Concealed Carrier Recently Saved Lives in SC Shooting (Media SILENT)
Recently I read a short article regarding the Playoffz Club shooting in South Carolina on June 26th, and one of the comments posted on a Facebook entry was that it would very likely never be heard about in any of the mainstream “corporate” media. After doing some significant searching, I could find only two sources recognized nationally – Fox News and the Washington Times – both noted for their more balanced approach to publishing the news. None of the other alphabet soup of news “sources” seemed to care that it happened at all.
Perhaps the reason why it did not attract many headlines is that it did not fit the liberal/progressive narrative regarding “mass shootings” because it was, for the most part, stopped cold by a legal concealed carry permit holder who happened to be in the middle of the crowd taking the incoming rounds from the shooter outside the club.
Thinking to do “due diligence” with the ever-present fear of the “fake news” issue, I checked some more and found a full page write-up on Snopes.com. Now that sight is far from my favorite as it is clearly biased to the far left with many of its opinions as to whether something is true or false. Partly wondering what kind of slant that site placed on the shooting, I read the piece and was hardly surprised at the information it provided. Ready for this?
The shooting did not meet the definition (provided on the page quoting 5-6 federal law enforcement agencies) of a mass shooting. The definition provided states:
“an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.”
Gee, here we are at the entryway to a nightclub with a crowd of people milling around – a man actively shooting at least three people – and this situation does not meet the definition of a “mass shooting.”
Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Snopes, your bias is showing seriously. You even went so far as to question the validity of the story because “[it was a ] somewhat skimpy account.” Perhaps they didn’t like the part that demonstrates that legally licensed firearms served a very useful purpose in preserving life. In this case, the response from a bystander who was so licensed resulted in taking down the shooter (thankfully without loss of life) before he could get off another shot into the group of people scattering in front of him.
I should have expected no less of Snopes. However, it is also seriously disturbing that out of a half-dozen nationally broadcasting media groups, only one chose to report on the event and only one newspaper of any size gave any ink to it at all. Other local stations in the area posted entries on their web sites but with the number of such shootings, it was apparent that something about this one dampened enthusiasm for national headline news teams.
There is often only one way to spread positive news such as this (not the shooting, but that nobody died because someone stepped up and took self-defense to heart) and that is through word-of-mouth, social media, and calling the non-reporting media networks to task for their failure to keep people informed of the truth about what is happening around them.
My hat is off to the hero – yet unnamed – who took hold of the situation and did what was necessary. According to reports, rightfully, he is not facing any charges. The perpetrator, however, was reportedly caught the next day and is charged with three counts of attempted murder…also rightfully so.
A firearm does not kill unless it is in the hands of someone who wants it to do so. It can just as easily be used to save lives as to take them. It’s all about attitude and responsibility.
