Here is the Monday cover of the London tabloid, The Sun, whose demand for tighter gun control laws was unambiguous. It calls the Newtown shooting “America’s Dunblane,” a reference to the 1996 shooting in which a gunman entered an elementary school in Scotland armed with four handguns, and then shot and killed sixteen children and one adult before committing suicide.
Such a message would be unsurprising, except for the fact that The Sun’s owner is Rupert Murdoch, whose personal gun control sentiments are directly at odds with the Fox News empire, which he also owns. New York Magazine has a fascinating look at News Corp.’s internal tensions created by this tragedy.
But aside from News Corp.’s soon-to-be-separate print division, there were few signals that Murdoch’s call for gun control was having much effect. The Fox & Friends Twitter account sent out a message at 7:43 a.m. highlighting one nonlegislative method for preventing future massacres without a firearm crackdown: “Gov Mike huckabee joins us LIVE at 7:52am EST … do we need to get prayer back in our schools?”
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