Crime in general – especially crimes committed with guns – is down over the past 20 years.

Not just down.  Down drastically.  As in “the kind of thing that should be provoking celebrations in the streets”.

And yet Americans think crime is rising (emphasis added):

The number of gun killings dropped 39% between 1993 and 2011, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in a separate report released Tuesday. Gun crimes that weren’t fatal fell by 69%. However, guns still remain the most common murder weapon in the United States, the report noted. Between 1993 and 2011, more than two out of three murders in the U.S. were carried out with guns, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found.

But is the word getting out? 

Despite the remarkable drop in gun crime, only 12% of Americans surveyed said gun crime had declined compared with two decades ago, according to Pew, which surveyed more than 900 adults this spring. Twenty-six percent said it had stayed the same, and 56% thought it had increased.

And how does that happen?

It’s unclear whether media coverage is driving the misconception that such violence is up. The mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., were among the news stories most closely watched by Americans last year, Pew found. Crime has also been a growing focus for national newscasts and morning network shows in the past five years but has become less common on local television news.

There’s nothing “unclear” about it.

On a non-partisan level of cynicism – crime makes for ratings.  If it bleeds, it not only leads – it sells papers and gets people to tune in.

The fact that the “guns are out of control” narrative supports the Administration for which the mainstream media serve as a Praetorian Guard?  Two hits for the price of one.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Media, Victim Disarmament. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.