Much has changed since the original edition of The Journalist's Guide to Gun Violence

Coverage was published in the first year of this century. This edition updates the basic
principles and makes them relevant to the news environment of 2016. Please distribute only
within the Journalism community.

THE 2016 EDITION OF THE JOURNALIST'S GUIDE

TO GUN VIOLENCE COVERAGE

Guns are a sad fact of life in American culture and are a major topic in modern journalism. As a
Journalist, you have a duty to get involved and make a difference in this important societal
debate. By following certain guidelines, the concerned Journalist can be assured of having the
maximum impact on this shameful American problem. The concepts discussed here apply both
to broadcast and print media.
For the purposes of this Guide, our work is divided between routine stories about gun violence
and the broader coverage of the political debate about gun control. They are both equally
important. Let us first address the proper way to construct a news story involving common gun
crimes.

Covering Common Gun Violence Stories

The purpose of routine gun crime coverage is to create the impression of a continuing, growing
and terrifying tidal wave of gun violence. Your goal is to plant the fear of guns in the minds of
ordinary people, fear for themselves and especially for their children. Lets start with the
basics.

The importance of terminology

The first and most critical principle to remember is that subtle use of terminology can covertly
influence the reader or viewer. For example, when describing a gun crime, victims must be shot
"by" a gun, not "with" a gun. This may seem like a small detail, but it helps establish the
principle that guns are responsible for crime.
Mass shootings get most of our attention and we will discuss them shortly, but most shootings
involve only one victim. This should not discourage a talented Journalist. There are ways to
make even the smallest shooting incident serve the greater good by following these suggestions.
When telling the story, adjectives should always be chosen for maximum anti-gun effect.

When describing a gun, attach terms like "automatic," "semi-automatic," "large caliber,"
"deadly," "high powered," or "powerful". Small pistols can be called cheap or concealable.
Almost any gun can be described by one or more of these terms. More than two guns should be
called an "arsenal".
Try to include the term "assault weapon" if at all possible. While it normally applies to rifles,
the term can be combined with any of the terms above. Any weapon can be used to assault
someone, so you cannot be criticized for this usage. Assault weapon is one of our most
effective emotional terms, use it often. However, when these weapons are used by police, they
should be called tactical rifles or patrol rifles.
A brief visit to the website of a national anti-gun organization can provide you with a list of the
latest talking points and terms like these old classics: Saturday Night Specials, cop-killer
bullets and the criminal's weapon of choice".
Whenever police confiscate guns, they also confiscate ammunition. You must include the
number of rounds seized, since the number will seem large to those who know little about guns.
You may simply call them bullets if that is appropriate for your audience. If possible, find a
way to imply that each round could have resulted in a dead child if the police had not
intervened. For example, also seized were 200 bullets, more than were fired at Columbine.
These days it is important to include the size of a gun's magazine. If you don't know, just call it
a high-capacity clip. The type of ammunition used is fair game too. Hollow point bullets
sound especially sinister. The term, armor piercing comes in handy too, don't be afraid to use
it.
When discussing laws that allow certain people to carry concealed weapons, call them hidden
guns as it sounds a bit more sinister.
Vigilantism is a word you will find very useful. Technically, a vigilante is someone who goes
out looking for criminals to confront, but you should apply the term to anyone who uses a gun
in self-defense. It is important that this kind of behavior is marginalized and discouraged, so
that the people become more dependent on the police.
Always use the term shooting instead of attack, massacre, mass murder, atrocity or similar
terms.

Technical details
Don't worry about getting technical details right. You need not know anything about guns.
Many a reporter has accidentally written about semi-automatic revolvers or committed other

minor errors. Since most people get their gun knowledge from Hollywood, this is not a
problem. Only the gun nuts will complain and they don't count.
The emotional content of your article is much more important than the factual details, since
people are more easily influenced through their emotions than through logic.
One detail that should be mentioned, but is too often overlooked, is the model of the gun used to
kill someone. Get this information from the police and do an internet search for other crimes
involving this model. This is how gun bans are born and you can be a part of it.
If you run across useful information about safe gun handling or how guns actually work, do not
share it with the public. People fear and hate things they do not understand.

