ABC News reporter Pierre Thomas unveiled a detailed investigative report on school shootings during yesterday's "This Week" show that surprisingly did not feature what such reports invariably include -- a call for more restrictions on gun ownership.
While this one dispatch might well be an outlier, it did come as a welcome relief from one of the most predictable patterns in news.
Thomas reported that the Columbine high school massacre in April 1999 has spawned copycat shootings and violent rampages perversely inspired by the horrific actions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
"ABC News identified 17 school attacks and 37 serious threats linked to Columbine since the massacre, among them the slaughters of Virginia Tech and Newtown," Thomas reported. "At least 10 of the cases came in the last year alone as this disturbing phenomenon seems to be intensifying."
Thomas's report not include the obligatory nod to gun control, nor was this mentioned in the brief conversation he had with "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Remarkable report right there. This phenomenon so real, the big question -- what can be done to stop it?
THOMAS: Well, one of the things law enforcement is looking at is trying to get mentally ill people more support. Also, to do something about bullying and to identify children who are struggling, who have these dark thoughts, that may not have manifested itself until the last moment.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And when they go down that rabbit hole in the Internet, you'd need a counter.
THOMAS: When we spoke to that young man (referring to a 21-year-old man he interviewed who was arrested at 14 as a suspect in a planned school shooting) and he said, when he started researching Columbine, he said it would have been great if something else popped up to say, this is not the way, that you don't have to go to acts of violence. But the thing that struck me is that this is a real phenomenon, it seems to be intensifying, and it's happening out there right now.
But when it happens again, as inevitably it will, how likely is it that mainstream media outlets will get through coverage of a school shooting without disparaging the Second Amendment as antiquated, and demeaning the NRA as an accomplice in all but name?
