Brad Wilmouth is emerging as the Media Research Center’s top kneejerk defender of, and apologist for, guns. He complained about criticism of a Tennessee plan to arm teachers in a May 5 post:
Over the last few weeks as a bill made its way through the Republican-dominated Tennessee legislature to permit local areas to decide whether to let teachers concealed carry firearms to deter mass shooters, several MSNBC hosts found it “shocking” and brought on “The Tennessee Three,” their favorite far-left Democrats from the state’s House of Representatives — Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson — to smear Republicans and push conspiracy theories.
MSNBC host Ali Velshi claimed that the new law was “worse than doing nothing,” and, on the April 28 edition of his eponymous weekend show, went along with State Representative Justin Jones’s theory that Republicans hope arming teachers will scare parents away from sending their children to public schools. Velshi responded: “I don’t want my kids going to a place where there’s yet more guns in the school. I’d like zero guns in the schools.”
A bit after Jones declared that Republican Governor Bill Lee “has no conscience and no courage,” weekend host Alex Witt concluded the segment on her April 27 show by gushing: “I’m really glad you were voted back in office.”
A few minutes earlier, among his substantial trashing of Republicans, Jones further declared: “the governor just spit on the face of all these people and spit on the graves of the six people killed by signing this law. Nothing to reign in gun violence like common sense gun laws that would expand universal background checks, ban assault weapons, red flag laws. Instead, he’s putting a law to arm teachers — something that no teachers want in our state.”
[…]While some of the liberal guests invoked the Covenant school shooting that occurred in the state in 2023, it was not mentioned that that school was a gun-free zone or that nearly all mass shooters who target public places choose gun-free zones to make it less likely they will face resistance, thus pointing to a deterrence value of armed teachers.
And while Democrat guests fretted that armed teachers would lead to more violence, MSNBC hosts ignored research finding that schools with armed teachers tend to be safer.
The alleged evidence Wilmouth cites on gun-free zones comes from the Crime Prevention Research Center, which is run by the discredited pro-gun “researcher” John Lott, so there’s no reason to trust it at face value. And the paper on the alleged safety of schools with armed teachers was written by Lott — another red flag.
In a June 2 post on a PBS segment about far-right challengers to Republican candidates, Wilmouth complained that “disgruntled former Republican Joe Walsh” noted that Texas Republican congressman Tony Gonzales “barely won against a far-right, gun-loving kook who would have beaten him if that was the only issue.” Wilmouth didn’t dispute the description, but he also didn’t admit that it’s entirely true; his main claim to fame involves YouTube videos of himself shooting things. Instead, he was mostly engaged in distraction and whataboutism, whining that the PBS host didn’t mention that “Walsh left the Republican party in 2020 after his failed attempt to win the GOP presidential nomination” and that “no mention had been made that there has also been a trend for decades of congressional Democrats electing more solidly left-wing members.”