WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Boston Manhunt and the MSM’s Gun Control Blind Spot.

We wrote about the MSM’s inability to grasp the politics that caused the gun control bill to fail in the Senate this week. The aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing illustrates the divide.

Millions of Americans listening to the bulletins on the developing manhunt were either glad they had guns in their homes or thought seriously about getting them. Yet for many professional journalists, and maybe especially those in the Acela corridor in the Northeast, this reaction is incomprehensible.

Put simply, millions of Americans don’t want to depend only on the police for protection. They think about the inevitable interval between calling 911 and the arrival of the cops, and they don’t want to wait helplessly for the good guys to arrive. Events like this one reinforce deeply held public beliefs about the dangerous world we live in and the limits of the state’s ability to protect the people from the bad guys.

This may not strike enlightened and well credentialed Acela liberals as sensible or rational, but that’s not the point.

They talk about empathy and understanding for other cultures. But . . . .