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Why Isn’t This Nightclub Shooting All Over Social Media?
I got up this morning to see a New York Times app alert that there had been a a mass shooting at a Florida nightclub: two dead, over a dozen wounded, and many — perhaps, most — of them were teenagers. After the last month or so of killings, generally terrorist attacks, I was braced for the worst of it. On top of the sadness for the dead and wounded themselves, I worried about the Left using this as an excuse to limit gun rights.
So I checked Twitter: Nothing. Well, it was early, still. But after previous attacks, I knew to expect a quick spread of discussion and wild speculation. Nothing on Drudge at that hour. I kept checking Twitter, waiting for any more — informed or not — to come out. Was it all because the Democratic National Convention was occupying all of the news sites?
Finally, just now, I got to the office and checked Drudge and Instapundit and found the link I put above. Read through it all and tell me your impression: Is this going to have the attention and effect of, say, the Orlando nightclub shooting? Why not?
Published in General
Tragic event. The victims are Black. The Leftist media is not making a big deal out of it. Is it safe to assume that the shooters were not White? Or police officers?
It’s a local crime that doesn’t have national implications as would a terrorist attack. Also, unlike a white-on-black crime, it doesn’t fit the Left’s “narrative.”
They aren’t making a big deal out of it because the teens are black – we do not expect the same standards of behavior from them, there isn’t a white actor in the event to blame.
Does not fit narrative. Next question.
Will be interesting to get reporting on the weapon. Who got it, how did they get it (they’re teens), were there other weapons? Have there been any priors on these kids? Any incarcerations?
The attack was in a shady part of Ft. Myers, and probably done as part of a “monkey dance” social dominance display that got out of hand, at a sleazy nightclub in a bad area of town.
My friend Miguel has more over on his blog. This DEFINITELY falls under the “Don’t go to stupid places to do stupid things with stupid people” rule of keeping yourself safe.
From what I read, there isn’t enough information to know one way or the other.
Wow, that’s a peach.
I live in Ft. Myers.
This is almost definitely a local crime just like the shooting at Zombie Con last fall.
It appears both shooters and shot were black so there is no advange to the media or any liberal group because blacks shot or killed by blacks doesn’t matter to them.
1) Were long-guns used, or handguns? The press only cares when long-guns are used to commit crimes, because they think they’ll be easier to regulate.
2) Were the guns purchased legally? Can’t really use illegally-purchased guns as an excuse to make guns illegal. If you wanna make something illegal it’s gotta be legal first.
That should result in more breathless reporting, not less. The less information that is known the more opportunities there are to report rumour and innuendo.
I’ll comment more after I get out of teaching this afternoon, but this is exactly what confused me this morning. The lack of information usually doesn’t seem to stop the viral spread of news and speculation. What is it that people, collectively speaking, picked up on in those early reports that made them less likely to tweet about this attack?
I think the link from #4 said it all. It’s a “regularly-scheduled club shooting”, and therefore not of big media interest.
This happened less than a minute’s drive away from that nightclub, earlier this year.
Wanna bet the two aren’t related? I don’t.
Well, I will comment before class after all. My first thought was that this was a terrorist attack inspired by the nightclub attacks in Paris and Orlando. Now, think of how the first reporting on the Orlando attack went: it wasn’t presented as terrorism but as a hate crime against homosexuals—or even hispanics, in some reports I read. And it was all over the news even before the identity of the attacker was released and the narrative changed.
In this case, we’ve got blacks (a minority), and teenagers at that. Both categories should be ideal for gaining the sympathy of the public and even greater outrage against the attackers. The reports I read this morning didn’t identify who’d done the attack, and I think no one was even in custody when I first read this. That would make you think it was ripe for the usual wild speculation about identity and motives.
As the morning has gone on, we’ve seen that the nightclub has had a rough reputation already. People have been critical of parents’ letting their kids go out to a late night party, especially at a place like this. It’s taken on a very different feel from that Orlando shooting.
Is this event going to get dropped from the national coverage?
Excellent information at all of those links. And I can’t recommend enough your advice, “Don’t go to stupid places to do stupid things with stupid people.”
