Katie Couric is only latest in a long line of deceptive anti-gun journalists

Late last month, the Washington Free Beacon revealed that the makers of a new Katie Couric documentary on gun violence deceptively edited an interview between Couric and a group of gun rights activists in an apparent attempt to embarrass the activists.

From the article:

At the 21:48 mark of Under the Gun a scene of Katie Couric interviewing members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights organization, is shown.

Couric can be heard in the interview asking activists from the group, “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?”

The documentary then shows the activists sitting silently for nine awkward seconds, unable to provide an answer. It then cuts to the next scene. The moment can be watched here:

However, the Free Beacon reported that raw audio of the interview between Katie Couric and the activists shows the scene was deceptively edited.

Instead of silence, Couric’s question is met immediately with answers from the activists. A back and forth between a number of the league’s members and Couric over the issue of background checks proceeds for more than four minutes after the original question is asked.

Under the Gun bills itself as a documentary that “examines the events and people who have kept the gun debate fierce and the progress slow, even as gun deaths and mass shootings continue to increase.”

It follows a number of gun violence victims and those who have lost family members to gun violence as they advocate for stricter gun control laws. The 1 hour and 45 minute film was executive produced and narrated by Katie Couric.

Under the Gun has been labeled “dishonest politicking in the guise of media coverage,” “loose with the facts,” and “a full-length assault on guns and the Second Amendment” by those in the gun community since its debut on May 15.

Couric has since "taken responsibility."

While this latest example of deceptive journalism slanted against gun rights is deploreable, the fact is it's nothing new.

Just a few weeks before Couric's deception was exposed, Buckeye Firearms Association pointed out that a breathless investigative report by WSYX (Columbus ABC) reporter Tom Sussi was actually reporting old news about the ability of Ohio residents to carry here with concealed carry licenses obtained through other states.

In 2014, ABC's 20/20 tried to convince viewers there is an epidemic of firearms accidents in the country. "So many children dying in accidental shootings," proclaimed ABC News' Diane Sawyer even though accidents involving children 14 and under have declined by 28 percent in the last decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2012, NBC's Bob Costas chose to use his speaking slot during a half-time show to blame the tool an NFL player used to murder his wife and then commit suicide

Back in 2009, Diane Sawyer was caught rigging a mass shooting experiment. Sawyer spent a full hour trying desperately to prove how dangerous guns are and how ordinary people can't possibly defend themselves with firearms. The show's snarky title: "If I Only Had A Gun." As we reported at the time, slanted information filled the report, seemingly pulled from the press releases of the Brady Campaign, with not a single dissenting opinion. The most egregious slight of hand was a rigged experiment that struggled to show why having a gun would do you no good in a Virginia Tech-style mass shooting.

In 2007, Wayne LaPierre busted CNN on live tv when they tried to convince viewers that the pending sunset of the Clinton Gun Ban would legalize fully automatic rifles.

The list goes on and on.

These days, journalists are even attending propaganda "workshops" paid for by anti-gun rights extremists, and accepting money from anti-gun rights lobbyist groups to write articles that advocate against gun owners' rights.

When it comes to the Second Amendment, journalists have long-since abandoned the mantle of objectivity. Katie Couric is only the latest to be exposed for it.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary, BFA PAC Vice Chairman, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website.