This Is How Media Try to Manipulate the Gun Debate

The mainstream media is no friend of gun rights advocates. While it’s important that we talk with them and try to get our point of view out to as many people as humanly possible, the harsh truth is that they’re never going to give us a fair shake.

But of the many ways they try to manipulate the discussion, one of the worst is when they platform students who happened to go to a school where a shooting happened.

Now, it’s one thing when it’s a smaller school like a high school, where everyone can hear the shots.

A university is something entirely different. These are sprawling campuses sometimes covering hundreds of acres. Brown, for example, is around 150 acres. In the rural parts of the country, that’s hunting land or a small hobby farm. 

People on those campuses are alerted to a shooting by campus security, not gunshots, in most cases. While the shootings are still terrible, most of the people who come out of the woodwork as “survivors” really weren’t in any danger.

And then outlets like USA Today platform them, even though they were anti-gun activists from the start.

Part of me wants to ask why we keep allowing guns to terrorize the places we love. But having been an advocate in the movement to prevent gun violence for the past four years, I know the answer. It’s because we have a gun industry that continues to prioritize its next billion dollars at the expense of our public safety.

Young people like myself and my friends at Brown continue to have our voices silenced when it comes to what needs to be done around gun violence. I say, with every fiber in my being, this has to end now.

We are the wealthiest nation in the world. We pride ourselves on upholding freedom to the greatest extent. Yet my peers and I will never be free; not if gun violence continues to be the leading cause of death for young people, not when we have more mass shootings than days in a year in this country, and certainly not while politicians can get away with taking a check from the gun lobby ‒ even after fatal school shootings ‒ and be paid off to do nothing.

Me thinks this guy, Will Thomas, doesn’t understand what freedom is.

Freedom isn’t being free from worry. In fact, one could easily argue that taking away worry requires a degree of tyranny that no one should be comfortable with. The whole thing of “we will never be free of gun violence continues” is predicated on thinking that freedom is, in fact, being free from worry and danger, which means the government would need to step in and ban anything remotely dangerous, not just guns.

No, freedom means being free to decide for yourself, and that means a certain degree of uncertainty. That means danger. That means being free to make mistakes, some of which may be life-threatening.

But what gets me is that Mr. Thomas here admits he’s been an anti-gun activist for four years now. What happened on campus that night didn’t change anything for him beyond making him nervous. He was told to shelter in place, then woke up being told everything was clear. That’s about it.

The problem is that USA Today platformed him because he seemed a handy tool to advance the anti-gun narrative. They used his status as a student at Brown to lend some authority to his anti-gun activism, but that predated the shooting by years.

Notice, though, that they don’t often include the pro-gun students who attend schools like Brown, or other institutions where there are shootings? They can’t tell me that they don’t exist. They might be a minority, but I assure you, they’re there. Hell, one of the people killed in that shooting was the president of the school’s College Republican chapter. Maybe another member of that chapter might be open to speaking on the topic as someone who leans pro-gun, just for balance?

But USA Today, which famously made a mockery of itself over chainsaw bayonets, isn’t interested in that sort of thing.

They’ve got a job to do, and it’s not reporting the news.

Editor’s Note: To celebrate Christmas and ring in 2026, Bearing Arms is matching our biggest sale ever on VIP memberships. Now through January 1, until 11:59 pm PT, receive 74% off a VIP membership using promo code MERRY74!