Every single day since the Uvalda shooting, I’ve heard a news story about another mass shooting. And every single time it’s been a personal dispute where someone pulled a gun and murdered another person, not a mass shooting.
Literally just now I heard a story from CNN where the newscaster said “Another mass shooting at a hospital, just days after the high school shooting.” They then threw to audio of a police chief who said in English words:
“This wasn’t an indiscriminate shooting. The killer went to a specific room on the fourth floor of the hospital, sought out specific people, then killed them and himself.”
Back to the newscaster, who says something like ‘this rash of mass shootings is rocking the nation’
Like, dude… We just heard the audio saying the opposite. The media demand for mass shootings is obviously greatly outstripping supply, and they’re making do with whatever substitute goods they can find. And then they’re all “Why doesn’t anyone trust mainstream news outlets? 
”
This is ghoulish and disgusting just on it’s face. But also:
1 – It may literally increase the amount of mass shootings. They may be inducing a greater supply of mass shootings, and how the hell do you sleep at night if that’s the case?
2 – It’s fucking bizarre. A common definition of mass shooting counts hundreds of normal crimes per year. The media used to simply cite that number and imply that it referred to the sorts of school-shooting-style indiscriminate mass shootings that are terrifying but extremely rare. The media counted on their audience trusting them, rather than thinking “wouldn’t I have heard of 236 Columbines in the last few months if they’d happened?” to give cover to their lies.
But now, they aren’t even doing that. They’re reporting on basic murders, giving direct evidence that these are basic murders, and in the same breath saying “This is an indiscriminate mass shooting!” It feels like I’m in some Kafka story. Maybe (at the risk of cliche) Orwell. Seriously, wtf?
I’m moving to SubStack. Eventually this blog will no longer be updated, so switch on over.