It's time they started accepting some responsibility for it.

First, let's note that in the report Tuesday, the issue really stemmed from the way the media uncritically parrots the Gun Violence Archive's count of mass shootings. They routinely cite hundreds of such events each year, at a rate of multiples per day. It's easy to hear those numbers and assume that just leaving your house is potentially dangerous.

The issue is that most of these aren't really public events like a concert or movie. Many of them are street gatherings or parties that are attended by a lot of sketchy people. I'm not blaming the victims, but there's an argument to be made that if you're not the kind of person to go to such a thing, you're fine. They're basically gang-related or gang-adjacent.

That doesn't make it into the reports, so people have a skewed idea of just how common mass shootings are, hearing the numbers and thinking of Parkland or Lewiston.

If that were their only sin, that would be enough.

It's not.

Years ago, no one had ever heard the term "ghost gun." Many of us were familiar with being able to buy kits and build guns in your backyard, though. Some of us even did it. But it was a niche activity within the gun rights crowd. I can't say no criminal ever did it, but they were exceedingly rare.

Then politicians and the media started screaming about them. They started running constant reports about the "growing threat" posed by unserialized firearms. They refused to quantify the threat in hard numbers, of course, but they assured us that the threat was increasing.

Any glimpse of context suggested otherwise, but the media continued reporting and guess what? Sure enough, the issue grew. It's not the alarming thing they like to pretend, but criminals do seem to be getting homemade, unserialized firearms at an increasing pace. 

What no one bothers to ask is how they found out about so-called ghost guns.

There aren't ads on Facebook for parts kits. Facebook doesn't allow that, nor do most other social media outlets. They had to learn about it from somewhere. Where?

The answer is that they either learned about it from news reports or from someone else who learned about it from the news.

That's right. The issue the media has been breathlessly reporting on for years is their own creation. They're the reason bad guys know about these guns and are trying to get their hands on them.

And let's not forget how the media can't help itself to turn mass shooters into household names. They seek out anyone who ever knew the killers and report everything they can about them, which would be fine if they didn't plaster their names everywhere. There's a very real argument that many, if not most mass killers are seeking fame and are lashing out as killers because it's the only way they can achieve it.

Through it all, the common denominator is the media.

While so many decry our right to keep and bear arms, blaming it for literally every ill we face in society, the truth of the matter is that they bear at least some responsibility for many of the issues they try to drop at our feet. In their constant drive for clicks--understandable, considering that's how they make money--they make prudence take a backseat.

Now, I'm not saying they should be restricted in their reporting by law. The Second Amendment protects the First, and the right to a free press is enshrined in that opening amendment in the Bill of Rights. I'd no sooner toss that out than my right to keep and bear arms.

But just like I believe gun owners have a duty to act like responsible gun owners, so too does the media have a responsibility to report responsibly. They've done nothing at all to suggest they even recognize the responsibility in the first place.