Despite not having an official count of those injured, the number of gunmen, the types of weapons used, or how the incident started in Philadelphia, CNN’s The Situation Room engaged Wednesday in dubious behavior, using the attack on police officers to promote the need for gun control. They added that such incidents felt like the “new normal” and thus operating on emotion, not facts.

Host Wolf Blitzer signaled the pivot in a tease at 5:19 p.m. Eastern by hyping how the shooting “comes as Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is rolling out her plan to end gun violence” prior to an in-studio interview with the Senator.

After a break, Blitzer connected the attack on police to Harris’s gun control platform, which Harris replied without any pushback by implying that her gun control plan would have prevented this incident from happening (click “expand”):

Well, it’s just when will it stop, right? Part of my focus on what we need to do around smart gun safety laws is recognize that we have to have more enforcement around gun dealers. Wolf, 90 percent of the guns that are associated with crime are sold by just five percent of the gun dealers in the United States and so among the many plans that I have, both in the form of executive action and also in the form of legislation, one of them is to put more resources into the ATF to take the licenses of gun dealers who violate the law and that includes a number of things, including when they are responsible for doing background checks, not doing them.

The rest of the interview went on despite running chyrons and live images of the standoff and didn’t involve linking the two together.

In the next segment, chief political correspondent Dana Bash sought to gaslight CNN’s tiny audience with more fear-mongering, correctly stating that “this is an active situation” and “[w]e don't know how this is going to end and more importantly we don't know what it is all about” before pivoting towards reckless political speculation.

Again, as of this post, there was absolutely nothing known about what types of guns were being fired at police, but that didn’t stop Bash from ignoring the city’s strict gun laws and ensuring she got her liberal points across (click “expand”):

But it’s an active situation and unfortunately I don't want to say it’s the new normal, but it is this kind of situation where you have an active shooter is coming across our phones and coming across the phones and, you know, bulletin alerts of people all across the country very, very frequently, which is why here in Washington there has been a renewed discussion about whether or not finally the Republican and Democratic Party can come together and figure out ways to stop this, whether it is gun control, any form of gun control or other means...Unfortunately, these stories are continuing and it’s happening as we speak.

Blitzer, Washington Post writer Jackie Alemany, and The Daily Beast’s Jackie Kucinich then went on and on about the current state of play when it comes to negotiations with Congress and the White House over gun control as if this event were part and parcel with wanting to see some sort of legislation passed.

Legal analyst Joey Jackson chimed in next and he was more overt in tying the attack to the lack of gun control (click “expand”):

Look, my perspective is that something has to change and reasonable minds have to come together to take action. Yes, there is a Bill of Rights. Yes, I do agree and do believe strongly in the second amendment, but we need on protect responsible gun ownership. Why is it that only 17 states, we have 50, have red flag laws. What are they? They’re laws which would allow family members, right? Or police to go and petition the court in order to take your gun away in the event that you're a danger to yourself or others. We need more states. We need the federal government to provide incentives or grant other states to have these laws. We need at the federal level, as Kamala Harris, you just had her on the show, has a proposal to get the federal courts involved. These are laws which are very important. These are important in as much as yes, we'll protect your right to bear an arm. But if you're not rational and you're not reasonable, we're going to take it away. Dana graciously said, you know, listen, is this the new normal? Or I don't want to call it the new normal. It almost appears it is, Wolf. How often are we talking about the same things? Why do we have a loophole where you go to a private gun show and you can get all the guns you want. No background check. But commercially? Ha! Background check. Does that make any sense at all? So, my perspective is Democrat, Republican, independent, there's too much shooting. It's happening all the time. Could we get something together and do something so people stop dying?

As the country’s premier reporter on the Second Amendment (Free Beacon’s Stephen Gutowski) has repeatedly stated, the gun show loophole is — to borrow Politifact’s one rating — pants on fire. Nonetheless, Jackson was allowed to push his punditry without pushback from Blitzer. If more would read things like this from Gutowski, this reckless behavior might not happen. But alas, there's agenda-setting to be done!

Prior to going to commercial near the top of the hour, Kucinich did the same thing that Bash did by admitting that “we don’t know what's going on in Philadelphia” while at the same time promoting gun control, falsely claiming that police are uniformly outgunned:

There are a lot of law enforcement groups that are for more restrictions with guns. I mean, look what happened in Dayton. How many people were shot, how many people were killed in — what — in 32 seconds. Every time one of these happens and I hate to say it. You do hear police speaking out, saying we're outmatched by some of — by some of these weapon that's these people are using.

Huh. It seems like just yesterday that, amidst the events in Baltimore and Ferguson, the liberal media brutally panned law enforcement nationwide as being too militarized. My how times have changed.

To see the relevant transcript from CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on August 14, click “expand.”