Why is the media so dead-set against the right to keep and bear arms? After all, wouldn’t the fact that some of their numbers have been murdered for their work suggest that maybe they should embrace the right to self-defense?

For whatever reason, though, they don’t. They don’t like guns and they really don’t seem to want anyone to have one.

Yet an op-ed by a journalism professor out of Indiana tries not just to make the case against guns, but also tries to pit gun owners against police.

It is the contention of the NRA and its foot soldiers that Americans cannot rely on police and other law-enforcement officials to defend them. That is why every American should be allowed to have a deadly weapon — because, in the NRA mythology, the good guy with a gun is the only answer to a bad guy with a gun.

In Buffalo, there was a good guy with a gun.

His name was Aaron Salter. He was 55 and a retired police lieutenant.

When the shooter entered the grocery store in western New York, Salter fired multiple shots at the attacker. All were ineffective, because the shooter was wearing body armor — which the NRA and gun merchants also fight to make readily available to all.

The good guy with the gun died.

The bad guy with the gun went on killing.

The carnage ended only when the police — the folks the gun lobby says can’t be trusted — arrived and forced the shooter to surrender.

Note that language there at the end; the “folks the gun lobby says can’t be trusted.”

It implies that there’s a general distrust of the police, something law enforcement tends to take personally. However, the issue isn’t that we don’t trust the police to try to protect us or don’t trust they want to. We simply don’t trust that they’re able.

Buffalo actually proves that point quite well. After all, the police couldn’t get there until after 10 people were brutally murdered.

The police can get there just in time to draw chalk outlines around the bodies.

And yes, there was a good guy with a gun and he didn’t stop the shooting. Why doesn’t he just piss on the man’s grave a bit more, while he’s at it?

Aaron Salter died trying to protect human life. We don’t know how many people may have escaped death because he demanded the shooter’s attention, even if only for a split second.

We’ve never claimed that a good guy with a gun was a magic talisman. We never claimed that a good guy with a gun was an automatic stop. We simply argue that the only thing that stops such an attack is a good guy with a gun.

Thanks to New York state law, though, Salter was alone. There were no armed citizens there able to help him, no one else who could fight back.

Notice that our journalism professor leaves that out.

But this isn’t the only time he tries to pit gun owners against the police, either.

He also includes this bit:

Finding ways to keep guns out of the hands those who wish to inflict pure evil on others would make those officers’ lives easier — and many of our national and community problems less resistant to solutions.

But the NRA and its minions, here in Indiana and across the country, have added police officers to the list of voices not entitled to be heard when the discussion is about guns.

Who has said their voices aren’t entitled to be heard?

No one.

However, I also suspect that the professor here only wants to hear from some of those voices.

You see, people like him love to cite opposition by sheriffs’ associations and police chiefs groups, but what about the rank and file cop on the street? In my experience, they’re often pro-gun for a variety of reasons, many of which stem from their job.

They know they can’t be everywhere and they’re not interested in deluding themselves that guns will just disappear. Instead, they support people being able to defend themselves.

However, the people who run their departments are different animals entirely.

You see, becoming the police chief of almost any city of appreciable size becomes as much about politics as police work. You have to parrot the city council or mayor’s opinions to some degree or you simply won’t get or keep the job.

So while those folks are entitled to their own opinions or voices on the matter, they’re not entitled to pretend they speak for all law enforcement or that their opinions somehow override the very real factor that we’re talking about our rights.

If we were to simply bend the knee every time someone in law enforcement wants to curtail rights just to make their job easier, we wouldn’t even have Fourth Amendment protections anymore, for example.

I respect the police. However, I got my love for the Second Amendment and guns from a police officer, my father, and few of the officers he worked with were thrilled with the idea of gun control.

So you’ll forgive me if I don’t bow and scrape because some journalism professor thinks I should.

But if you’re wondering why the mainstream media is so vehemently anti-gun, keep in mind they’re instructed by people like this.