The unbelievable bias

As the Sandy Hook story evolves from the accounts of the shooting to the identities of its young (and not-so-young) victims and trying to determine why it happened, one lead in the story is focusing on the first victim, Nancy Lanza, and her “fascination with guns.” (Interestingly, I speculated on that myself in a comment to my first post on Sandy Hook.)

But in making the late Mrs. Lanza out to be a gun nut, the narrative is shifted from making her out to be a helpless victim to one who was obsessed with guns, an interest which led to her demise.

Another intriguing angle comes from a statement by Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy (a Democrat) who claimed Adam Lanza was still alive when police arrived at the school and only killed himself at that point. Naturally, Malloy and several other fellow Democrats have taken this tragedy and made it into yet another call for more restrictions on gun ownership.

The report that Lanza took his own life when police arrived is important to the argument against arming teachers or other school personnel, since the situation was finally defused when authorities arrived. But what if someone had been carrying a weapon?

This is something my blogger friend Bob McCarty looked at in reference to an earlier shooting in Oregon. While this story was wiped away by the Sandy Hook shooting because many more lives were lost in Connecticut, the reason fewer people were killed is actually very similar to the ending at the Connecticut school: the shooter took his own life when confronted. The difference, though, was that a civilian who was legally carrying a concealed weapon brandished his – at that point, the Clickamas shooter, knowing the party was over, took his own life.

McCarty blames an “anti-gun media bias” for ignoring that part of the story, and that bias seems to be coming out in the media coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting as well, like describing the weapon as an “assault rifle” to conjure up an image of a military-style weapon. The actual Bushmaster .223 rifle is commonly used in shooting competitions, which makes sense given Nancy Lanza’s enjoyment of shooting sports.

In the end, though, it really doesn’t matter what guns were used because one person took it upon himself to commit this heinous act. But the narrative making America out to be a trigger-happy nation is driving this push to further violate our Second Amendment rights. Don’t let the pursuit of that agenda blind you to the fact that millions of Americans own and properly use guns.