As I start typing, I realize this will most likely be the shortest Soapbox ever.
In the wake of multiple mass shootings this weekend, I find myself laughing. That sentence alone should end my career so I’ll keep this even more brief than I had planned.
Many months ago, a few major news organizations strapped on their diapers and decided that they alone could end mass shootings in America by simply not saying the names of the gunmen. Childish is not a strong enough word to describe the mindset behind this strategy.
In the months since, almost every single news reporting agency has followed suit, of course. As with the proverbial lemmings off the cliff, when one news organization does something seemingly altruistic, the others follow, regardless of political bent. So, by the time the Odessa massacre occurred this weekend, I quite literally had to rely on the British press to inform me that 36-year-old Seth Ator was the culprit.
The idiotic motivation, by the way, is simple; if we stop giving these gunmen the attention they crave, they’ll stop shooting people.
Yes…I am serious, that’s why these news channels do this.
And, ironically, the network that started this policy was the network of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,: Fox News. Somehow, they extrapolated that idea into not giving infamy to deranged people will lead to fewer deranged people. And everyone followed.
Fox News Alert: IT’S NOT WORKING
Far be it from me to once again point out that people, groups, organizations, et al must be judged on results as opposed to intentions; here we stand, yet again, with the asinine and totally predictable fact that simply not saying shooters’ names is not stopping shooters from being shooters. Who’d have thunk?
The answer?
Anyone with a brain equivalent to that of as advanced as a third grader. Jesus. What a nation of children we have become.
What else is there to say? Nothing…absolutely nothing. Yet another asinine, childish, idea proven to be non-effective will be repeated over and over again so that the perpetrators of the policy will feel better about themselves while doing nothing to alter the results. Good for you…don’t say the shooters’ names…that will stop them; oh wait…it isn’t…it doesn’t…but at least you feel like a hero. Thumbs up emoji to you!
