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Media hysteria over recent mass shootings just reached new highs. Rather than rehashing the ghastly atrocities committed over the past weeks, the Associated Press instead recounted the number of shootings committed since the first of the year and loudly lamented in its headline: “U.S. Mass Shootings This Year Nearly Reach 2018 Levels, and It’s Only August!”
It proclaimed: “Just seven months into 2019, the U.S. has experienced almost as many mass killings as occurred in all of 2018.… Mass killings so far this year [totals] 23, leaving 131 people dead. There were 25 mass killings in 2018 … according to a database complied by the Associated Press, Northeastern University and USA Today.”
The AP went on to explain how it defined “mass killings” — now apparently no longer referred to as “mass shootings” — “as killings involving four or more fatalities, not including the killer. What the AP failed to explain is how they missed reporting on those incidents where firearms were used to prevent injuries and killings.
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Back when Obama was president, he spent $10 million of taxpayer dollars in having the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) look into the matter. He no doubt was hoping that the CDC would bolster his anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment agenda with proof that there were so many mass shootings that something had to be done about removing firearms from the citizenry.
Instead the CDC came out on the side of common sense, reporting that “self-defense [using a firearm] can be an important crime deterrent.” It went on to claim that defensive uses by potential victims are “at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual [self-defense] uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.”
This is droll. “At least as common”? Although every death and wound suffered by victims in the last weeks grieves the heart, the media silence over firearm usage that prevented such deaths and injuries is deafening.
Consider the following reported by local media but unreported by the national media:
On July 3, in Summerville, South Carolina, concerned neighbors went to check out loud noises that they thought might be someone breaking into a local church. They found the trespasser who began to attack one of the neighbors who, using a firearm, shot him in self-defense.
On July 10, in Summerfield, Florida a disabled 61-year-old homeowner awoke to hearing four armed men who had just broken into his home. He used a firearm to kill two of them and send the other two fleeing the scene. They were later apprehended. Although the homeowner himself was wounded in the melee, he survived.
On July 15, in Atlanta, Georgia a man began assaulting a woman in an apartment complex. A second man intervened and tried to stop the assault. The attacker then turned his attention to him and the second man defended himself using a firearm.
On July 16, in San Diego, a man armed with a knife broke into a home and began stabbing the 54-year-old homeowner. Present was his son who was able to end the attack by killing the attacker using his father’s firearm.
Also on July 16, in Lehi, Utah, an intruder was shot after breaking into a home. He was armed with a knife. The homeowner shot the man using a firearm.
On July 18, in Phoenix, Arizona a man was filling his car with gas when two suspects demanded the keys to his car. One of them threatened the owner with a knife. The owner pulled a firearm and shot him. The other suspect fled.
On July 19, in Seattle, Washington an armed man tried to break into a home while the homeowner was asleep. She awoke in time to retrieve a firearm and shot and wounded him. She escaped injury. The burglar was reported to be in critical condition at a local hospital.
On July 22, in New Orleans, Louisiana a man sitting in his car late at night was accosted by an armed stranger who attempted a carjacking. The driver pulled a firearm and shot the attacker who fled the scene.
On July 23, in Albuquerque, New Mexico a man who tried to break into a home was shot by the homeowner with a firearm.
On July 26, in Virginia Beach, Virginia two armed men wearing masks entered a 7-Eleven store demanding money. A customer who was waiting to check out used a firearm to end the attempted robbery. One suspect was killed, the other wounded while the two clerks behind the country were unharmed.
On July 27, in High Point, North Carolina, a woman being assaulted by an ax-wielding man who had entered her home shot him, killing him instantly.
On July 31, in Nashville, Tennessee a criminal with a long history of violent crime began shooting at an Uber driver’s automobile to exact revenge on his passenger. The driver defended himself and his passenger by shooting the attacker with a firearm.
None of these thwarted attacks were mentioned by the Associated Press. The AP was no doubt following the old journalistic adage, “If it bleeds, it leads.” But if it doesn’t bleed, or doesn’t conform to its anti-gun agenda, it doesn’t even exist.
Photo: Elrepho385 / iStock / Getty Images Plus
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
