Not a Conspiracy

Steve was upset. It was something he'd read on Facebook.

Now that's something I don't do - go on Facebook. I don't have the time, for one thing. I've seen him devote hours to everybody's posts, pictures, cutie cartoons, what-have-you. I also have issues with Facebook's ever-changing standards. I'd never be able to keep up. But this is beside the point, except to point out that he'd read it, not me.

The topic at the time was mass shootings, coming right after Sandy Hook. There was no air in the newsrooms or behind radio microphones anywhere to spare for any other topic. And somebody found that a problem. Or rather, how the discussions were going was a problem. Here's how Steve described what he'd read to me.

You've heard the opinion expressed that more guns could cure mass shootings, although nearly any policeman would argue more guns only add to the confusion, increase the danger to bystanders, and are unlikely to actually stop a shooter, even if used by someone actually used to killing another human, and especially when the original shooter is wearing body armor.

Steve read that an actual case refuting that argument had just occurred, a theater shooter had been stopped by an off duty cop who was "packing", and the liberal media was keeping it hushed up to reinforce their slanted views.

Wait, what? Liberal media? I already know that's not right. I decide to investigate a bit on my own. I asked Steve when and where this supposedly happened? Dec. 17th, just a few weeks previously, in Texas.

When I got home from work, I Googled "Texas theater shooting Dec.17". I got a bunch of results, mostly from TV and newspaper sources, and came up with the actual story. Yes, a guy with a gun was shot by an off duty cop in a theater. But that's only the end of the story. It's the beginning of it that really defines it. It started out as a domestic, where the shooter fled into the theater to get away, winding up in the bathroom, where he was shot. He didn't go there to shoot a bunch of moviegoers to make a horrible name for himself.

As for the "liberal media" doing a major cover-up so nobody would hear how effective it was having another shooter being the good guy with the gun fighting the bad guy with a gun? Hogwash! First, it was all over the place in the local news, available on the internet for anybody. The lack of national attention was nothing more than a commentary on how boringly often domestic disturbances happen and end in violence.

No cover up. No conspiracy. Just unremarkable tragedy on a minor scale.