Piers Morgan is silenced, yet the shots still ring out

The school shooting has become the quintessential American tragedy, since the Columbine massacre in 1999 which claimed fifteen lives, thirty-three students died in Virginia Tech University in 2007 and twenty children, aged six and seven were slaughtered in 2012. In the midst of one of America’s most destructive social phenomena is British anti-hero Piers Morgan, despite his infamous history in British tabloids, the love or hate television personality has become a leading light in the campaign to bring an end to the needless abhorrent annihilation of schoolchildren at the hands of the second amendment. Through Morgan’s primetime CNN show Piers Morgan Live, he has irrepressibly confronted gun advocates in tempestuous and occasionally infamous debates which have come to polarize America and have driven relentlessly the issue of gun ownership into the limelight of mainstream American media.

However, in late February 2014, Morgan’s inquiry into American gun ownership came to an abrupt end as CNN cancelled the former Daily Mirror Editor’s program, citing poor viewing figures. However Morgan himself conceded that his focus on gun control had potentially led to his dismissal “there is no doubt that there are many in the audience who are tired of me banging on about it”. Little over a year since one of America’s worst school shootings, one of American media’s most vehement gun control activists was silenced. Morgan’s career has been blighted by un-popularity and accusations of snobbery, poor integrity and even involvement in the phone hacking scandal are rife. The reaction to Piers Morgan Live’s cancellation is telling of his standing in Britain with poorly disguised contempt for Morgan appearing ubiquitous across Twitter and even Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson lambasted Morgan on a recent edition of the BBC television show. However somewhere between New York and London, the significance of CNN’s decision has become lost in translation.

In late February 2014, Morgan’s inquiry into American gun ownership came to an abrupt end as CNN cancelled the former Daily Mirror Editor’s program

While many Britons rejoice at Morgan’s expense, the realisation that the dismissal of a vanguard for a gun control revolution, that would ultimately save the lives of American school children, goes unheard. Piers Morgan Live’s tenure was wrought with emotional confrontations between Morgan and a plethora of gun ownership advocates such as those from the insidious gun control lobbying force the National Rifle Association as well as the infamous 9/11 conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Piers Morgan however, remained an unwavering voice of reason throughout. The basis for a lot of the gun advocate’s rhetoric is essentially grounded in the Second Amendment, which protects an American’s right to ‘bear arms’ and is intrinsically founded in a classically libertarian philosophy, however Morgan quite sensationally questioned the validity of such a claim. In Morgan’s understanding the right to ‘bear arms’ contradicts an American child’s right to not be massacred with a military grade assault rifle while at school, a thought process which is becoming harder and harder to dispute in the light of more school shootings.

Piers Morgan Live’s tenure was wrought with emotional confrontations between Morgan and a plethora of gun ownership advocates

During perhaps the bloodiest era for gun violence in American schools, Morgan offered an unrelenting rallying point for gun control campaigners, however CNN chief Jeff Zucker’s decision to silence Piers Morgan may induce a horrific realisation for Americans, one of their leading news corporations has failed American school children. On the morning of the 14th of December 2012, a mentally deranged young man took his mother’s assault rifle, shot her several times in the head before driving to a local elementary school and massacring twenty children and six teachers before killing himself. Adam Lanza killed twenty children aged between six and seven on that fateful morning, twenty potential doctors, poets, scientists, musicians were slaughtered because a seriously ill young man had access to weapons of acute destruction. Piers Morgan gave these children a voice, whereas others waivered under the fell clutch of tragedy, Morgan attempted to mobilise an upheaval of gun culture in a bid to prevent further tragedy; however in February 2014 this voice was silenced.

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