If you haven't noticed, conservative pundits are framing the UK riots into the narrative that liberals will be in the streets and burning down the nearest rich person's house and maybe even your car. Bill O'Reilly did it all last night, but
August 11, 2011

[oldembed width="420" height="340" src="https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/pl55.swf" flashvars="config=http://mediamatters.org/embed/cfg3?id=201108100025" resize="1" fid="10"]

If you haven't noticed, conservative pundits are framing the UK riots into the narrative that liberals will be in the streets and burning down the nearest rich person's house and maybe even your car. Bill O'Reilly did it all last night, but RushBo usually gets the party started.

Limbaugh Likens UK Rioters To "A Government Union Worker"

The austerity measures being implemented around the world after the elitist financial movers and shakers crashed their countries economies which is at the heart of this desperation. And you definitely won't hear how these UK riots broke out in the first place. UK Police shot Mark Duggan:

PCC releases initial findings of ballistics tests in police shooting of Mark Duggan, whose death sparked London riots. Mark Duggan did not shoot at the police, says IPCC.
Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police sparked London's riots, did not fire a shot at police officers before they killed him, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said on Tuesday.

Bill O'Reilly forgot to mention that part of the story. Hannity jumped in as well.

Hannity: European Unrest Partly Due To "Failed Liberal Policies"; We May "See [Violence] Here"

And piggybacking off the violence in the UK comes the usual NRA line. We don't have enough guns to protect ourselves against the DFH's.

Last month, we documented how right-wing media used the Norway terrorist attack to push for more lenient gun laws. They're at it again, now using the riots in the United Kingdom as their hook.

Today, Andrew Breitbart's Big Government published a blog post by AWR Hawkins headlined "If We Let the Government Take Our Guns, We'll Have To Run and Hide Like Londoners." Hawkins claimed that "because England banned the private ownership of handguns the "criminals are confident the citizenry is thoroughly unarmed" and are "going into homes and business ... taking whatever they want." They then attempt to strike fear into readers by suggesting "if we ever let the government take our guns, it won't be long till we'll be scrambling under tables like Londoners."

--

Not to be outdone, Fox News soon got into the act.

Greg Gutfeld, host of Fox News' The Five discussed the riots and claimed that "without the threat of punishment you have nothing -- you need guns." When asked for clarification, Gutfeld said: "an armed society is a behaved society."

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon