Why wasn’t a thwarted school shooting a major news story?

(Please note that we are not using the perpetrator’s name to keep the focus on the heroes who stopped this potential tragedy)

The liberty grabbers on the left usually jump at a chance to demonize the 2nd Amendment. Why not in this case?

Three staff members of Smith High School in Greensboro, North Carolina stopped a potential tragedy on Monday by quickly locking down the school and arresting the perpetrator.

The first to intervene was Patrick Jordan, a Behavioral Intervention Specialist who works at the school. He noticed someone who did not “fit in” walking past in the courtyard. Jordan then approached the man to ask why he was there, and after a short exchange the individual raised his shirt to show a handgun. Assistant Principal, Lashonti Hines, also noticed the gun. Hines and Jordan immediately called for a lock down. The criminal ran and was arrested after being tased by school Resource Officer, D.K. Evans.

The perpetrator had previously assaulted his girlfriend in Virginia Beach Monday morning before allegedly stealing the victim’s car to drive to the School in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The man had a backpack with two loaded handguns and eight boxes of ammunition. It was reported in the ‘Sacramento Bee‘ that the man had a “hit list” with plans to kill a woman and her parents in Durham, and then move on to Smith High School in Greensboro to kill two people. He then planned to drive to Maryland and kill one more person.

Why wasn’t this a major news story?

This potential mass murder in a school and elsewhere took place several days ago. While it did receive some perfunctory notice by some local and national news sources, it was quickly glossed over in favor of other stories. Why?

Several reasons can be gleaned from the accompanying video on the hero who stopped this tragedy. Suffice it to say that the ethnicity of the perpetrator, as well as the victims, did not fit the usual narrative. The featured video also had one of the heroes referring to that which is generally taboo with secular socialist television.

The primary difference between this case and others is that the perpetrator didn’t succeed. There were no images or video of children fleeing for their lives from the scene, and a decided lack of relatives of the victims emoting on-screen demanding for restrictions on freedom.

Colleague, Lorie Wimble, noticed a similar pattern with regard to a rape allegation by Katie Brennan, in which a political inconvenient story ends up getting buried in the news cycle. In this environment it’s mind-boggling that the media doesn’t understand why they are no longer trusted. It’s equally perplexing that they don’t understand that their bias is manifestly obvious.

A lost opportunity to demonize liberty

Compare the coverage of this potential “serious crisis” with one that is ripe for exploitation by the freedom floggers. Wall-to-wall coverage would soon be initiated after word of an exploitable tragedy coming in over the optic fiber (followed by the usual admonitions about our issue with liberty and how we must now restrict freedom) then, somber denizens of the nation’s Socialist left will pontificate on the dire need to control personal property, as well as everyone’s online speech.

One can easily imagine the gatherings of excited leftists in “news” rooms around the nation hoping for another chance to further their gun confiscation agenda, only to be disappointed that the obvious solution of armed school security saving the day. The sheer letdown for them, in the midst of their writing up of tweets with the hashtag #GunReformNow (meaning #GunConfiscationNow), when the news breaks that ordinary citizens stopped evil dead in it’s tracks.

Killing off the contagion

Studies show that over-the-top media coverage and making perpetrators “anti-heroes” tends to encourage copycat crimes. Even far-left publication ‘Mother Jones’ recognizes this problem. It’s also logical that publicizing the failure of one of these murderous miscreants would discourage this behavior in others with similar ideas.

Those planning these crimes go through five distinct planning phases. Seeing that someone was thwarted by an armed response may end the fantasy of an active shooter once and for all.

The takeaway

Truly common sense measures, such as eliminating so-called ‘Gun-Free’ zones and freeing people to carry concealed weapons, would dramatically reduce if not eliminate these tragedies. But for some, security is more important than essential liberty. Perhaps that is why they oppose the common sense solutions.

 Originally published on the NOQ Report