It happens. There is a tragedy, and the press leaps into action. Reporters run about trying to pull together information on the perpetrators of whatever crime has occurred, aren’t necessarily thorough in their haste to get the scoop, and then some details turn out to be dead wrong.
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Yes, this is a conservative site, and that was a Fox News clip, but it wasn’t posted here because of political leanings. It was posted because Fox News was the one network that at least hesitated throughout the day from jumping on each new theory as it came out. They did run with the false assessment that Ryan Lanza was the shooter, but only after at least CBS and someone else had done the same. And this problem of insufficient fact-checking, and desperation to beat everyone else to the punch was clearly illustrated on Facebook by Mandy Nagy (Liberty Chick) from Breitbart.com. I couldn’t have put it better when she pointed out that if the explosion of garbage on social media was the way the brother of the shooter found out about the deaths of his family members, that is despicable.
And before the dust has settled at all, and before the crime scene has even been examined in earnest by investigators, the Democrats are already marshaling their troops in their incessant battle against the Second Amendment. It doesn’t matter that logic should tell them that gun laws will not prevent criminals or the criminally insane from acquiring weapons to commit crimes like this. Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush offered this in a statement today:
Lawmakers, local, state and national, can no longer be held hostage by those who are opposed to reasonable gun control laws. It is time for lawmakers to come out of hiding and to have the courage to face these issues. We must act on all fronts, social, economic, educational to answer the complex questions raised by today’s events. We must face, without shame, the issues of domestic violence and mental health that are no doubt a part of today’s events.
Perhaps the only correct part of that statement was the fact that this tragedy probably did have something to do with both domestic violence, and mental health. As for what Rush’s definition of “reasonable gun control laws” is, there is little doubt it has something to do with removing the ability for the vast majority of law-abiding citizens to acquire firearms at all in the first place. As conservatives, we know that will lead to radically increased gun violence, not the opposite that liberals regularly claim.
But, it is not time for us to speak of politics, no matter how tempting it may be. I made the observation earlier today that at least on Twitter, conservatives were praying, while leftists were conspiring to use this tragedy for their own political agenda. While I personally don’t pray, I do prefer to be associated with those that do in this situation. This is not the time or place for politics. It is time to mourn, comfort others, and heal.
