The silence was almost deafening. On Saturday, the LA Times had a couple of articles about the Colorado shooting while USA Today noted on Monday that Colorado Governor Hickenlooper had visited one of those grievously wounded in the attack. Google news had nothing about Newtown. Neither did Yahoo.

Shannon Watts was certainly hoping for more. As the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense immediately following the Newtown shooting, she announced that members in 35 states were going to be ringing bells in memory of Newtown: “Moms won't be silent anymore. Something changed after Sandy Hook.”

What's changed is the entire gun control landscape.

In April, the president expressed his anger over his democrat-controlled senate failing him to give him what he wanted: more draconian gun control laws. In May, Pew Research released its study showing the continuing decline in violent crime, which is now half of what it was just 20 years ago, despite a 20 percent increase in population. What was especially interesting was the comment from the study that, while “mass shootings are a matter of great public interest and concern … they are also are relatively small share of shootings overall … less than 1% of all homicide deaths from 1980 to 2008.”

Public awareness that such shootings as those in Colorado, Newtown, and the Washington Naval Yard (remember that one?) in September are rare is growing, and that they are, as Paul Barrett pointed on in BusinessWeek, not “ordinary instances” of violence:

Mass murderers prepare meticulously and usually acquire their weapons legally. Comprehensive background checks … wouldn't have stopped Newtown gunman Adam Lanza.

Aaron Lexis, who killed 12 people [at the Naval Yard], used a legally acquired 12-guage shotgun … [which is] not on any plausible ban list.

Efforts of the media to use such incidents as fodder to feed their agenda aren't working. Richard Feldman, one-time field operative for the NRA and now head of his Independent Firearm Owners Association, pointed out the media's hypocrisy. Following such horrendous attacks,

Do we examine how criminals obtain guns? About 500,000 are stolen annually. No.

Do we have the open discussion Vice President Biden promised about our failed drug policy and why it encourages gun violence? No.

Do we devise and implement a non-politicized firearm safety program for our schools and communities? No.

Did we examine the inadequacies of our mental health resources to prevent future tragedies like Newtown? No, we did not.

Instead, we spent considerable time and money on another silly “food fight” over so-called assault weapons that are rarely used in crime (less than 2%).

The internet is helping quiet the media rhetoric. Back in January, a blogger named Sporks at the Daily Kos, a mouthpiece for progressives, wrote an article that has been picked up in the alternative media endlessly, successfully exposing their real end game: total gun confiscation from every American citizen, leaving complete control in the hands of the federal government. This impact of the internet on the social and political “conversation” was predicted years ago by Andrew Wile, at The Daily Bell:

The education that takes place every day [through the internet] is eroding the elite's hold on government, economics, military power, and, most importantly, on the minds and psyches of the once easily controlled masses.

Sporks wrote:

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt-action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing….

Registration is the first step. [Once] the vast majority is registered, we can do what we will….

This echoes the voices of other authoritarians who, once empowered with complete control, murdered millions of their own citizens:

All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns. That way, no guns can ever be used to command the party. – Mao Tse Tung

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.  – Adolph Hitler

This perhaps explains why the media has failed to pick up and pump out its anti-gun propaganda, given the opportunities provided over the last few days to do so: people aren't buying it any more.

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Sources:

USA Today: Misplaced focus after Newtown massacre: Opposing view

Newsmax: Colorado School Shooter Wounds Two, Kills Self

The Newtown Elementary School Shooting

CNN Poll: Support for stricter gun control fades

Pew Research study: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak

BusinessWeek: Why Gun Control Is Basically Dead

Moms Demand Action website

CNN: Obama: ‘This was a pretty shameful day in Washington'

US population growth 1993 to 2011

Washington Naval Yard shooting

Daily Kos: How to Ban Guns: A step by step, long term process

Quote from Mao

Quote from Hitler

Yahoo news: Colorado governor visits school shooting victim

USA Today's Monday morning's headlines for December 16th, 2013

Moms Demand Action website

Daily Kos is a progressive mouthpiece

The Daily Bell website