Don’t Mention A Gunman’s Mental Status As It Disturbs Media Narratives

Inconvenient facts about a shooter can make it difficult for the media to tell the truth.

Recent gun violence incidents are troubling. The location was a place of business, and the victims were intentionally selected as targets based on race. People familiar with the shooter’s motivations can confirm that he may have used this hatred to commit a series of shootings.

The last sentence might have made you pause. The shooter at the Tops grocery in Buffalo is only known to have committed that one shooting, so how could he have committed multiple shootings? Well, what I described – though identical in nature – were not the particulars of Payton Gendron’s massacre. Instead, I gave you the details concerning a spate of shootings in the Dallas area targeting businesses operated by Asian-Americans.

Jeremy Smith was taken into custody by police after he opened fire at clients and employees of a beauty salon in Seoul’s Koreatown. Three injuries were inflicted by Smith’s actions, and his description and vehicle were also linked to two other cases that targeted Asian Americans. We did not see the press seeking the services of a chiropractor after their desire to twist and spin this story, as they have been in Buffalo.

The reason is that Jeremy Smith, an African American cannot be used to represent the preferred narratives of media. They can’t even point out that Smith was a victim of Republican indoctrination. Smith has been said to have a mental illness. This creates an interesting dynamic.

Gendron is motivated to act as though it was not due to mental illness. Experts say that racism is a choice, not something that is caused by mental impairment.

Experts must pretend to ignore that the shooter had been subject to mental health evaluations over the past year. His behavior was very unusual. He had been taken in for making threatening remarks about violence. This was not a stable individual by any measure, but Tucker Carlson, who is being blamed by the media for the shooting, dares to express his opinion.

Both of these episodes must be clarified. With the sole exception of the race of the individual involved, we have practically mirror-image behavior patterns. Two disturbed individuals acted violently due to imbalanced views on race, after alerting a number of people of their tendencies. But for reasons that seem to be rooted in the desired storyline in the press, one case sees the press blithely alluding to there being a mental disorder, while in the other with a pre-written agenda script, any discussion of mental impairment is forbidden.

Although the media attempts to frame these issues in a serious discussion they are incapable of approaching them seriously on their facts. Instead, they behave like arbiters of truth and social decency.