Have you heard any dubious claims about gun violence from the media recently? If you've seen any “facts” like the claim that 1 in 5 adults in the US has had a family member killed by a firearm, you may want to do your own research to see if that's actually true. Of course, usually we could rely on “fact checkers” to determine the truth about a fact, but in our world all of the fact checkers seem to have an agenda that they're trying to push in the media.
The same is true of gun violence, where it seems impossible to find reliable data to support one side or the other. The main problem with these studies is that you can doctor the results by asking the right question in the wrong way. Take, for example, the “fact” that 1 in 5 adults has a family member that was killed by gun violence. It matters how you ask that question, and we don't know if Kaiser (the people who released this study) asked if that was an immediate family member or a distant relative like a half-uncle or a cousin twice removed.
You can see how asking the right question in the wrong way would lead to a lot more instances of someone having a family member that was killed by gun violence. The problem is that the media will see these doctored results and run with them. CNN and MSNBC will run story after story citing a single source that happens to agree with their agenda, and then laws will be passed with these “facts” in mind, meaning that the media and companies like Kaiser Permanente will have the power to pass meaningful legislation, instead of relying on peer-reviewed, unbiased research that's conducted over a lengthy period of time.
It's time we stop allowing the media and companies with an agenda to write our legislation and steer the public perception on issues like guns, abortion, and immigration. I would advise you to conduct your own research and come to your own conclusions instead of relying on media narratives, and it's time our politicians did the same. If you'd like to read more about the media moving the goal posts on gun issues, please read this article from the Federalist.