Subliminal tools
Broadcast news teams should have stock video on hand showing a machine gun firing on full
automatic. Run this video while describing common semi-automatic guns used in a crime or
confiscated by police. At the least, a large graphic of a handgun should be displayed behind the
on-air personality when reading any crime story, even if guns are not involved. Guns should be
the symbol of crime.
Do not waste words describing criminals who use guns to commit crimes. Instead of calling
them burglar, rapist, murderer, or repeat offender, simply use the term "gunman". This helps
the public associate all forms of crime and violence with the possession of guns. (Note that this
may soon change to gunperson as more women take part in mass shootings.)
Whenever drug dealers are arrested, guns are usually confiscated by the police - this is ripe for
exploitation. Mention the type and number of guns more prominently than the type and quantity
of drugs. Obviously, the drug dealers who had the guns should now be called "gunmen" rather
than drug dealers.
Emphasize stories where people kill family members and/or themselves with guns. It is
important to make the public feel like they could lose control and start killing at any moment if
they have a gun in the house. This is a good place to include a factoid from a gun safety group,
e.g.: You are 47 times more likely to be killed if you keep a gun in your house.
Any story where a child misuses a gun or is the victim of a gun automatically becomes front
page material.
View every shooting as an event to be exploited. Always include emotional quotes from the
victim's family if possible. If they are not available, the perpetrator's family will do nicely. The
quote must blame the tragedy on the availability of guns, not bad decisions or upbringing.

Photos or video of grieving family members are worth a thousand facts. Most people will
accept the assertion that guns cause crime. It is much easier than believing that some people
deliberately choose to harm others.
Your story should include terms like "tragic" or "preventable" and you must mention the current
toll of gun violence in your city or state. Good reporters always know exactly how many gun
deaths have occurred in their area since the first of the year. To make this number larger, you
should include accidents and suicides in this total, even if your story is about intentional
homicide. List two or three of the most shocking recent incidents to give the impression of a
continuing and expanding crime wave.
Any article about gun violence should include quotes from anti-gun organizations or politicians
who are promoting their latest idea for the next new gun law. One quote should say that we
must do something "for the children". If a proposed gun law seems likely to be ineffective, use
the old line, If it saves only one life, its worth it.
As you know, cities with the strictest gun control laws have the highest crime rates. If you work
in one of these enlightened municipalities, it is critical that you blame all gun crime on weapons
illegally transported from states with weak gun laws. You may embellish this concept by stating
that most crime guns are purchased at gun shows in those states and flow in an iron river to
your city. Include the fact that criminals are able to buy all sorts of weapons, including machine
guns, at gun shows without any background checks.

Themes to avoid
Never question the effectiveness of gun control laws or proposals. Guns are evil and only good
for killing, so removing guns from society by whatever means necessary can only be good. Do
not discuss the fact that gun laws are often not enforced and do not mention that it takes men
with guns to enforce them.
Common sense tells us that nobody ever uses guns for legitimate self-defense, especially
women or children. You may occasionally run across stories where ordinary people defend
themselves with a gun. These must be minimized or suppressed. One subtle method is to say
that the defender had some sort of government training, ie: retired cop or ex-military, which
makes their actions more acceptable.
In some cases, armed homeowners actually shoot criminals, but don't be tempted to deviate
from the standard narrative. In these cases, the criminal is now the victim and you should have
quotes or video of his relatives saying what a good boy he was. The homeowner should be
demonized if possible.

Be careful about criticizing the police for responding slowly to 911 calls for help. It is best if
the public feels the police can be relied upon to protect them at all times. If people are buying
guns to protect their families, you are not doing your job.
Little space should be devoted to shootings where criminals kill each other. Although these
deaths greatly inflate the annual gun violence numbers, they distract from the basic mission of
urging law abiding citizens to give up their guns. Do not dig too deeply into the reasons behind
shootings. The fact that a gun was involved is the major point, unless someone under 18 is
affected, in which case the child angle is now of equal importance.
One very disturbing current trend is the rise in mass shootings by Muslim terrorists. Not only
does this make people buy more guns, it also casts doubt on the effectiveness of our common
sense gun safety laws. You should take every opportunity to downplay these events and
emphasize shootings carried out by white American men. While doing so, you must be very
selective in reporting the political leanings of these men. Only right-wing, conservative beliefs
should be mentioned.
Never mention the copycat effect caused by media coverage or the fact that we essentially
guarantee mass killers that they will be the most talked about person in the country for a few
days. Just dont go there. Mental illness is another factor that should be downplayed. To
paraphrase an old saying, its the guns, stupid.
An important factor in our favor
If you consider the size of the U.S. population, the number of gun deaths is not that impressive,
especially when viewed alongside other causes of death such as cancer, heart disease, medical
mistakes and others. But when a shooting story makes the national news, its effect is greatly
magnified in the public consciousness. To the individual viewer or reader, it will seem like the
event took place near them. The accretive effect of the national media also means that people
can be bombarded with story after story about gun violence. This serves our goal of creating
fear of guns. If a modest shooting happens in your city, do your best to get it onto the national
wire services or cable news networks.

