Two Mass Shootings and Two Vastly Different Coverage
In this installment of our weekly conversation, PF Whalen and Parker Beauregard of The Blue State Conservative contrast the coverage and angle of the Atlanta, GA shooting versus the Boulder, CO shooting.
Parker: I would have been more surprised if the media played these two stories consistently, so let’s get that out of the way. I am not surprised at all that the Georgia shooting went with a white supremacist storyline and the Colorado shooting played up the gun control storyline. The only question that lingers is: How many Americans are waking up to it?
Let’s get something else out of the way, too. The media is in business to make money. As CNN and all the other outlets know all too well (ratings down 40% since Trump left office), hysteria and outrage produce eyeballs and sell ad space at a premium. More outrage, more money. You and I at The Blue State Conservative blog for passion, but there is a real business aspect we would be stupid not to focus on it. Yes, our primary goal is strong content, but we are always looking to monetize our efforts. CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, and all the rest have the same profit motive. No one is doing this for charity. It is true that racism and Covid would go away if everyone turned off the television, but is it the media’s fault for selling a product or is it the consumers’ fault for buying it?
I despise our mainstream media, however more disgust remains with the average American that continues to buy into the obvious lies and deceit. Prior to 2020, and even for a time during this uptick of trendy slurs like white supremacist or anti-masker, I tried to be nice. I spoke about these people as just being uninformed, ignorant, or apathetic. I don’t know if fence-straddling works anymore. Honestly, I think these people are just stupid. I am not even saying they need to adopt every single talking point of conservatism. There is always room for a debate on policy, and you and I have had very big differences even though we adhere to the same guiding principles. Disagreement and debate is and should be recognized as healthy. That being said, anyone that votes Democrat and supports their talking points is, sorry to say, just dumb. There are too many examples of double standards, hypocrisy, and selective coverage or selective outrage. So the question remains: How many Americans are waking up to the scam, and how many more are too stupid to be saved?
PF: For me, the answer to your question – whose fault is it? It’s the consumers’ fault. Our media’s been thoroughly exposed for years now for who they truly are: agenda-driven hacks. After the Russia Hoax, the suppression of the Hunter Biden Scandal, and the media coverage on COVID, if you haven’t recognized that reality yet, shame on you.
What’s amazing to me is they show their hands constantly, but many fail to realize it. These shootings are a perfect example. Before the identity of either shooter was known, Democrats and their media immediately jumped the gun and started in with their narratives. In both cases, since they were both mass shootings, the perpetrator must have been white, so that was their initial approach. In Atlanta they were correct, in Boulder they were not.
Since the majority of the victims in Atlanta were Asian-Americans, we could practically feel their excitement. They depicted the shooter as racist, even though there is still no evidence whatsoever that’s the case. They held up Asian-Americans as victims of more widespread racism, hoping to broaden their intersectional, identity politics coalition and add more Asian-Americans to their ranks. And Democrats all the way up to President Biden hammered the storyline while the media willfully played along.
In Boulder, Democrats such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Meena Harris (niece of Vice-President Kamala Harris), immediately showed their anti-white racism by assuming the shooter was white, when in reality he is of Middle Eastern ancestry. Instead of acknowledging their errors with contrition, they simply pivoted and justified their original conclusions by displaying more racism. It’s disgusting.
Once they realized they couldn’t push the ‘whiteness-is-the-problem’ angle in Boulder, they shifted their target to guns. Naturally, President Biden eagerly grabbed the baton and is now promising an executive order to implement gun control. It’s all so predictable, how can people not see through this nonsense?
Parker: And that’s where this whiteness circle never stops; it just goes around and around. Instead of blaming the Colorado shooting on a white man directly, they pivoted to the hackneyed and baseless accusations of white supremacist bullying. Interviews with the murderer’s brother states that students made fun of his name, that he never fit in, and all the other empty talking points based on his skin color and religious beliefs. It’s hocus pocus, and even if some kids were mean to him, that doesn’t justify murder. If he murdered innocents because he was bullied by white racists, and white supremacy is everywhere, why isn’t every person of color murdering whites? Leftism is a pitiful scraping of brain cells.
Basically, the formula is if white people commit a crime, then it’s directly their fault. And, if a non-white person commits a crime, it’s still a white person’s fault! How convenient. Sane people look at the two shootings and are equally repulsed and angered that eighteen regular Americans were gunned down. Whether by a white or whomever else, murder is murder. There’s a reason race is never named in the Bible but sins are. We do not care about trivial and immutable characteristics; we care about values and actions. On the left, though, and to your point, you immediately got a sense that Jeffrey Toobin was reporting for CNN again when they could play up the anti-Asian sentiment.
