Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo plugged a company on her show that makes bulletproof backpacks and clothing — with the suggestion that it could potentially keep children safe from active shooting events at their school.
“Back to school backpacks taking on all new meaning this morning,” said a cheerful Bartiromo on her show Monday, with La Roux’s “Bulletproof” blaring in the background.
“MC Armor is the company behind high-end bulletproof backpacks and clothing that are revamping the protective equipment market,” she continued, “It is anticipated to reach more than $5 billion in the next seven years. That would be the revenue in this business.”
Off set, a show employee could be heard gasping as B-roll played of an actor being shot in the stomach at point-blank range, apparently without injury, while wearing MC Armor.
Things only got more explicit when Bartiromo welcomed MC Armor marketing manager Carolina Ballesteros to explain the products.
“In the U.S. sadly we have the gun fact,” said Ballesteros. “Everybody can have a gun. So here kids need to be protected and the fact is there are some school issues. So we need to bring this to the United States.”
“It’s incredible that it’s come to this though. That we need bulletproof clothing,” said Bartiromo. “Some of these things are quite fashion forward.”
Indeed the “gun fact” is not news to most Americans who have become used to stories of regular gun violence in the United States in schools and elsewhere. Excluding suicide, more than 15,000 Americans were killed in gun violence in 2017 according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The most recent high profile school shooting in Parkland, Florida helped reignite a national conversation about the issue, with survivors going on to become celebrities in their own right. But the near round the clock media attention has broadly failed to move the needle at the federal level for activists demands of increased gun control legislation.
9 Times New York Times Editorial Made Everyone Freak Out
Bari Weiss: We're All Fascists Now
The New York Times opinion editor set the Internet ablaze after going after college students who she said were trying to shut down free speech. Critics pointed to Weiss mistakenly linking two fake ANTIFA Twitter accounts
MSNBC
David Brooks: 'Girl I Want Your Body'
New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks offered his spin on the MeToo movement in November. But his attempt to speak the language of sex and passion led him to write some lines like "girl I want your body" and "sex is a gold nugget" and the Internet went nuts.
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Bret Stephens' "A Defense, of Sorts, for Harvey Weinstein"
The October, 2017 piece was actually titled "Weinstein and Our Culture of Enablers," but Stephens couldn't resist throwing in the trollish alternative headline see above into a tweeted description of the article -- which promptly precipitated an Internet meltdown
YouTube
David Brooks Urges "Respect to Gun Owners" After Parkland, Florida Massacre
David Brooks set passions aflame after urging "respect" for gun owners after 17 children were killed at a school shooting in Parkland, Florida. "So if you want to stop school shootings it's not enough just to vent and march. It's necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points," he wrote.
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Quinn "Been Friends with Various Neo-Nazis" Norton
The New York Times got more than they bargained for when they hired tech writer Quinn Norton. Almost immediately after the news was announced old tweets began to emerge including where Norton said she had "been friends with various neo-nazis" and used the N word. The Times cut her loose just hours after she was hired.
YouTube
Bari Weiss Attacks Aziz Ansari Accuser: 'I'll Get Crushed for This'
Weiss risked more wrath on the set of "Morning Joe" in January after blasting a woman who accused comedian Aziz Ansari of sexual misconduct. "It's called bad sex," she told Joe and Mika. "I'll get crushed for saying this."
TheWrap
Bari Weiss Quotes Hamilton: 'Immigrants: We Get the Job Done"
Anti-Weiss Internet mobs were set ablaze after she tweeted out "Immigrants: we get the job done," in response to Olympian Mirai Nagasu's triple axel. Nagasu was born in California to immigrant parents and Twitter furiously dragged her for not paying sufficient deference to the decision.
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James Bennet Diversifies the Times Opinion Pages
Editorial Page Editor James Bennet has said his mission is to broaden editorial diversity on the Times newsroom. The initiative has often been rocky and the paper has been beset by online criticism of hiring choices, and targeted leaks by Times employees unhappy with his changes.
YouTube
David Brooks Sandwich-Shames Less Educated Friend
Perhaps most egregious of all in the mind of Internet warriors was Brooks' confession in a July, 2017 column that he once took a friend "with only a high school degree" into a gourmet sandwich shop but decided to pull a quick switch for Mexican food after, so he said, she appeared overwhelmed by words like Soppressata and Capicollo.
Creative Commons
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Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages
Bari Weiss: We're All Fascists Now
The New York Times opinion editor set the Internet ablaze after going after college students who she said were trying to shut down free speech. Critics pointed to Weiss mistakenly linking two fake ANTIFA Twitter accounts