Hey, nobody was shot at the GOP convention!
Yep, and quickly. Just like the on-going free-fire zone that is Chicago, they won’t be able to lobby for an “assault weapons ban” because of it, so it serves them no purpose to talk about it.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t need to be any connection: We have our share of gun violence:
And yes, it wasn’t in the best area of town, but it isn’t like it’s a war zone either.
The incident took place at a strip mall called Carrell Corners at the corner of Fowler Rd and Carrell Rd. The father of a friend of mine once owned that shopping center. Maybe still does.
I’ve been there several times over the years – had my High School senior picture taken at a photography studio there.
Fowler Rd is the old original light industrial / car dealership section of town. All of that has moved in the past few decades and so it’s not the economically healthiest of strips. A seedy (speculating from reporting) club being there is not surprising at all.
The bottom line: Don’t let your kids go to a teen party at a seedy club. Regardless, it’s heartbreaking: Two kids dead and 16+ injured.
A bunch of you have said that this is not being covered because it is a “local crime.” Let’s unpack that a bit further.
The two shootings that were turned by the press and Barack Obama into calls for gun control were the San Bernardino massacre and the Orlando massacre. What those two shootings have in common is terrorism. Some of you noted that, saying that “terrorism” makes the story more intersting, this more likely to be co-opted for the incessant gun control narrative.
The mechanism proposed there is wrong, because it misses a key part of this story: the terrorist attacks are both motivated and enabled by foreign policy decisions of the Obama administration. Thus, an unbiased telling of those stories naturally leads to scrutiny of said foreign policy, which in an election year could cause the Democrats to lose votes. Thus, it becomes imperative to prevent a rational discussion of what actually happened and why. That’s why everyone knows Omar Mateen is gay and bought guns even though he was on the terror watch list three times, yet nobody knows that the FBI said there’s no evidence he was ever gay and that witnesses in the nightclub reported he said that he was shooting them because “America is bombing my country.”
A shooting between gang members has no connection to Obama, so there is no need to hijack the narrative. If anything, the story will be downplayed to avoid promoting “Law and Order” Trump.
Always good advice.
I look forward to the day when, once again, it’s socially acceptable, and perhaps even encouraged, to teach our girl-children this important little lesson in discrimination and self control.
While it wouldn’t solve every problem, it would be an excellent step forward.
All of these shooting are so sad, and especially so when the media doesn’t give a hoot.
Agree. Makes me want to dig into the gun incidents here so I know what I’m talking about: We’ve certainly got our problems with it. It’s worth a story.
I compare this story with that of Tyshawn Lee, a name that should have been on everyone’s lips last November because he was nine when he was gunned down on the streets of Chicago.
Link
We’re sitting here in front of the TV . . watching the shills for Hillary spinning the DNC email scandal’s core concern: Putin wants Trump in the White House. Not the rot at the heart of Hillary’s campaign.
Your sense of this thing is spot on. Not an ice cube’s chance in The Wells Fargo Center – of getting serious coverage.
When I read about this shooting this morning the first thing that went through my head was that it was a black night club. Two factors added to that impression. The first was the mention of drive-by shootings that were believed to be related to the event. The second was the mention that kids as young as 12 were at the night club. No mention anywhere that it was a black club, though. I wonder why? Not really.
I now see this story is now highlighted on the Yahoo! homepage, so it is getting noticed.
…by the dozens of Americans who still use Yahoo?
If that is correct, and I’ve no reason to doubt you. Wow did Verizon over pay!
Let’s be honest, the victims being black and the crime local are vanishingly small factors in the crime not gaining national media coverage.
Had the perps been wealthy white frat boys slumming with their parents’ handguns the coverage would be wall to wall.
An honest who/when/where/why analysis of events like these is too deeply disruptive to the preferred narratives of media elites.
Maybe there is a “WHERE WERE THE POLICE!” angle to concoct?
We had a shooting, too, at a local nightclub. Two military members saw a man hit his date and then pull a gun. They both went to her defense and prevented her from being shot. However, they were not armed in the bar and so both were shot and killed. They left behind wives and 5 little children. The community has started a Go Fund Me for them. All were white.