Narratively Empowered

Stephen Miller writes at The Wilderness,

Obama believes the shootings in Oregon have finally given him the political capital to push massive, unprecedented (and unconstitutional) gun-control measures. Not legislatively of course. That would require work, and building relationships with a Congress he has no interest in dealing with. No, what Obama is doing is once again the only thing he truly knows how: activism. The current occupant of the White House thinks laws are passed not by meeting with legislators and marshaling support in the Capitol building, but by organizing celebrities and loyal media personalities on social media.

...Media personalities and journalists have in years past usually fallen back on “Ha ha, don’t be so paranoid, silly gun nut! Nobody’s coming for your guns!” It’s the same cliche response they’ve always whipped out when forced to defend their positions as credible reporters and not progressive activists. Except this time, because of Obama’s own words and actions, they now feel Narratively Empowered. This will not be the normal nudging of political storylines. This will be a full assault. They have a little over one year left with their handpicked President and they believe this is can be the last great legacy action for a White House that has accomplished much of everything else it set out to do. As stated before, our media is Obama. Because his election was so closely tied to them, his successes and failures are theirs as well. Because Obama is no longer being subtle about his wishes with respect to guns, neither will they. And Obama cannot be allowed to fail.

In the past few days, therefore, writers from Vox, Talking Points Memo, Washington Post, Think Progress and New York Times have all come out for gun confiscation. If they are only just writing it now, understand that it’s something they’ve believed for a long time and now finally feel comfortable about letting the mask slip. But after hammering Donald Trump for months about how he plans to round up and deport 12 million illegal immigrants without instituting a mandatory door-to-door police state, they seem to be at a loss as to how the federal government plans to round up 300 million firearms legally owned by American citizens.

...At the cue of our President, the media had suddenly had decided that a sheriff with the heartbreaking burden of investigating a mass shooting in his jurisdiction was a bigger villain than the shooter himself — a man who executed his victims based on their whether they were Christian.

...candidates must treat combative partisan journalists as political opponents and not as conscientious practitioners of our sacred First Amendment rights. Yesterday morning Marco Rubio sat down with Matt Lauer, who proceeded to grill him on gun control after the typical “Trump called you XYZ”. Rubio gave his GOP opponents a roadmap on how to handle combative journalists as their base instincts kick in, the fangs bare, the eyes roll over white, and they slide into “gotcha mode.” Rubio asked Lauer to name the proposed gun-control law that would have stopped a shooting like in Oregon, short of full confiscation. Lauer was left gasping that Rubio was advocating doing nothing in the wake of the shootings. When at the 2:55 mark Rubio suggested looking more at mental health, Lauer shut it down. It’s the conversation they absolutely do not want to have.

An inconvenient narrative that CNN, NBC, Vox, Buzzfeed, Huff Post and the rest refuse to face up to is the fact that more mass murders have been committed by members of our news media in the past month than by NRA members, or anyone who purchased a gun at a gun show (the new favorite talking point of the powerful Clinton Lobby).

Read more here.