Why is the Mainstream Media’s Focus on Charlie Kirk While They Virtually Ignore School Shootings?
Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart
Okay, we get it. A Trump
supporter was murdered. Yes, it’s wrong, and like Republican politicians after
a mass shooting, ‘I offer my thoughts and prayers,’ but nothing more. Charlie
Kirk preached anger, hatred, and violence to his supporters. His hate speech
was unusual in the fact that he hated everyone who was not pure white, poor,
and practiced any faith other than Christianity, or none at all. He was not
focused one issue, race, or color, he hated everyone equally. He literally
lived by hate and was killed by a ‘hater.’
What he was not is a hero or a
martyr.
I simply wish that the mainstream
media would offer the same coverage when there is another school shooting,
whether the death toll is zero, or the facts reach devastating levels.
Let’s get serious. This is the 21st
century. Even America, with all of its prejudices and pent-up anger, should be
more civilized. Instead, here are the statistics for 2025 as of this date,
September 16.
Any gun fired, brandished with
intent, or bullet hitting school property, regardless of injuries or deaths.
This includes accidents, suicides, gang related shootings, and fights which led
to a shooting: 146.
Gun incidents that resulted in a
person being killed or wounded, as well as those in which a gun was discharged
and no one was shot: 91.
Only shootings causing injuries
or deaths on school property or buses during school hours or events: 8.
Note: It doesn’t matter which of
these statistics are used, the United States has far more incidents involving
children and guns than any other nation in the world.
The latest school shooting
occurred at Evergreen High School in Colorado last Wednesday. A student who
attended the school shot two other students, and then shot himself. He died at
the hospital.
The two students were critically
injured and are expected to survive.
On December 14, 2012, I was a
reporter for a Las Vegas newspaper. I was working around my home when my editor
called me and told me what was happening in Newtown, Connecticut. I immediately
turned on CNN. A short time later, a reporter on the scene offered viewers
information received from law enforcement who were inside Sandy Hook Elementary
School.
20 children, ages 5 and 6, and
six faculty members had been shot and killed.
The NRA gun lobby owns many men
and women in our legislative branch. I firmly believed that this unimaginable
incident would force both Democrats and Republicans to finally take some action
related to the escalating number mass shootings in America. Of course, I
underestimated the level of corruption and incompetence in Washington. Nothing
happened.
What did happen were conspiracy
theories from Q’Anon and other right-wing extremist groups, including an
allegation by one of the worst men in the world, Alex Jones. He claimed that this
was all a “show:” that all the children and teachers, as well as the shooter,
were paid actors.
I consider the Second Amendment
the most poorly written and ambiguous Amendment in the Bill of Rights. However,
it existed when I was in elementary school and high school in the 1950s and
1960s. I do not remember learning about a single shooting at a school involving
children.
However, as a writer, I
researched the possibility. I found several individual incidents, most
involving two individuals. One angry person shot another on school grounds.
However most did not involve children and none were ‘mass shootings.’
Let’s be honest: military-style
assault rifles and high-output magazines did not exist in the mid-twentieth
century.
I wonder what steps could be
taken to slow or end acts of domestic terrorism today?
You and I know, but apparently
our federal government is occupied by idiots and morons.
Op-ed by James Turnage
Follow my blog and be informed
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