On Saturday afternoon, Aug. 3, I switched on my TV to learn that there had been a mass shooting in El Paso. After a few moments I remarked to my husband that we could forget any of the normal programming for the night as the past has proven there’d be nonstop coverage of this story.
The left would blame Trump and the NRA and demand “gun control,” which, again, would not have impacted the incident. We would be subjected to an endless parade of psychiatrists, police officers, FBI agents, politicians, et al, speculating as to “why” and wringing their hands in despair. A quick check at 11 p.m. verified the news was proceeding as predicted.
Within hours came the Dayton, Ohio shooting.
We’ve seen repeats of this saga so many times in recent years that our emotions hardly react. The media has become equally predictable in their coverage, so listening is a wasteland.
Despite the left-wing blather we know Trump had nothing to do with the shootings any more than Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders did (as professed by the shooters). It’s clear that as long as the media and political opportunists slander their enemies for political purposes, we will never come close to stopping the slaughter.
Here are some “common sense” suggestions:
The media and constant news cycles give momentary fame to the miserable, disaffected losers who commit these crimes for notoriety. With that, the next nut-job is encouraged.
The media practices selectivity. While they jump on such shootings, they continually ignore shootings, murders and mayhem weekly in Chicago, Baltimore and New York with nearly 100 shootings and deaths and about 300 deaths from drug overdoses nationwide. None of these shootings and deaths was mentioned prominently in the newspapers or on TV.
The media is vastly irresponsible and lack professionalism and they keep proving it. They need to take a deep look within themselves. Equally, consumers should be more judicious in what we watch and simply turn off the sensationalism.
Violent video games are a breeding ground for the shootings we’re seeing. Children absorb the mayhem and obvious violence like sponges. Impossible to believe there is not some way in the tech world to track such viewing habits. Maybe the first “Red Flag” law ought to be to identify the mentally and emotionally disturbed individuals who spend seven days a week, 18 hours a day killing people via video game.
On Feb. 14, 2018, a gunman in Parkland, Florida, shot and killed 17 people and wounded 17 others. Today the “suspect” sits in jail awaiting a trial that has yet to be scheduled. Why? There’s an old saying that justice delayed is justice denied. Get this to a speedy trial and when convicted, to a speedy execution if that’s the adjudication; ditto for all of these cases.
Collectively, this constant lack of timeliness of punishment serves to encourage future shooters.
The above are certainly not the entire solution to this awful problem, but neither is this constant drumbeat from the media and the left to take guns away from law-abiding citizens and to try to lay blame at the feet of political opponents.
Paige Weaver
Valencia
