Have you noticed that the closer we get to Election Day, the rhetoric from gun control activists is becoming more vague and undefined? During the vice presidential debate, for instance, Tim Walz never spoke about the Harris/Walz campaign’s call for “universal” background checks and a federal “red flag” law. In fact, he never specifically called for a ban on so-called assault weapons, instead bemoaning “some of these weapons out there” while vaguely asserting “there are reasonable things we can do to make a difference”. 

Another recent example is the Scripps News profile of gun control advocate Abbey Clements, a former teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut who’s also the founder of Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence. The Scripps News piece is headlined “Teacher who survived Sandy Hook speaks on what real gun reform looks like”, but the story itself is almost entirely devoid of any actual policy suggestions by Clement. The closest we get is this:

Clements sees culture changes as part of the solution, including with safe gun storage. Lara Smith, spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, supports that idea too but thinks there needs to be a deeper discussion. 

… Clements says change will have to happen on many fronts. And through her advocacy, she’s keeping her students in mind. The same ones she’s been able to see grow up and will be able to vote in the upcoming election.

Oddly, the Scripps News piece includes more specific policy proposals from the spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club than the subject of the story. 

“Instead of mandating you must have storage — but we’re not going to help — what about tax credit?” Smith questioned.

Both women say there is a place for gun owners in the Democratic Party, but Smith believes the party is focused on the wrong issues.

“Let’s do the things we can do, instead of this idea of, well, we’re going to have some magic gun fairy come and ban and remove every, you know, rifle that we’ve decided we’re going to remove,” she said. 

Smith sees employing more school counselors and making sure the background check systems are thorough as ways to make a change rather than banning AR-15s — which she says is not based in science.

It’s not like Clements is only calling for gun storage laws. In a joint press release issued shortly after the shootings at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, Clements and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten declared:

“Those who continue to oppose commonsense gun safety laws have failed our children and our country.

“Let’s do what we have to do so this won’t happen to another school, family or community.

“We must remove weapons of war from our streets and communities, fund community violence intervention programs, enforce background checks and safe-storage laws, ban high-capacity magazines and pass more extreme risk protection laws.

The “real reform” that Clements is calling for includes bans on commonly owned firearms and ammunition magazines, more “red flag” laws, and criminalizing person-to-person gun sales without a background check in addition to storage mandates. It took me less than a minute to find that press release, so it’s not like the Scripps News reporters were clueless about Clements’ real agenda. So why didn’t Scripps News include any of that information in their report on the “real reforms” that the gun control activist wants to see? 

It’s especially ironic given that Scripps News has touted itself as a “facts-first” news outlet. In this case, they left out some of the most important facts about Clements’ activism and advocacy, leaving viewers in the dark about the extent of her anti-gun wish list. 

Maybe this is just an example of bad reporting, but I can’t help but view it as part of a larger trend of masking the true intentions of anti-gun activists and politicians ahead of the election and making them seem more moderate than they really are. It’s bad enough that Kamala Harris hasn’t been pressed to explain her support for handgun bans in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. or her assertion as D.A. in San Francisco that the courts should reject the argument that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. When the press can’t even detail the gun control policies supported by a gun control advocate, it’s painfully obvious that there’s something rotten in the Fourth Estate.