Media Bias Hides the Real Story Behind Mass Shootings

In a conversation with Steve Bannon on America’s Voice, Dr. John Lott said the latest mass shooting in Minneapolis reveals more about media bias and failed policies than about firearms themselves.

Gun-Free Zones as Targets

According to Lott, the shooter’s manifesto explicitly stated he chose the school because it was a gun-free zone. Lott argued that this detail is consistently omitted from mainstream coverage.

“Time after time, diaries and manifestos explain why they pick their targets,” he said. “They want to go to a place where victims can’t defend themselves. But you’ll never see the media admit that.”

Lott pointed to a long list of killers — from Columbine to Buffalo to Nashville — who deliberately selected “soft targets.”

His view is that these criminals aren’t stupid; they know more unarmed victims means more carnage, and more carnage means more headlines.

Mental Health Failures

Lott also underscored the role of mental health, noting that over half of mass shooters in the last 25 years were already seeing professionals — yet not one was flagged as a danger.

He cited examples where killers easily deceived psychiatrists by denying violent intentions, a systemic failure that allowed them to slip through.

Like the Buffalo shooter, who told a teacher he planned to shoot up a summer school, but when referred to psychiatrists, “He told them, ‘Look, it was a stupid joke. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.’ And the mental health care professionals basically just took him at his word.”

Lott’s point: the system often relies on self-reporting, allowing would-be killers to conceal their intentions.

Armed Defense as Deterrent

Lott argued the solution isn’t disarming the public, but allowing trained staff to carry concealed firearms in schools.

He pointed out that more than 10,000 schools nationwide already allow armed teachers or staff — and, according to his research, none of those schools has experienced a deadly attack.

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Uniformed officers, he warned, are too obvious a target.

“If they’re going to attack, who do you think they take out first? … One way to think about this is we have air marshals on planes. Does anybody think air marshals ought to be in uniform?”

Media Misdirection

Lott also accused the press of manipulating coverage to support gun control, whether by downplaying manifestos, misreporting firearms used, or framing events as “white supremacy” regardless of motive.

“My guess is the whole gun control debate that we have right now would be dramatically different if even once in a while the media would say why they picked the target — because they wanted to go to a soft target where they knew their victims couldn’t defend themselves,” he explained.

He said editors have told him including such details would be “political,” yet they regularly highlight the firearms used or speculate on how they were obtained.

“Saying that they picked a place where people were banned from having guns — is that more or less political than you going and calling it an ‘assault weapon’?” Lott asked.

The Bottom Line

For Lott, the lesson is clear: gun-free zones invite mass killers, media bias fuels bad policy, and disarming law-abiding citizens won’t stop the next tragedy.

Instead, he says deterrence through armed defense, honesty about mental health failures, and a press willing to report uncomfortable facts are the real paths to safety.

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