The Political Debate

The backstory
The ongoing public debate about the role of guns and gun laws in society has remained at a high
level since the 1960's. Although many good, restrictive laws have been enacted, it is important
to make people believe otherwise. It is also good to imply that no debate has been going on at
all when we should be having a national conversation about guns. Make your audience

believe that the gun lobby has never given up anything. Our side just wants reasonable
compromise and an honest dialogue that will give us common sense gun safety laws. There is a
famous quote by John F. Kennedy, What is mine is mine, but what is yours is negotiable, that
is our basic principle.
Mainstream Journalism mounted a massive and courageous attack on the gun lobby after the
Sandy Hook gun massacre in December, 2012. By coordinating with our friends in government
and gun safety groups, we were able to make our largest gains in two decades. One reason for
this success is that we have finally overthrown the tired old concept that Journalists should
appear to be unbiased.
2016 A turbulent year
With the Obama administration in its final year, there is a sense of urgency in the air.
Depending on the results of the November election, we could be at a severe disadvantage
beginning in 2017. This stressor, combined with the opportunities provided by high profile
mass shootings, makes for a chaotic and emotional news environment.
A number of gun safety advocates in the media have abandoned the cover story that we are only
interested in incremental, non-threatening, gun laws. Ban them all is the new rallying cry.
You must pay attention to the current trends and strive to make your coverage of gun issues fit
the dominant narrative, whatever it may be. The level of hysteria shown by the editorial board
of the New York Times is a useful indicator of the current trend.
Tactics
Corporate media managers have found that conducting hostile on-air interviews with gun
lobbyists boosts ratings, so if you work on the air, you must be prepared for this kind of
confrontation. Always refer to pro-gun organizations as "the gun lobby". When talking to them
on the air, give free reign to your feelings. This is a good time to be condescending and selfrighteous. It is now acceptable to shout and call them names. They are evil, shameful and
ignorant. We all know it, so why hide it?
Do not let them confuse you with facts. Do not try to engage them in a real discussion. Have
your list of anti-gun talking points in front of you. If you must improvise, stick to the most
emotional statements and questions you can think of. Don't ever admit that any of their facts are
correct. Just cut them off and move on to your next talking point without the slightest
affirmation. At least half of those talking points should involve children and if your opponent
disagrees, feel free to announce that they are in favor of dead children.

This is no time for honesty. For example, you can claim that you are a current or former gun
owner. Our analysts believe that this gives you more credibility with the public, as long as you
sound sincere, and of course that's what you do for a living.
The Gun Lobby
The National Rifle Association should be a primary target of your words. A great deal of work
has gone into nurturing a general hatred of this organization. Although the NRA is not among
the top campaign contributors, you should always mention NRA money when discussing how
they influence politicians. Their legislative lobbying efforts should be described as "arm
twisting" or "threats".
Whenever mentioning the NRA, it is important to frame that reference in the right way. For
example, you can mention the most recent emotional gun incident: On the four year
anniversary of the Sandy Hook shootings, the NRA announced a new program to promote gun
ownership.
There are many other gun lobby groups that are smaller than the NRA, some are national, like
Gun Owners of America and The Second Amendment Foundation. Some are at the state level.
Try to ignore these organizations, since it detracts from our portrayal of the evil, monolithic gun
lobby.
Gun owners must never be seen in a positive light. Do not mention that these misguided
individuals may actually be well educated, or have respectable careers and healthy families.
They should be called "gun nuts" if you can get away with it or simply gun owners at best.
Mention details about their clothing, especially if they are wearing hunting clothes or hats.
Mention the simplistic slogans on their bumper stickers to show that their intelligence level is
low. Many gun owners drive pickup trucks, hunt helpless animals and live in rural areas. Use
these details to help portray them as ignorant rednecks.
Off-air interviews of gun lobbyists
When preparing a print article on the problem of gun violence, you will often wish to interview
someone from the gun lobby. This allows you to include quotes that will make your coverage
seem more balanced.
Your goal, of course, is to make them look bad and their arguments ridiculous. Dont hesitate to
take their quotes completely out of context. Be aggressive and insulting. Consider bringing a
second interviewer to create a tag team effect. Always ask if the lobbyist is making their own
recording; if they are, you should not completely fabricate a quote. If they are not, you are free
to do as you wish.

