We are now a week removed from the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and I’m still astounded at the headlines that came out immediately after.
A sample:
- “Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after popping noises heard at his Pennsylvania rally”
- “Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after loud noises rang through the crowd”
- “Trump removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startles former president, crowd”
- “Trump injured in incident at rally”
“Popping noises”? Really?!
It was clear pretty quickly what had unfolded in Pennsylvania last weekend, and it’s clear those weren’t nondescript “popping noises.” At least that gets slightly closer to an accurate description than “loud noises.”
What kind of loud noises? A plane making a sonic boom? My dog barking at the mailman? Steve Carrell’s character in Anchorman?
Of course not. It was gunfire, specifically from a rifle.
Everyone who’s ever spent time around gunfire knew exactly what it was when it happened. The other context clues, like Trump grabbing his ear and dropping to the ground, make it even clearer.
But legacy media journalists did not, at least not enough, run with an accurate headline. Most journalists lean left. We all know it, and the honest ones in the media will admit it. The way firearms are discussed in legacy media outlets smacks of ignorance.
The Washington Post continues to get firearm reporting wildly wrong, but hey, they got a Pulitzer Prize for it! (Really tells you about the value of a Pulitzer these days…)
The USA today ran a whole piece discussing the “accessories” that can be put on an AR-15, including a “chainsaw bayonet.”
USA Today wrote, “When the ammunition finally runs out, rifles can be equipped with knives called bayonets attached to the tip of the weapon for hand-to-hand combat. Bayonets were commonly used in World War I and II. One of the more creative extensions for the AR-15 is a chain-saw bayonet.”
They’re real things, but come on, this ain’t a video game.
Also, their description of a bayonet is laughably childish. Anyone who’s ever studied the Revolutionary or Civil War (which is everyone in America) knows what a bayonet is. And that’s only two historical examples.
All of this leads me to one conclusion: the media doesn’t know the slightest thing about guns.
To make matters worse, that ignorance distracts the focus from where it should be, on a former and potentially future president’s near assassination and the tragedy of an innocent husband and father caught in the crossfire.
“Popping noises” didn’t do that.
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