A pro-gun control documentary produced and narrated by Katie Couric edited an interview with a gun rights organization in an attempt to portray them in an unfair light.
The documentary, Under the Gun, focuses on victims of gun violence as well as families of those who lost loved ones to gun violence that lobby for further gun control. In the scene that has come under scrutiny, Couric is interviewing members of the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League. In the clip, Couric asks: “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?” She is met with stunned silence from the organization, as they look sullen with a lack of eye contact, semingly embarrassed that their argument had been defeated.
If someone without any prior knowledge on the gun debate were to watch the clip, they would feel like Couric just dropped a bombshell question that gun rights activists have no answer for.
The problem is that’s not what actually happened in the interview. The Washington Free Beacon obtained raw audio of Couric’s interview with the VCDL, which tells a far different story.
Couric begins by asking, “If there are no background checks, how do you prevent–I know how you all are going to answer this but I’m going to ask it anyway–if there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent or felons or terrorists from walking into say, a licensed gun dealer and purchasing a gun?”
The deception is apparent in the question alone, because Couric admitted that she anticipated how the VCDL would respond to her question, so she comes across as if she simply wants to be fair and put their side of the argument into the documentary.
Couric’s question is met with an immediate response from a VCDL member arguing that if someone isn’t in jail, or they’ve done their time in jail, they should still have their gun rights protected. Another responded that there are already federal and state laws that prevent illegal aliens and convicted felons from acquiring firearms, and that it’s impossible to determine if someone is a criminal until they’re about to perform a criminal act. Couric goes round and round with the gun rights activists for about four minutes in the audio.
“Let’s be clear, here: This is lying. It is dishonesty. It is, in a disfavored word, propaganda.”
National Review’s Charles Cooke
It would have been a good exchange for viewers to see in order to hear both sides of the argument and form their own conclusions. But Couric’s deceptive editing prevented that from happening.
“Let’s be clear, here: This is lying. It is dishonesty. It is, in a disfavored word, propaganda,” writes National Review‘s Charles Cooke. “It is also typical. I am frequently struck by how quickly opponents of the Second Amendment resort to mendacity, conflation, and hyperbole, and this incident serves as no exception.”
Not that anybody should be surprised that Couric pulled a stunt like this:
Did @katiecouric disclose that she colluded with Bloomberg when reciting his paid-for talking points and falsifying pro-gun interviews?
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) May 25, 2016
The whole documentary is nothing more than dishonest gun-control propaganda.
The full, unedited audio can be heard below: