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New York State got the jump on the White House, passing firearms control legislation on the day before Barack Obama was scheduled to outline his federal proposal. As a consequence, Guns qualified as the Story of the Day. NBC led its newscast with Chuck Todd's stand-up from the White House outlining the President's plans. As for the other two newscasts, they both led with the disgraced Lance Armstrong. His TV interview with Oprah Winfrey has been taped, but is still under wraps. So both ABC and CBS led with background features -- ABC for the second straight day -- instead of the cyclist's actual words.

The newsworthy development in New York State's gun legislation was the stricter rules on the psychiatrist's couch. Mental patients now have less privacy, with their shrinks compelled to report warning signs of violence to the state's firearms registry. ABC's Pierre Thomas and CBS' Chip Reid both covered that angle. From the White House, CBS' Major Garrett and NBC's Chuck Todd previewed the President's legislation: Garrett took the angle that Obama's veto pen would not insist on a ban on assault weapons; Todd decided that the key element was enforcement of honesty in background checks, a gun-control measure supported by the National Rifle Association.

Rounding out gun coverage, NBC's Ron Allen noted the national red-blue divide: eastern states tending to tighten gun laws, those in the mountain west liberalizing them.

Andrew Tyndall 1/16/13 5:31:24 pm

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