Heather Ann Thompson

Everything was much more coded and therefore it was much easier to say this has nothing to do with race when I doubt seriously that anyone there in real time would have believed that if pressed.

It was the gateway to changing self-defense law really everywhere.

Before the Goetz case, the National Rifle Association is largely in the South and in the West and, again, is much more associated with sportsmanship and hunting.

The Goetz case just fits nicely with its own desires to make gun ownership much easier and culturally much more acceptable as a means of everyday self-defense.

And so they have a legal arm that they start to put a lot of money in.

And start to work at the state level, places like Florida where we get a stand-your-ground law, places like New York, and at the Supreme Court level to change gun laws so that they are more favorable to ordinary people being able to carry and to be able to use their guns without criminal sanction.

Such a great question.

I mean, for starters, Rupert Murdoch, who is in New York, has recently purchased the New York Post.

And the get story is gold because it is the right mix of rage and sensationalism and the ability to spread a conservative message in the way people want to hear it.

And it is going to be the beginning of the rise of the Murdoch conservative media empire.

When the New York Post is on the rise, its main competitor, the Daily News, doesn't want to lose readership.

I mean, they're going to match each other tit for tat in terms of the sensationalism.

And increasingly, the racialized coverage.

I think the New York Post certainly wins that race.

But pretty soon, everyone is knee-deep in it.

And the mainstream media is so interesting here because

It is also interested in readership, and it is also interested in what is the story that resonates with people.

What is the story that feels right?

And I'll give you an example of this.

When this very first happens, the boys not surprisingly have screwdrivers.