Ukraine is dealing with a lot right now, but one of the smarter things they did was recognize that an armed populace is an asset. They expanded gun rights in the Eastern European nation leading up to the invasion, though, in fairness, guns weren’t completely forbidden there, either.

However, the major news networks seemed to have completely ignored this during their coverage of the buildup.

On Wednesday, hours before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukrainian, the Rada (parliament) advanced legislation that would allow more Ukrainian civilians to own firearms as they stared down the bear that was eager to wage war on and conquer them. It’s another obvious example of why civilian firearm ownership is important and vital for a free people, yet it wasn’t worth any airtime on the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) that night or Thursday.

Citing local Ukrainian reporting, The Reload’s Stephan Gutowski reported: “274 of the country’s 450 elected representatives voted for the bill, according to local media outlet Ukrinform. The bill would formalize the country’s gun laws, allow more civilians to own and carry guns, and allow them to be used for self-defense in more places.”

The Canada-based CTV noted the move came on the eve of, “[o]ne of Europe’s worst security crises in decades” after “Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two areas of eastern Ukraine as independent and ordered troops to be deployed to eastern Ukraine.”

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NBC Nightly News did note this distribution of weapons but not the expansion of gun rights on Thursday. Yet reporter Erin McLaughlin spoke with a member of the Ukrainian parliament who’s never shot a weapon before but was among those ready to take up arms:

And most of the media failed to note the legal moves prior to the invasion. Why?

Well, the answer is pretty simple. These are the same networks that play host to people who tell us our AR-15s are useless against tanks and attack helicopters. They don’t want us to see that, on the eve of the invasion, a sovereign nation turned to armed citizens to help defend their homes.

They don’t want people seeing the kind of scenarios the Second Amendment was meant for play out on their television screens.

In truth, they’d much rather keep us ignorant of how Ukraine recognized that they needed those armed citizens if they were going to have any hope of fending off the invasion of a more powerful neighbor.

If we recognize that fact, many would be far less hesitant to back things like assault weapon bans or magazine restrictions.

They’d see one of the scenarios the Founding Fathers feared and recognized the role armed citizens can play. They’re doing so in Ukraine, but they could just as easily have to do so here.

Our right to keep and bear arms is something that any invader has to fear.

The networks, however, would rather you not think about that because they want people to view guns only as something to fear, not something that can be used to protect.