Like most Americans, the staff at Boycott Watch has been
watching the news about the murder of 26 people, including 20 children, at the
Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut this past Friday, December
14, 2012. Boycott Watch has made a few observations to consumer reactions, as
follows:
-- As usual, media reaction quickly shifted from the tragedy to the politics of
guns being the cause yet continues to miss the point that increasing gun laws
would not have helped in this case where the perpetrator stole firearms.
Instead of concentrating on the tragedy and the families, the vast majority of
the media exploiting this tragedy for political expediency.
- Mental illness was clearly at the center of this case, yet not the key issue
in the media.
- Schools are gun-free zones, thus laws prevent law abiding citizens who may
work at the school and have a permit to carry a gun to protect themselves and
others in such cases.
- The Colorado movie theater shooter was and is deranged.
- Rep. Gabby Giffords was also shot by a mentally ill person.
- As we later learned about the August 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center
shooting, the gunman, Buford Furrow, had targeted the Museum of Tolerance
operated by the Simon Weisenthal Center, but left when he saw an armed guard,
thus the mere presence of a guard with a gun saved the lives of the people
there.
- Firearms sales are up after every tragedy because people want to protect
themselves.
- Firearms nomenclature can be confusing since it dates back more than 100
years. An 'automatic' pistol reloads the next round and fires one bullet per
trigger-pull as does a revolver, while the term 'automatic' has a completely
different meaning for rifles. The media constantly confuses firearms
terminology which does nothing more than confuse the average person into
thinking handguns operate like machine guns.
- Laws prevent psychiatrists from both having dangerously mentally ill people
held in protective custody and forcing them to take medications.
- If Walmart stops selling guns as some have reported, people will just buy
guns elsewhere.
- Snookie Factor: Many shooters are looking for fame, thus the media are
turning people who have accomplished nothing of note other than being stupid on
an MTV or other show into heroes. Creating brainless teen idols only encourages
mentally disturbed people to also do something stupid for fame.
- The media should stop glorifying the shooters by putting their face and name
on the news at every opportunity.
- Claims to boycott gun sales are ridiculous since the people claiming the
boycott are not buying guns anyhow, once again illustrating political agenda
and not the reality of mental illness being the center of this case. The fact
is, you cannot boycott sometime you don't buy anyhow, so when you hear about
boycott calls in this case, just remember that gun sales have always gone up
after mass shootings.
In conclusion, Boycott Watch has and continues to observe a
level of exploitation of the firearms issue when no laws can prevent the
actions of a deranged person who stole a firearm. The gun laws being spoken
about in the media all deal with the purchase of firearms by law abiding
citizens, not the case we have today. If the media was not driven by a
political agenda, mental illness would be the news focus. |
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