Gun control hypocrite of the week: #MTP’s @DavidGregory

Yeah, I know – shocking, right? /sarcΒ Via Weekly Standard’s Daniel HalperΒ (hat tip):

David Gregory mocked the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre for proposing that armed guards be at every school in America. But the NBC host seems to have no problem with armed guards protecting his kids everyday where they attend school in Washington, D.C.

“You proposed armed guards in school. We’ll talk about that in some detail in a moment. You confronted the news media. You blamed Hollywood and the gaming industry. But never once did you concede that guns could actually be part of the problem. Is that a meaningful contribution, Mr. LaPierre, or a dodge?,” asked Gregory.

Later the host suggested that guns don’t prevent violence in schools (he cited the mass shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech). “But you would concede that, as good as an idea as you think this is, it may not work. Because there have been cases where armed guards have not prevented this kind of massacre, this kind of carnage. I want you would concede that point, wouldn’t you?,” Gregory pleaded.

The NBC host would go on the rest of the segment to suggest that armed guards might not be effective inΒ preventingΒ mass murders at school. Which is perhaps an interesting theoretical argument.

But when it comes to Gregory’s own kids, however, they are secured every school day by armed guards.

The Gregory children go to school with the children of President Barack Obama, according to theΒ Washington Post. That school is the co-edΒ Quaker school Sidwell Friends.

According to a scan of the school’s online faculty-staff directory, Sidwell has a security department made up of at least 11 people. Many of those are police officers, who are presumably armed.

And even if they aren’t armed, the fact that Barack Obama’s kids (and Joe Biden’s grandkids) go to the same private school means there are manyΒ heavily armed Secret Service agents nearby. Β With automatic weapons.

Anyone who watched Gregory’s “interview” with LaPierre yesterday got a quick lesson in blatant (and disgraceful) advocacy journalism. There was no attempt at being “fair and balanced.” No attempt at entertaining any counterpoints (nor any attempt at putting facts on the table – such as his false argument about the armed deputy at Columbine). Gregory, like most agenda-driven mainstream mediots after gun massacres, had a self-righteous gun control argument to get out there and a scapegoat to blame, and the President of the NRA was invited on to be his whipping boy. Contrast that “interview” with the one Gregory did with staunch gun control advocate Mike Bloomberg, and you’ll see that the differences in how each were treated could not be more stark.

As I’ve said before, this debate deserves serious consideration and and thoughtful discussion of all options on the table, not emotion-driven arguments and “gotcha” questions designed to push a specific false narrative, drive up media ratings and appeal to certain audience segments. TRIED and TRUE Β journalists understand this – unfortunately there are few of that caliber left in this country.

Power Line’s Scott Johnson calls the left’s two-faced nature on the gun control issue “The Gregory Doctrine”:

Glenn Reynolds is still awaiting answers from gun-control advocates Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg about the guns used by their security details in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre. The silence is telling, for the political and media hysteria whipped up in the wake of the killings is mixed with equal parts bad faith and magical thinking. A healthy dollop of misinformation is overlaid on the bad faith. The magical thinking operates in its own reality without any need of the misinformation to support it.

John Hinderaker adds:

There is much to be said on this issue, but the hypocrisy of the politicians and celebrities who themselves rely on armed security, while assuring the rest of us that the value of guns as weapons of self-defense is a myth, is one remarkable aspect of the story.

Indeed.

On a side note, how much do you want to bet that Gregory, also like Obama, is a strong advocate of the public school system while denouncing the voucher system – even though his kids are in private school? Β There really is NO issue of national importance that liberals are not somewhere along the lines found to be gigantically hypocritical over. Β  Elitist snobs.

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