Newtown and the garbage media

John Hinderaker at Powerline sums up the various media outrages in their coverage of the Newtown massacre, both the staggering number of gross factual errors they made, and their ridiculous advocacy of the “something” that “must” be done to prevent more school shootings. He concludes with a rational and just proposal that would prevent more school shootings:

But if we think that school shootings demand effective action, as President Obama said in a televised address tonight, then the obvious course is to post an armed guard at every school. The problem with this approach is its expense; the same amount of money spent in many other ways could no doubt save more lives. But if we decide the expense is worthwhile, there are creative ways to raise the money. We could impose a tax on Hollywood—so many million dollars for every movie in which more than one person dies violently. Same for video games. And we could tax media outlets: any media outlet that has publicized mass shootings in the past pays one percent of its gross revenue to contribute to the cost of armed guards at schools.

School shootings are an eminently solvable problem. All we need is political will—not to ban “assault weapons,” which would do no good at all, but rather, to find creative funding mechanisms to pay the cost of adequate security. If school shootings are a problem that must be solved, it is time for Hollywood, video game makers, CNN and the New York Times to pay their fair share.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 16, 2012 11:21 PM | Send