Pro-gun rallies
When a pro-gun group stages a public rally or demonstration, avoid covering it if possible. If
you must cover it, underestimate the number who attended. Have your photo/video person
arrive well before or after the peak attendance to show a smaller crowd. Pick out the most
ridiculous hand-made signs and the oddest looking people, isolate them from the crowd, and
make sure they are prominently featured in your visual coverage.
Try not to cover pro-gun rallies that are held on weekends. Since working people can attend,
these are generally much larger than the weekday rallies. You will also find many young
families with children, which is not the image you want for your story. Weekday rallies, which
are scheduled to catch legislators at work, tend to be made up mostly of retired people. This fits
our desired narrative of gun owners as old, white men who are on their way out.
One recent development is the staging of rallies where participants carry guns openly. On one
hand, carrying guns makes them look scary and menacing to good progressive folks. On the
other hand, there is never any violence at these rallies, which tends to support their point that
guns prevent violence. If you must cover such a rally, I suggest that you rely on close up visuals
of the weapons and try to interview a Progressive bystander who felt threatened.

Anti-gun rallies
Rallies to end gun violence and support common sense gun legislation are fairly common and
every one must receive as much coverage as possible. Your goal is to maximize the impact by
minimizing these negative factors:
Anti-gun rallies tend to be quite small, so you must overestimate the size of the crowd. Arrange
your visuals so that the small number of participants seems larger. Make sure several of the
professionally printed signs are in each view. Include images of moms, kids and minorities, if
any, to create contrast with the image of old, white, male gun owners.
Quite often, the participants are given free transportation and free lunch by a gun safety
organization. There is no reason to mention this.
If prominent public figures arrive to speak, they will often be protected by armed bodyguards.
Do not point this out and do not include the bodyguards in your visuals. You must also avoid
showing any counter-demonstrators or hecklers from the pro-gun side.
Face to face with real gun owners

When you are building a piece on new gun laws, you will appear less biased if you get
comments from some local gun owners. This can be more productive than interviewing
experienced gun lobbyists.
Don't be afraid to interview gun owners, they are harmless even though we portray them as a
menace to society. Try to solicit comments that show them in the worst possible light. Veteran
reporters call this bumpkin hunting. Gun shows may not be your best hunting ground. You
will not be allowed to conduct interviews inside a gun show, but the parking lot may be
available. Gun shop owners are excellent targets. They find it hard to refuse an interview
request and can usually be relied upon to make statements that play into our preferred
stereotype.
You must only interview white males over age 50 who sound and look unintelligent. Make
them look ridiculous, especially when they talk about gun ownership as a barrier to tyranny.
Find ways to blame them for the gun violence in the inner cities or the horrific mass shootings.
Never show or refer to any gun owners who are women, minorities or liberals.
If you come into contact with many gun owners, eventually one will offer to take you to a local
shooting club and teach you how to shoot. This can be a very tempting offer, especially if, like
most of us, you have never fired a real gun. It may also seem like a good way for you to better
understand the enemy. Unfortunately, this seemingly harmless activity has led to many
defections and articles that are damaging to our cause. You must not, under any circumstances,
accept such an offer.

Gun safety organizations

Anti-gun organizations must be treated with care. They currently prefer to be called gun
safety groups, but this may change in the future. Do not attempt to investigate their finances,
their campaign spending or their membership, which is embarrassingly small compared to gun
lobby organizations. Their money comes from a small number of millionaires and billionaires
who don't like the idea of ordinary people being armed. Do not mention this or the fact that
these wealthy donors are protected by heavily armed security personnel who are not affected by
gun control laws.

Dealing with inconsistencies

One of the largest problems facing the gun safety movement is that violent crime has dropped
substantially in the last two decades, a time when misguided Americans have purchased guns at
frightening rates and several million have acquired permits to carry hidden guns. It is critical

that we keep this paradox from coming to the attention of the general public. You must avoid
any mention of it, even under the most severe pressure.
Another major problem is the lack of any evidence showing that gun control laws have reduced
gun violence - ignore this and say that restrictive laws are just common sense.
Many states have weakened their gun laws by allowing hidden guns or even allowing guns to be
carried openly. During the debates preceding these changes in state law, predictions were made
of gunfights over parking spots and blood in the streets of our cities. None of these
predictions came true, which is somewhat embarrassing for our side. In spite of this, we should
still make these same predictions in future articles about weakening gun laws. People have very
short memories.

Conclusions
Feel secure in your advocacy journalism. The vast majority of your fellow Journalists support
your activism. Simply being an urban, liberal journalist makes you one of the elite and the
people should let you guide them.
The nation will be a better place when only the police and military have guns. Remember that
you are doing it for the children so the end justifies the means. Some day we will all drink the
Kool-Aid of victory.
When common people are eventually disarmed, the government will be all-powerful and the
media will guide the government. If things don't work out as planned, just contact me then for
more helpful hints.

Doctor Michael Brown is a tenured professor of Advocacy Journalism at the Bloomberg

College of Liberal Arts.

Political Satire, copyright 2016, Michael S. Brown. May be distributed freely in its full and unmodified form.
Updated: January 6, 2016