Back when this editor was teaching freshman English, he’d spend a couple of days on logical fallacies. One was the appeal to authority, which runs rampant in the mainstream media with every “experts say” story they run. Another one was post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning that because something happened before something else, it must have been the cause. A good example of this comes to us from WKRN, an ABC affiliate in Nashville, which reported on a school shooting Wednesday.
The broadcast is fine, but we wonder who came up with the text for the post:
The day after the new president shutdown the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, two students were shot by another student at Antioch High School in Nashville, TN.
The shooting happened at 11am this morning inside the school’s cafeteria. pic.twitter.com/fYvRPEb6Hd
— K-12 School Shooting Database (@K12ssdb) January 22, 2025
Yes, that’s what did it. The student was holding off on shooting two other students until the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection was shut down.
If only that office had remained open.
— StanleyFosha (@stanleyfosha) January 22, 2025
I can’t believe a website was all that was keeping us safe this whole time! 🫢
— lolnoway (@shreddingvenice) January 22, 2025
There is absolutely no correlation between the two.
— Quick Warthog (@QuickWarthog) January 22, 2025
And yet …
Yeah, that probably why this happened. So true.
However much you hate the media, it is not enough.
— Queen Velvet (@TMIWITW) January 22, 2025
Ummm… the murderer was mad about that?
— EltonMagaRust (@EltonMagaRust) January 22, 2025
I’m sure if he left it open, this wouldn’t have happened.
— Friend of the Fish Folk (@fishfolkfriend) January 22, 2025
Yeah, if that office had remained for just one more day, these lives would have been spared.
GTFOHWTMFBS
— Tony (@justtjb) January 22, 2025
And let me guess, you clowns think that office would have stopped the shooting? Are you really that stupid?
— Outlaw Voter (@MaineRed2020) January 22, 2025
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Wow, I wonder how long those students have been waiting for that government office to shut down in order to feel empowered to commit this atrocity. 😲
— Team Garbage 🗑️ / Far-Right AMAB 🤖🇺🇸 (@cstrombe2) January 22, 2025
Yes! You’ve nailed it. The students were watching the government “Gun Violence Prevention” web page, and as soon as they saw it was shut down, they started shooting people. 🤡 🤡 🤡 🤡 🤡
— Rocket Scientist (@Rocket_Scintst) January 22, 2025
Did you just blame Trump?
— Ó Célleachair 🇺🇸 (@ocelleachair) January 22, 2025
Are you for real with this bullshit?
— LisaAnne (@LisaAnneGA) January 22, 2025
And what would that office done to prevent it?
Absolutely nothing
— Sherry Fitzgerald (@jihadthis) January 22, 2025
Never let a tragedy go to waste.
— T.O.C Kydex (@thetockyde) January 22, 2025
Obviously, whoever runs the social media account of WKRN has an agenda and decided to use this tragedy to run with it.
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