Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
Sunday night, thousands of panicked people streamed out of Los Angeles International Airport and onto the tarmac as the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights into LAX west of, and including Minnesota, according to CBS News. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department was speeding to the scene, where there were reports of an “active shooter.” There wasn’t one. Nobody knows what caused the “loud noises” that were mistaken for gunfire as of this writing.
On Thursday, Aug. 25 ten people were injured at the Florida Mall in Orlando, Florida after an industry-standard fire suppression equipment test – that mall patrons were warned about ahead of time and were told would sound like popping balloons – convinced everyone a mass-shooting was taking place, sending everyone scurrying over and through the mall and each other, resulting in the aforementioned ten injuries.
“’The Orange County Fire Inspector was there as a witness to the test, but did not conduct the test. An announcement was made on the PA system informing shoppers and employees the test would be conducted. The test consisted of six large balloons popping consecutively, followed by a fire alarm. This caused people to go into panic mode and run,’” Orange County, Florida Deputies said in a statement, according to WFTV.
The test was being conducted in preparation for the grand opening of former boy band performer Joey Fatone’s new hot-dog and Italian ice kiosk, Fat One’s.
In 2016 there have been three real “mass shootings” so far, Orlando, Florida; Kalamazoo, Michigan and Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, killing 61 people. Last year, 24,374 people were killed in traffic crashes, accounting for about 11.6 deaths per capita. According to PBS, which uses a very, very loose definition of “mass shooting,” 475 people were killed in “mass shootings” in 2015. That number will, of course, included gang-related drive-by shootings that aren’t really “mass shootings” per se, but are rather “business disputes,” and don’t really affect non-gang-members other than via poor marksmanship. Even with inflated numbers, mass-shootings caused .00475 deaths per capita in 2015 in the United States.
Yet, twice in the span of just three days, we’ve had stampedes of people streaming out of buildings for fear of one of the statistically least-likely cause of death imaginable. Drowning, for example, killed over 3,000 more people in the USA in 2015 than mass-shootings did. Deadlier still than water or the mass-shooting people in Orlando thought they were running away from are, potentially, the Fat One’s hot dogs they were at the mall for to begin with; 4,864 people choked to death on food in 2014. Opioid medications kill 52 people every day in the USA, according to the National Safety Council.
Despite reality, it seems people are on edge and fearful of mass-shootings. Why is that?
Well, the obvious, and correct answer is because they’ve been conditioned to be on edge and constantly fearful of mass-shootings by the mainstream media.
There are two potential reasons for this. The first is the oldest rule in newsrooms: “If it bleeds, it leads,” focusing on bloodbath and tragedy on TV news is a tradition that predates the 24-hour cable news networks, by a lot. I’d like to think that the lemming-like reactions of people in Orlando and Los Angeles are unintended side-effects of the news media doing what it has always done. However, when MSM coverage is taken together with the never-ending work of the Left’s various hoplophobic spin machines, one cannot help but suspect that this isn’t an unintended consequence, but rather a conditioned reflex to repeated stimulus.
The MSM is just the mouthpiece of the Left and the Left has wanted full-on civilian disarmament for 200 years. If they are trying to mislead Americans into believing they’re in constant danger of dying in a mass-shooting, they’re doing a wonderful job. If such isn’t actually their intent, one has to wonder just what the hell it is they are trying to do.
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