Mass shootings, or at least attempted mass shootings, are the kind of story that the media will run with for days because it helps push a policy item that is at the top of the left’s agenda: gun control. But the story has to sit just right. If any narrative element is off or if new, inconvenient details emerge, then the story has to be pulled. Such is the case with Sunday’s shooting at Lakewood church in Houston, Texas.
You recall the initial details: armed individual wearing a trench coat enters into a church and starts shooting. Off-duty law enforcement, some might call them good guys with a gun, quickly stepped in and neutralized the shooter. Unfortunately, a child was shot in the head and another gentleman was grazed in the leg. Even worse for the media, the inconvenient details began to roll in.
The shooter’s identity was a mystery, with both male and female identities. Which one did the shooter decide upon at the time of the shooting? It appears to have been the female identity. Additionally, the shooter was a migrant. Who may have voted in Texas. The story was going sour even before news of the anti-semitic writings broke. Under these circumstances, the corporate national media have no interest in covering a transgender church shooter.
The story disappeared, and was quickly supplanted by the shooting at the end of the Super Bowl victory parade held for the Kansas City Chiefs. But new details have emerged in Houston. Per Houston’s CBS affiliate, a disturbing tranche of evidence was found at the shooter’s home. To wit:
- Unknown substance inside plastic bottle
- Sample of unknown substance from inside plastic bottle
- Thumb drive
- Texas driver license
- 5.56 cartridge
- Notebook
- Two white-colored bulletproof soft-shelled vests
- iPad
- Magazine containing one 9mm bullet
- One 9mm bullet and three .22 bullets
- One 9mm bullet
- .223 cartridge
- Apple cellphone
- Hewlett Packard laptop
- Green notebook
- White mask with “Free Gaza Trump”
- Printed text message
- Notes
- One .22-caliber bullet
- Two 5.56 cartridges
- Seven sheets of hand-made poster signs
- iPad
- Book titled "All Remainers are Neo-Nazis"
- EZ Pawn receipt
- One 9mm bullet and eleven 5.56 cartridges
- Tablet
- One 5.56 cartridge
Those are a lot of materials, and perhaps even a manifesto explaining the motive. The national outlets speculated as to the motives of the shooting, but quickly moved on to less inconvenient stories.
It would’ve also been nice to know, for example, about all the times law enforcement was called to the shooter’s home. The national media lost interest in this case as soon as the identity of the shooter was made evident.
What might be in those writings across the assorted electronica seized by law enforcement? Why the extra ammo? What’s on the poster art? A rigorous press might show an interest in covering such things and asking such questions- unfortunately, we haven’t had that in a long time.
Instead we get silence and get shuttled off to the next story.
