise, ABC News’ own polls show that gun ownership has changed little, currently holding at 43%. But in their reports, ABC didn’t even mention their own polls, instead cherry-picking the one with the lowest number.

ABC’s goal was to make people believe that little, innocent children frequently play with guns, accidentally hurting themselves and others.

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We hammered ABC News previously on this subject, as they used deceptive research skewed by the inclusion of 17-19 year-old gangbangers to assert younger children were at risk of gun violence far more than they actually were.

Due to their deception about guns and child injury, all ABC News really accomplished was killing their credibility.

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