There are three topics that the press mangles with a regularity that borders on the pathological: Abortion, faith, and firearms. This is a story about the third.
A few newsrooms mistook toy guns for the real thing following a deadly shooting this week at a high school near Spokane, Wash. Three students were injured in the shooting, and one was killed.
The alleged gunman, Caleb Sharpe, 15, was known to his peers as “quiet and sometimes quirky,” according to the Spokesman Review. He was also reportedly known for filming videos of himself and his friends playing with toy guns and then uploading them to YouTube.
Though the Spokesman Review correctly identified some of the airsoft guns featured in one of Sharpe’s since-deleted videos, titled The Second Round, the news group also claimed that “at least one” of the toys “appears to be a real rifle.”
There are only two toys resembling rifles in the video specifically referenced by the Spokesman Review. One is an airsoft gun, and the other is a pellet gun closely resembling the Daisy Red Ryder immortalized in A Christmas Story.
“I’m not a gun-owner myself, so I showed the video to a few colleagues who are, including our online producer, who spent 12 years in the Marine Corps,” the author of the Spokesman Review report told the Washington Examiner.
She added, “His take was that the rifle is a pellet gun, and something realistic-looking enough that it would cause concern if you pulled it out around cops, for instance, as opposed to the cheaper airsofts. We didn’t claim he was playing with an assault rifle, as some outlets did, only something that could appear to be a real rifle, which we stand by.”
Sharpe’s YouTube account has been deleted since the school shooting, and the original videos are gone. However, The Second Round has been re-uploaded by other social media users, and excerpts from the four-plus-minute tape can be seen on the New York Post’s website. You can see also see on the NY Post’s website that its staff apparently can’t tell the difference between a toy gun and a real firearm.
“High school ‘shooter’ showed off assault rifle on social media,” read the Post’s headline.
You got to be kidding me.
“The troubled teen … posted videos of himself brandishing guns and simulating shootings on YouTube,” the Post reported, citing the Spokesman Review. “In another video, Sharpe and a friend act out a quest to take out a fictitious drug dealer while brandishing guns, one which appears to be real.”
Just to be clear, there are no real guns, rifle or otherwise, in the video referenced by both the NY Post and Spokesman Review. Sharpe and his friend are definitely playing with toys.
The real story here is obviously the shooting and the tragedy visited upon those high schoolers. There is, however, something to be said for inflammatory and misleading reporting. In moments like this, exceptionally misinformed news coverage helps no one, and it usually causes further damage.
The New York Post did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
(h/t Adam Maxwell)
