Cross posted at the MRC's NewsBusters blog
On Friday's New Day show on CNN, nearly all panel members portrayed positively the news that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might allow expanded background checks and more gun control to be passed in the near future in response to recent mass murders by gunmen targeting public spaces.
The liberal news network was true to form in exaggerating how popular expanded background checks are with the public, and in failing to notice that nearly all such mass shooters in recent decades not only passed a background check to acquire their weapons, but would still pass under the new proposed rules, thus making the issue irrelevant to combating such attacks.
Shortly after 6:00 a.m. Eastern, co-host John Berman proclaimed that there is "new movement on action to prevent gun violence." He then cited a recent radio interview in which McConnell declared that expanding background checks would be "front and center" because it has "a lot of support."
Berman enthused that it was "different language than we have ever heard" from McConnell, but then lamented that "it's just language" because the Majority Leader is not calling Senate members back from their vacations to begin work immediately.
Each of the show's three hours led with a panel discussion on the issue, and, out of eight guests -- mostly CNN contributors -- who took part in the discussion, no one expressed any skepticism over the push for more gun control. Seven out of the eight members gave commentary leaning in favor of the new proposals, including the only right-leaning guest, Tara Setmayer, who supported more background checks.
After Berman ran an audio clip of Senator McConnell discussing the possibility of more gun control, he went to left-leaning CNN analyst John Avlon misleadingly described expanded background checks, describing them as "massively popular with Republicans -- 87 percent support -- this is a 90 percent issue."
He concluded that McConnell's comments are a "hopeful sign" that such measures may be passed into law.
In the second hour of the show, Avlon hosted a "Reality Check" segment in which he also misleadingly claimed that expanding background checks is popular despite evidence to the contrary.
After fill-in co-host Erica Hill suggested that the NRA might currently be too weak to dissuade Republicans from passing such legislation, CNN contributor Errol Louis was upbeat about the possibility of more gun control as he suggested there may be "a perfect confluence of opportunity" to pass a plan.
Radio host Tanzina Vega then did her own part to talk up background checks to help protect public places even though there is no evidence that such attacks are a background checks issue, calling it "common sense gun reform."
The 7:00 a.m. hour began with Berman giving a similar introduction, playing the clip from McConnell, and then going to two liberal CNN contributors -- Joe Lockhart and and Raul Reyes -- and one right-leaning contributor, Setmayer, for comment.
All three supported more gun control as Lockhart was pessimistic that it would happen.
And, in the discussion starting the third hour, CNN contributor Paul Green fretted that there is a "lack of concern" by McDonnell as he negatively observed that the Senate leader "drags this out" by not calling the Senate back into session.
As usual, all of the show's discussions about how to combat mass shootings were about promoting more gun control without taking any time to question whether such measures would work, or giving any consideratin to going in the opposite direction and empowering more law-abiding citizens to carry their weapons for protection.