BBC News put this video out last month. When I first saw the headline, I thought it’d be a hit job bashing gun owners and the 2A. But then I watched it, and it turns out that it’s relatively fair. It doesn’t portray gun owners in a negative light. That said, it does reference some misleading statistics on gun-related violence.
Here is a snippet from the description:
There are more than 350m legal firearms owned in the US, and it is estimated that between a third and a half of all Americans own at least one. In the first 48 days of 2016 1,556 people have died as a result of gun violence in the US. President Obama says the biggest regret of his presidency is his failure to secure effective gun laws.
As one gun owner explains in the video, one has to deconstruct gun violence statistics to get a real sense of what’s going on. For example, roughly two-thirds of the approximate 33,000 gun deaths each year are suicides. Rarely does this get mentioned when gun control advocates talk about “reducing gun violence” or “common sense gun control.”
Obviously, they omit this information because they want the public to believe that the gun homicide rate is way higher than it is. If the public mistakenly believes that they are at a greater risk of being a shooting victim, they may be more inclined to support laws that restrict the Second Amendment.
President OBama said that his most regretted action during his presidency was the death of ambassador Stevens and the whole Benghazi fiasco. NPR reported that last Friday, not what is quoted above.
The BBC needs to worry about its own back yard that does not look so good with a MUSLIM mayor in London, no-go area for Christians etc. Oh but they do not mention that stuff…………………
I went to university in Australia in the ’70’s. We would get in into discussions of the US Constitution and 2nd amendment rights. My friends just couldn’t believe people in the US had a RIGHT, independent of the government, to “keep and bear arms.” Actually, they couldn’t believe the people had any “rights” independent of the government.
While they are making these statements we were, frequently, in the town pub in some outback town were everybody owned firearms. Australia was the first place I fired fully automatic weapons. (Which belonged to the Australian Army).
It has never ceased to amaze me that any free people, with any sense of self worth, would line up to give up their human/civil rights to an elected government made up of parliamentarians that would probably be out the next ‘vote of no confidence.’ Which, during this time period, happened quite frequently.
Interesting, but too short! I was hoping they put this out as a teaser for a longer program. It can be helpful and informative to see how hot-button and controversial subjects like this are approached and reported on by foreign media. I agree that it’s encouraging to see the BBC didn’t give 2A supporters and gun lovers the stereotypical European “Those crazy violent Americans” treatment.
Not directly, but subtly they implied the “there’s too many guns available in America” theme that the anti-gunners are always touting. This appears to have been a bit of raw footage over which the reporter will comment when aired. It’s during the reporter’s monologue that I’d expect the real anti-gun rhetoric