# Another mass shooting **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 20, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333 "2013-09-20T18:40:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/21 "2013-09-21T23:20:16Z")
I just read about the mall shooting in Nairobi. Almost 40 people killed in what is being called a terrorist attack. I am getting so sick of the callous destruction of human life. [http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3967042](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3967042) The footage and photos from the attack in the slideshow at the end of the article are pretty chilling. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/22 "2013-09-21T23:24:48Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > The wall to wall news coverage of this event is deafening. > > Oh wait. > > Although it hasn’t been totally ignored it certainly isn’t getting the national coverage of the DC Navy Yard shooting. Although its easy to cry racism as the cause of the apathy I think its more about the fear mongering. They know a workplace or school shooting causes fear, dread and a morbid curiosity in the viewer. Everyone across the country can see themselves at work or in a movie theater. Most won’t connect with people at a night time basketball game in a high crime area of Chicago. I believe they are both equally tragic but the Chicago shooting is a more important story. But it will be covered far less. I bet some white people got shot, and that’s the only reason it even made their local news. Yes, I’m serious. Once again, I believe that if Sandy Hook had been an inner-city school, that story would have immediately vanished from the news wires and would only be discussed nowadays on racist blogs. I’ve heard more than once from people who lived there at the time that if Columbine had happened at one of the mostly black or Hispanic high schools in the Denver area, it wouldn’t have made the local news at all. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Clark\_Cello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@Clark\_Cello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clark_Cello)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/23 "2013-09-21T23:30:53Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I bet some white people got shot, and that’s the only reason it even made their local news. > > Yes, I’m serious. > > Once again, I believe that if Sandy Hook had been an inner-city school, that story would have immediately vanished from the news wires and would only be discussed nowadays on racist blogs. > > I’ve heard more than once from people who lived there at the time that if Columbine had happened at one of the mostly black or Hispanic high schools in the Denver area, it wouldn’t have made the local news at all. :eek: If people say that, they are silly or worse. I would appreciate if someone could list all the school shootings that killed more than 5 people but weren’t covered by even local news because they occurred in predominantly minority schools. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/24 "2013-09-22T03:46:15Z")
> [@Clark\_Cello](#): > > If people say that, they are silly or worse. I would appreciate if someone could list all the school shootings that killed more than 5 people but weren’t covered by even local news because they occurred in predominantly minority schools. This doesn’t meet your qualifications, but it’s been largely forgotten. > **[Red Lake shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_massacre)** > > The Red Lake shootings was a spree killing that occurred on March 21, 2005, at two locations on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota, United States. That afternoon at 2pm, 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed his grandfather (an Ojibwe tribal police sergeant) and his grandfather's girlfriend at their lakeside home. After taking his grandfather's police weapons and bulletproof vest, Weise drove his grandfather's police vehicle to Red Lake Senior High School, where he had been a stude... ---
**Author:** ![Clark\_Cello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@Clark\_Cello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clark_Cello)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/25 "2013-09-22T12:20:03Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > This doesn’t meet your qualifications, but it’s been largely forgotten. > > [Red Lake shootings - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_massacre) Just doing a quick search, it looks like it received pretty heavy coverage. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/26 "2013-09-22T14:30:25Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I bet some white people got shot, and that’s the only reason it even made their local news. > > Yes, I’m serious. > > Once again, I believe that if Sandy Hook had been an inner-city school, that story would have immediately vanished from the news wires and would only be discussed nowadays on racist blogs. > > I’ve heard more than once from people who lived there at the time that if Columbine had happened at one of the mostly black or Hispanic high schools in the Denver area, it wouldn’t have made the local news at all. :eek: You are wrong. The press only cares about one color. Green. Certain stories fit into their narrative and help there bottom line. A school shooting in any neighborhood would be huge news because it plays on our worst fears. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/27 "2013-09-22T14:32:44Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > This doesn’t meet your qualifications, but it’s been largely forgotten. > > [Red Lake shootings - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_massacre) Also largely forgotten and lily white ,the [West Nickel Mines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting)shooting. The media hits a story hard then moves on to another. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/28 "2013-09-22T17:07:48Z")
Comparing the coverage of this to the DC Naval Yard shooting and similar events seems misplaced. There’s a difference between “man starts killing as many random strangers as possible,” and “criminal with bad aim tries to shoot other criminal.” There’s a lot of gun crime in the US, and a lot of that crime results in innocent bystanders being caught in the crossfire. At this point, it’s part of the background noise of everyday life. Spree killers are much, much rarer, and as such, more “newsworthy.” Which is unfortunate, because, as **Loach** correctly pointed out, gang violence and street crime is actually a much more important issue, and far more likely to affect the average American, than random lunatics shooting up movie theaters. ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/29 "2013-09-22T17:30:58Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > Yeah, really going overboard with the coverage on this one… > > But hey, we got a good two days of DC stuff until it fell out of the template and just…kinda…vanished. Wonder why that might be? The biggest reason is that the shooter was killed: no manhunt, no trials, no convictions. The shooter is dead. So now it’s a bunch of funerals, a couple memorials and the ongoing ‘guns & society’ debate. Many of the families of victims have requested no media coverage and all but the slimiest media outlets are respecting that. Thus the shorter news cycle. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/30 "2013-09-22T17:54:17Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Also largely forgotten and lily white ,the [West Nickel Mines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting)shooting. Speak for yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/31 "2013-09-22T18:02:30Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Speak for yourself. Why? It is largely forgotten in the media. Which is what we are talking about. This has nothing to do with personal experiences. The most memorable death I have is my father’s heart attack. And that wasn’t reported in the media at all. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/32 "2013-09-22T18:14:21Z")
The media? The _news_ media? What kind of news coverage do you imagine is possible for any spree killing, several years after the fact with no living perpetrator? The fact that an event’s news coverage has _run its course_ is not well described as the event being “forgotten,” to say the least. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/33 "2013-09-22T18:37:57Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > The media? The _news_ media? What kind of news coverage do you imagine is possible for any spree killing, several years after the fact with no living perpetrator? The fact that an event’s news coverage has _run its course_ is not well described as the event being “forgotten,” to say the least. I think you participating in a parallel thread. I brought that up as a forgotten by the media event to counter the claim that Red Lake Massacre was forgotten because it was on an Indian Reservation and not about white people. My comment had nothing to do with if those involved had forgotten. Of course they haven’t. ---
**Author:** ![medstar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f07891/32.png) [@medstar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/medstar)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/34 "2013-09-23T02:19:11Z")
Does anyone else wonder why a three year old child was not home in bed at the time of the shooting? Where was the mother/father? Has CPS been called in? There are many unanswered questions in this case. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/35 "2013-09-23T02:33:44Z")
Perhaps the parents could not afford a baby sitter. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333/36 "2013-09-23T13:00:24Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I think you participating in a parallel thread. I brought that up as a forgotten by the media event to counter the claim that Red Lake Massacre was forgotten because it was on an Indian Reservation and not about white people. None of the shootings mentioned were “forgotten by the media.” It doesn’t make sense to even talk about the concept, unless coverage is dropped during a still-newsworthy period. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-mass-shooting/669333.md?page=1)