HWFO has discussed at length how media organizations such as Vox and CNN make millions of dollars by pushing freakoutery for clicks, and how their rampage shooting coverage approach increases the incidence of rampage shootings by one third because of copycat effects which are mathematically shown to be media driven.
As of July 20th, CNN.com had nine articles about the Greenwood Park Mall shooting, including one opinion piece devoted to “debunking” the idea that good guys with guns can stop rampage shootings even though one just did. Currently they have two hundred and twenty nine articles about Uvalde. That’s twenty five times more coverage.
I will not claim that CNN’s stated goal is to glorify rampage shooters, but that’s the exact effect CNN’s behavior has in the mind of a potential rampage shooter. If CNN reversed its behavior and gave twenty five times more coverage to Dicken instead of Uvalde, then the psychological effects would dampen rampage shooters instead of inciting them. This very rampage shooter may have been spurred on by CNN’s behavior, and CNN gets 30% more rampage shootings to farm for clickbait money because of their behavior.
If the United States were to string together three consecutive incidents of rampage shooters getting plugged by private citizens within seconds, as happened in Greenwood Park Mall, and CNN were to give each of them the sorts of coverage they give to Uvalde, the rampage shooter dorks would be too scared to try it. They’d stay in their basement playing XBox instead of shooting people, and the second order effects of constitutional carry would exceed 11.96 saved per incident, because there would be fewer incidents.
CNN not covering rampage shootings at all would reduce rampage shootings by one third. If they elevated coverage of failed rampage shootings stopped by citizens, they’d probably reduce them by an additional third.
But they don’t want to do that, because they’re hemorrhaging money. They need as many of these things to transpire as possible to make their bottom line. They are beholden to Moloch, trapped in a cycle that gets people killed, and the only way I can figure out of this cycle is to produce a lot more citizen shooters like Dicken.
The only way out is to shoot our way out and it’s CNN’s fault.
— Handwaving Freakoutery in Eleven Fewer Dead People
