Media bias is a subject near and dear to my heart. I know I'm biased. I present it proudly. It bothers me that so many outlets pretend to be neutral, though, when they're nothing of the sort. But I need to be fair here. Sometimes, it's not bias so much as something like laziness or just stupidity that is at play, at least if it's not all three.
That was what I was thinking of when I saw this report describing Mississippi's gun laws as a "national failure."
That's a bold claim, and while Mississippi has its problems, those tend to take place in the larger cities where, frankly, there's a lot more going on than guns. So, I looked at the story itself, and holy crap, it has to be one of those three things I mentioned, if not a combination of factors.
Mississippi is a "national failure" when it comes to its gun safety laws, according to a 2025 study by a non-profit gun violence prevention group.
Everytown Research & Policy, under Everytown Gun Safety, used gun death rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and compared the rates with a composite score. The score was gathered from 50 policies that the organization said are scientifically proven to prevent gun violence. The CDC's data includes homicides, accidental killings and suicides involving firearms.
According to the report, Mississippi ranked 49 out of 50 states based on two key metrics: it has some of the weakest gun laws, which received a composite score of 4 out of 100; and its high gun violence rate of 29.4 deaths per 100,000 people — 15.7 points higher than the national average (13.7).
The report also revealed that Mississippi ranked last out of 50 states in its 2024 study, once again labeling the state as a "national failure" for failing "to put basic protections into place."
"Mississippi has among the weakest gun laws in the country," the report states. "The state has none of the foundational gun laws in place, and only a few policies total — having most recently repealed the requirement to get a permit before carrying a concealed handgun in public. It also has one of the highest rates of gun deaths in the country. Mississippi is also among the top states in household firearm ownership."
First, Everytown isn't a "gun violence prevention group." They're a gun control group. Let's get that right here from the start. I know that they like to bill themselves as that, but in an era when the media likes to pretend its job is to delve for the truth rather than just report the facts, this is a serious implication that they're only going to do that when it benefits certain groups.
While they did reach out to pro-gun groups for comment, that's way down in the story. As I've talked about before, this is often a conscious fact made knowing that most people only read a little bit of the story. Further, the Inverted Pyramid method for crafting a news story says to put less important details down at the bottom so an editor can cut from the bottom up without worrying about taking out something important. By driving down the response that low, the writer is telling you that their take isn't important.
But back to this being Everytown, let's note that there's no pushback on the claim that Mississippi has none of "the foundational gun laws in place" whatsoever. See, this is important because who decides what's foundational? Well, Everytown, that's who. This is their own belief that these laws are "foundational" in the first place, but there's absolutely no attempt at raising questions or even providing this information to the readers at all.
That will leave the readers simply assuming the term "foundational gun laws" is some neutrally decided thing.
So why report it like this?
First, of course, is that the reporter agrees with Everytown and thus doesn't see any reason to question them. Their own belief is that yes, these laws are foundational, and it never enters their mind that they're not.
The second is laziness. Sure, this isn't a short write-up on Everytown's claim, and it includes pro-gun groups' take on it, but that's an email or a phone call. Not difficult and it keeps your editor off your butt. It's the minimum and, if you don't actually ask about the phrasing or anything, they're unlikely to raise questions about that term. They're just going through the motions, either because they're inherently lazy or just don't care anymore.
The last is stupidity, in which someone just doesn't have the brainpower to raise questions of any substance. They just go through the motions of being a journalist, but can't tell when there's something that should prompt additional questions. There are plenty of people who fall into this camp in any field, who just go through the motions because they're incapable of doing anything more.
Then there's the possibility of there being some combination of two or more of these to some degree or another.
And let's understand, I'm not actually trying to pick on this reporter. They're not the only example I've ever seen of this. Everytown is treated like an unbiased source all the time in the media, and I'm not sure it's always malicious. Some people are just morons, after all, and likely don't know or they're just too lazy to look, or they're some combination, as I said.
But Everytown likes it that way, so they're sure not going to correct them.
