OP is being conspiratorial, so I doubt they can really cite anything.

The idea isn't insane and would have to be determined anecdotally, which heavily depends on your daily news cycle.

Yeah, that's bullshit unless I guess you're in some very specific filter bubble. I'm pretty left on the spectrum and I didn't see the media "pushing" it. They've reported it because that's what was going on at the time. Maybe people confuse the two.

The number of guns increased dramatically over the pandemic.

I think OP was being sarcastic.

This doesn't deserve to be downvoted. Despite the "defined the police" bogeyman, it seems as though the police budgets of every city have done nothing but increase every year.