I’m not a huge fan of the mainstream media. After all, these are folks who spend much of their time ignoring huge swaths of Americans and pretending they should do our thinking for us.

That’s especially true when it comes to the issue of guns.

See, the problem is that many in the media seem to believe they know more than you do about literally everything, so they issue pronouncements that make any attempt at communication impossible.

Here’s just one example of thousands I’ve personally seen.

According to Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that keeps track of gun violence in the U.S., at least 607 mass shootings (four people or more shot) occurred in 2022 as of Thanksgiving, making this likely the second worst year on record, last year being the worst, an average of almost two mass shootings per day.

What’s being done about it? At the federal level, almost nothing, thanks to the Republican Party’s longstanding status as a wholly bought-off subsidiary of the National Rifle Association.

OK, two problems here.

One is citing Gun Violence Archive. I know the media is enamored with the site because it makes it easy for them to find very scary statistics, but we need to remember that this is also a site that does differentiate between actual mass shootings and gangland gun fights.

That distinction matters because the roots of each are vastly different. No media outlet should be using Gun Violence Archive numbers so uncritically.

But then we get to the whole idea that Republicans are bought and paid for by the NRA.

Yes, the media loves this narrative, yet it’s funny how it never applies in reverse.

I mean, gun control groups spend as much or more than the NRA during each election cycle, yet not once as a mainstream media outlet referred to the Democratic Party as a “wholly bought-off subsidiary” of Gifford, Brady, or the gun control lobby in general.

Why is that?

Of course, we all know. We know because these people who want to pontificate on guns, gun control, constitutional rights, and everything else are nothing but partisan hacks who use the editorial page as their personal fiefdom to tell the rest of us what we’re supposed to think.

They segway from this into a call for readers to support a gun control bill in the wake of Highland Park, all without acknowledging that Highland Park already had these laws on the books and it doesn’t seem like it did a damn bit of good.

That’s because actual facts are irrelevant, only emotion matters.

Which is why they claim the GOP is bought off.

Well, that and the bizarre idea that anti-gunners seem to have that apparently everyone actually agrees that gun control works, we just oppose it because of some other reason. The truth is that gun control doesn’t. It endangers law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to actually stop criminals.

But the truth is that we can’t have a meaningful dialog about any of that because the mainstream media already has their mind made up about who we are, why we stand where we do, and just about everything else.

Which might not be a problem if they weren’t so wrong about literally ever aspect of it.