My initial reaction to the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump was basically that you can only demonize a guy so many times, calling him "literally Hitler" or some variant of it, then pretend to be shocked when someone tries to kill the man. Much of that responsibility would lay on the media, though since we don't quite know the killer's motivation just yet, that's less of a sure thing than everything else they're responsible for.

But it seems that CNN has managed to ignore its own history entirely on that and everything else and instead figure we should blame gun rights for all the violence in the country and blame the RNC for "divisive language" and what amounts to a rally for Republicans and screw everyone else.

CNN released a new documentary entitled Political Violence: America’s Bloody History on Saturday, but beyond the history lesson from the Boston Massacre up through the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, narrator Sara Sidner tried to blame conservative opposition to gun control for recent shootings while also condemning the Republican National Convention’s “extremely divisive language.”

During a discussion on the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, Sidner recalled, “The gun lobby was outraged by the new gun restrictions. This time, a more extreme fringe subset of Second Amendment supporters mobilized an edge their way into the mainstream.”

She added that, “this uncompromising vision of an absolute Second Amendment right stymied future gun legislation and dominated right-wing politics.”

Sidner also mentioned that the law had a ten-year sunset provision, which led to a clip of UCLA law Prof. Adam Winkler lamenting, “The NRA and the gun rights movement were instrumental in defeating the reauthorization of the assault weapons ban. And there was no longer sufficient support in Washington, D.C. for a ban on these military-style rifles. The law expired in 2004, and in the decades that followed, we saw a huge increase in the number of these military-style rifles on the streets of America.”

For Sidner, there is a direct link between 2004 and what happened to Trump, “And in the aftermath of countless mass shootings, in the United States, the fallout from the gun debate has left a trail of dead and wounded in its wake. Gunmen in countless shootings, use semiautomatic weapons and military style equipment, including this most recent attack on former President Donald Trump.”

Later on in the program, Sidner turned to rhetoric and lamented that Trump’s RNC speech got off to a unifying start, “But he then turned back to attacking his political enemies.”

Well, yeah. It's the Republican National Convention. Attacking one's political enemies is what happens at these things.

Trump has never been a unifier. He's a pitbull who goes after those who he disagrees with.

But so what? Neither guns nor Trump was responsible for what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania nor anywhere else in the country.

Yes, we had an assault weapon ban from 1994 to 2004 and the gun rights movement got lawmakers to refuse to reauthorize it, but guess what? The law didn't do anything. Homicides were trending down before the law went into effect and they continued going down for more than a decade after it sunset. If an assault weapon ban was so absolutely vital to public safety, why is there no evidence that the law actually did anything?

But CNN's Sidner didn't bother to look. Looking would require her to be open to the truth, which is most definitely not what she was about in this "documentary."

It's impossible at this point to even pretend CNN is an unbiased news outlet. Say what you want about MSNBC, but they at least wear their bias on their sleeves. If you tune in, you know what spin you're going to get and you can filter it accordingly.

CNN has tried to pretend it's the middle ground between them and Fox News, only for it to completely fall apart when they do ridiculous stuff like this.