Axios has writers, but I can't really call what they do "writing." They have a format that is easy to digest, admittedly, but there's no real creativity and nothing that grabs the reader and makes it so someone wants to digest the information. There's a place for that, though, and one might think it would negate some methods of inserting bias into a story.
Guess again.
Axios decided to write about the Washington permit-to-purchase requirement, which isn't super new or anything, but the way they wrote about it, they provided a master class, even if unintentionally, on how media bias actually works.
Washington residents will need a permit to buy guns starting in 2027 — a change expected to affect thousands of potential buyers each year.
Why it matters: Supporters say the law will boost public safety by helping keep guns out of the wrong hands. Opponents argue it infringes on Washingtonians' constitutional gun rights.
...
What they're saying: Studies have found that states with similar gun-licensing laws have lower rates of gun violence, the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions says.
- In particular, requiring people to get their fingerprints taken as part of the permitting process can cut down on "straw purchases," in which one person buys a firearm for someone else who can't legally own one, Renée Hopkins, CEO of the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, told Axios.
- Hopkins said the training requirements also promote safer gun handling, reducing the risks involved in having a gun at home.
...
The other side: "This is the state government telling gun owners, you've got to get our permission to exercise your civil right — and that's not going to pass the smell test" in the courts, Dave Workman, editor-in-chief of TheGunMag, a publication of the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation, told Axios.
Now, I'm in complete agreement with Workman, but notice how he's got a single quote in here, and it doesn't directly address the claims, particularly by Johns Hopkins?
This is how a biased entity can give the illusion of neutrality without actually being neutral. I can't tell from this if they asked Workman about the claims from Johns Hopkins, but if they did, they certainly didn't include them. It's also possible that they didn't bother to ask him at all.
After all, Workman has been around long enough that he's probably quite familiar with the problems with the studies that claim permit-to-purchase requirements reduce so-called gun violence. Had they asked him, I'm sure he could have gotten into it. If they did ask him, again, they opted not to include that in the least.
Let's understand that straw purchases account for only a small percentage of the guns that end up in criminal hands. Illinois, for example, has a permit-to-purchase requirement and has had one for ages now. Chicago is still a dangerous place to be and "boasts" a high rate of violent crime.
Maryland has such a requirement as well and has apparently had it since 2013. Baltimore, however, has a raging epidemic of violent crime involving a firearm.
This is easily found information, and Axios didn't bother to even look or ask Workman about it.
That's because that wasn't the purpose of this piece.
The purpose is to sell the population of Washington on the gun permitting requirement. Their entire purpose here is to make it sound like a good thing, all while providing a weak illusion of neutrality.
While the law won't go into effect until 2027, this is battle space prep. They're setting the stage to gin up popular opinion against gun rights advocates who challenge the law. They want everyone primed to be outraged over the effort to overturn a blatantly unconstitutional law.
It's just pretending to be journalism.
