How the Media Distorts Perceptions on Guns and Safety

I don’t think anyone will disagree with the idea that there’s too much violent crime in the US. The only acceptable rate is zero, after all, which means there’s always work to do.

But we have a problem. We have an issue where people’s perceptions of the problem, and the role guns play in it, are horrifically distorted.

How many times have you seen someone talk about how their children are terrified to go to school because they’re worried about a mass shooting there? I’ve seen it a thousand times, it seems like, and I’ve pointed out how rare they actually are. They’re not rare enough for me to be satisfied, but distorting the problem means you reach the wrong answers.

I was reminded of that when I came across this op-ed in the Minnesota Star Tribune by a graduating senior advocating for gun control, who included something that really drove this home for me.

The State Fair. The tennis courts where my mom and brother face off. The Mall of America. Two soccer fields. These are all places I frequent that have been marred by gun violence in recent years. It’s easy to write this off as “being in the wrong place at the wrong time” — except it’s seemingly everywhere and all the time.

One of my classmates, also a high school senior, has survived five shootings. She feels desensitized to the violence, comparing the moment when everyone starts running to a zombie apocalypse.

“Unfortunately, it’s normal to live in a society where you will likely end up in a shooting … this is part of life now, I guess, because nothing’s changed with any gun laws,” she said. Another peer used her senior speech to describe a trip to Zimbabwe, where she felt an unfamiliar sense of safety, because she was free from the fear of guns.

Wait…she felt safer in Zimbabwe than in Minnesota?

Zimbabwe reported an intentional homicide rate in 2020 that was probably a record low for them, but was on par with ours and our historic spike in murders. However, according to the State Department, you can’t really trust what Zimbabwe says on that because they don’t include the extrajudicial murders carried out by the government in that rate, nor do they correctly count homicides in rural areas.

So why would an American feel safer in a third-world hellscape than in Minnesota?

It’s because the press has lied to her for her entire life. They’ve portrayed the United States as an incredibly violent nation, where growing into adulthood is more about luck than being the default for most people who make it through infancy. Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, the media only reports what the government wants reported. That means nothing that makes Zimbabwe look bad makes the air.

It’s all a matter of perception, and because our media wants people to perceive the US as dangerous, kids grow up convinced the odds are against them surviving into adulthood. The anti-gun rhetoric that gets broadcast into television sets throughout the country or pops up in social media feeds gets amplified until people believe it’s the reality.

So, when they venture abroad to a violent, third-world country with an oppressive government and extreme violence, the fact that they don’t see it means they don’t have to face it happening. They’re being lied to, and they feel safer for it.

That’s why people think “ghost guns” are everywhere, even though they account for only a small percentage of the firearms recovered at crime scenes. It’s why “ghost guns” are a thing at all, since people built their own guns since before this nation even existed, but it wasn’t until a politician stood up and coined the term itself, arguing about just how awful it was that people could make “untraceable” guns, and the media running with it that criminals realized it was an option.

I’m not saying that the media needs some degree of control. I’m a firm believer in freedom of the press.

I’m also a firm believer that responsibility matters, and our media has been as irresponsible as they could be by trying to distort reality, terrifying young people into believing they’re not fortunate to grow up here as opposed to a country like Zimbabwe. Our media hasn’t done its job properly because it’s not informing people of crap.

It’s scaring them.

Yes, that’s by design. It’s by design because most of those covering these sorts of issues want gun control themselves. They cover the lack of it and frame everything as if we’re all just fortunate not to get shot while checking the mail.

The author and her classmate have fallen into the same trap millions of Americans have fallen into.

I’m not saying we’re without problems, mind you. I’m saying that we can’t have a reasonable conversation when we have people who are in hysterics about the scope of the issue itself, much less be willing to talk about something that doesn’t infringe on a constitutionally protected right.

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