When the media makes Trump a target

Washington Times ^ | March 20, 2019 | John R Lott Jr

[richardb72]

The national Sunday morning talk shows blamed President Trump for the New Zealand massacre that left 50 dead. CNN’s Jake Tapper warned: “I don’t think moderate Republicans are doing enough to hold President Trump accountable for his rhetoric.” NBC’s Chuck Todd noted supposed parallels to the killer’s rhetoric, and asked: “When the president uses the term ‘invaders,’ does that dehumanize to the point where it can get misused?”

The media made Mr. Trump its singular target, but not even Democrats were completely spared from the frenzy of critical reactions. In a viral video, an angry NYU student confronted Chelsea Clinton and blamed her “rhetoric” for the New Zealand massacre. What was Ms. Clinton’s offense? She criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, for making anti-Semitic remarks.

Blaming Mr. Trump or even Chelsea Clinton is nonsensical. The media acts like mass public shootings in other countries are something new, but they are actually much more common outside of the United States. And, well before Mr. Trump became president, foreign shooting, bombing and vehicle attacks were increasing in frequency at a much faster rate.

Research by the Crime Prevention Research Center, over which I preside, shows that there were 2,354 attacks and at least 4,880 shooters outside of the United States from 1998 through 2015. This excludes incidents that occurred in the course of guerrilla or civil wars. In contrast, our country had 53 attacks and 57 shooters. By our count, the United States accounts for 1.49 percent of mass public shooting murders, 2.20 percent of attacks, and less than 1.15 percent of shooters. All of these figures are much smaller than the United States’ 4.6 percent share of the world population. . . .

[reformedliberal]

But I thought there’d be a red tidal wave in 2018, so don’t rest assured.
_____________________

Yeah, me, too. But the commieprogs cheated massively.

That’s got to stop.

[Eleutheria5]

They’ve been doing it since the Civil War and maybe before. Certainly in 2016, and certainly in 1960. How to stop that which is ubiquitous?

[reformedliberal]

I don’t remember it ever being so blatant and relatively unchallenged and I’m 76. And not naive, either.

[Eleutheria5]

But that itself is a good thing. It’s blatant, relatively unchallenged, and ubiquitous, and they still lost in 2016, and just barely got a majority in the House alone in 2018, and a shaky coalition at that.