Media Pushes Narrative Instead of Waiting for Facts in West Texas Shooting

A lot of reporting on mass shootings has been generally awful for years, but it is especially awful since the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. last year (CNN has been particularly awful). The media blew the number of school shootings out of proportion even though it is not a growing epidemic and gun homicides are, in fact, down.

Some advocates journalists assumed they had a big scoop after the shooting in Midland and Odessa, Texas as they reported that the rifle used in Saturday’s shooting was from a private sale. Federal law requires background checks from any federal firearms licensee selling weapons. Also, federal law requires background checks from private individual sales if those transactions occur across state lines.

In-state private sales do not require a background check. So this would have been the story they have waited for so they could beat the loophole drum.

Here CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted:

CNN wasn’t alone, ABC News also reported this basing their information on “law enforcement sources.” As did Time who then claimed, “millions of firearms change hands that way.”

Considering the shooter did not pass an earlier background check the media and the left (but I repeat myself) can say, “See, see the loophole.”

The only problem is this: It wasn’t a legal private sale.

The Wall Street Journal reports that local law enforcement officials identified a person of interest who illegally manufactured and sold the rifle used in the Odessa shooting on Saturday.

Oops.

And journalists wonder why there is growing mistrust of their profession.