When these things happen, it is clear who the media thinks the real victims are. Take Atlanta: The victims are the murdered Asians. What about the non-Asian victims? Doesn’t matter. The Boulder case is even worse: The victims are nameless and faceless, while the white supremacist narrative forces us to feel compassionate for…the killer. Because the media has to craft everything through a lens of race, the only conclusion is that the real murder victims are just victims of another victim at the hand of whiteness. For me, this is the most pitiful and hateful aspect. Families were torn apart and lives senselessly lost, but we are supposed to feel empathy for a murderous Muslim man because white kids made fun of him once.
PF:The whole situation is repulsive, and the left and their media are just making it worse. With both incidents, bodies weren’t even cold yet and they were politicizing their deaths. As Rahm Emanuel once stated, never let a good crisis go to waste; and Democrats don’t.
If we look at mass shootings in our country compared to other countries, our deaths/million is actually lower than some, but that statistic is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. Mass shootings are unacceptable; period, end of story. It’s not about the race of the shooters, or the victims for that matter. It’s not about their genders, and it’s not about their sexual preferences. They’re Americans being killed by fellow Americans, and we should be looking to fix the problem.
In both incidents in Boulder and Atlanta, it appears likely that there was mental illness involved. The Atlanta shooter didn’t kill because he’s white and racist; he apparently killed because he was dealing with a sex addiction. Similarly, the shooter in Boulder didn’t kill because he’s Middle Eastern and Muslim; he apparently killed because he suffered from paranoia and perhaps worse.
Regardless of what caused them to murder innocent peoplel, they’re both responsible for their actions and should be held accountable. People with mental illness need to manage that illness just like any other sick person tends to their malady. They should both be prosecuted and sentenced accordingly. But we should also seek to identify the root causes of these shootings and take corrective action; and frequently those causes have at least some connection to mental illness.
Mental illness is the elephant in the room. No one wants to address the problem. This reluctance is due somewhat to the fact that remedies are difficult to establish, and they’re often very costly. State-run mental institutions, for instance, are extremely expensive, and there’s also the issue of consenting Vs committing. There are no easy solutions. But the idea that we’re just going to blame racism when there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim is idiotic, just like it is to pass inane gun laws that won’t make an ounce of difference.
Parker: Democrats have long pursued gun control. It never works, but they continue to pursue it with a vengeance. As they become more insane with their policy attempts, such as seeking annual psychological examinations on everyone in a gun-woning household or exorbitant annual taxes on gun ownership, their positions on other matters become increasingly unsustainable.
Currently, to buy a gun there is automatically a background check at a federal level. Many states have week- or weeks-long waiting periods. The easiest answer to ask the gun banners is: What law, current or proposed, would stop a bad guy from getting a gun? What these people don’t realize is that even a repeal of the 2nd amendment and the confiscation of every law-abiding citizen’s gun wouldn’t eliminate this threat. There will always be a black market. At this point, it seems far likelier that Democrats know this reality than not. This past year has repeatedly proven that science and common sense need not apply when creating or enacting policy; Democrats seek only power, and the way to power is disarming, financially ruining, and silencing middle class Americans. Democrats do not care if there are guns in America; they care if conservatives and middle class types have guns. Period.
More guns than ever were purchased in 2020. I myself count among the tens of millions of first-time gun owners. Ultimately, I bought multiple firearms. The empty grocery store shelves were the first catalyst and the months-long police stand down was the second. As with other clarifying features of 2020, I was reminded that I need to be able to take care of myself and my family. I never saw myself owning guns; I didn’t grow up with them nor did I ever fancy shooting them. But a long can change. The more people that own guns, though, the better. Not surprisingly, this increase in gun ownership didn’t translate to a commensurate increase in gun violence. Gee, I wonder why?
PF: As you mentioned earlier, journalism is a business. The New York Times, CNN, and the rest are trying to make a profit, and they exploit these types of incidents for that reason. They politicize them almost immediately, and they feed their twisted version of events with a leftist spin to willing consumers. Many on the left want to hear that whiteness is bad, and guns are bad, and their side is virtuous. And they’re willing to accept lies without any scrutiny if aligns with their existing worldview.
The most critical question for me is: where do we go from here? Identity politics sells, along with other leftist talking points; and if something sells, the sellers will keep selling it. If that idea holds true, these types of reactions to tragedies won’t just continue, they’ll worsen. Then what?
It’s a question for a much broader topic than the media’s reaction to gun-related tragedies, but it applies nonetheless. In more settled times, we might be optimistic about compromise, but our country is so divided I can’t imagine compromise on the simplest of issues, let alone complex ones.
What America needs is a transformational leader, and he or she will have to be a conservative. We need someone with broad appeal that can bring along enough moderates and reasonable liberals to form a coalition where genuine, effective governance is possible. Someone who will protect our rights, including our right to bear arms, without alienating the entire left. Someone who will expose the true motives behind identity politics, and help heal much of our divisiveness. And someone who will bring down the leftist media monopoly and bring truth and objectivity back into vogue. If we don’t have that type of leader come along, this damage being done to our country could be irreparable.
Content syndicated from TheBlueStateConservative.com with permission.
