How Easily Media Bias Shapes Public Opinion

I missed this report on Friday by 20/20, but apparently they did a piece on guns. Here are the 5 parts.

1. Can You Defend Yourself with a Gun?
2. When Older Kids Find Guns
3. Damon Weaver's Plea to Obama
4. 10 Guns in One Hour
5. Shooting Under Fire

Jason Lewis had Dr. John Lott on his program yesterday to discuss the piece. I have to admit, after watching the videos above from the 20/20 website, they make a very compelling case for the danger of guns. Now, despite the fact that the entire piece eviscerated the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, there were plenty more serious flaws with it. Namely:

1. Not a single proponent of conceal and carry was consulted for the piece.
2. Every multiple person (3 or more) shooting in the US, every last one has occurred in locations where guns are banned.
3. The statement US guns are arming the Mexican drug cartels is demonstrably false.
4. Their classroom shooting "experiment" was rigged.
5. Gunshows do not make buying guns easier. Nor do they arm criminals. Less than 1% of all guns used in crimes were purchased at or through a gun show.

Those are just a few of the things they screwed up. I was surprised to hear that it was 20/20 that did it because John Stossel usually does a very good job. What I wasn't surprised to see was that Diane Sawyer was the correspondant in charge of this piece. If you want to hear all the specifics of this hatchet job called reporting, you can listen to the podcast here, listen to the 3rd hour on 4/13/09.

Moving on. I wanted to point out this article which shows that these tiny motorized wheelchairs known as "smart" cars may not be all they are cracked up to be, atleast from a safety standpoint. Note that in the article the makers of these cars claim the crash test was "not an ordinary" scenario. That's interesting because I'm not sure what is amiss in the test. The results of the tests were that you are at severe risk of head and leg injuries if you are driving one of these go-karts. One glaring detail in the report is that while these may have be simulated "high speed crashes that rarely happen on the road," one thing is for sure. These smart cars where totaled, but the bigger Accord, Camry, and C-Class Mercedes were in great shape.

• Small Cars Get Poor Marks in Collision Test - FoxNews