Media critics are likely to have a field day with coverage of yesterday’s fatal shooting of Miriam Carey in Washington, D.C., because the mainstream press, including the Seattle Times, has not done what it is typical; sensationalized the incident by proclaiming that police gunned down an unarmed African American single mother.
That Ms. Carey posed a threat to public safety can hardly be argued after so much video of the incident has been streaming across the Internet and shown on national television.
However, professional race hucksters have been unusually silent. So have critics of armed self-defense against unarmed individuals. Last year in Florida, George Zimmerman fatally shot an unarmed African-American teen who was pounding his head against a cement sidewalk and the reaction was just short of calling for a lynch mob. Yesterday, an unarmed black woman faced a cadre of armed police with guns drawn, and she continued her dangerous rampage until she was shot dead.
The police were standing their ground, and were actually in pursuit.
Facts are emerging that leave the gun prohibition and anti-self-defense lobbies grasping for words, to say nothing of how the far left is remarkably silent. Ms. Carey’s baby was born out of wedlock and she reportedly had a history of mental illness issues. Reports now say she was suffering from post-partum depression.
If press coverage were even handed, there might be calls for a ban on pregnancy, especially among single women.
But the press is not even-handed, and there have been some attempts to exploit this incident to remind America of the so-called “government shut down.”
The Daily Mail is running a five-paragraph sidebar today under the headline “Brave Capitol Police Risked Their Lives for Free Because of Government Shutdown.”
When Congress reconvened after the lock-down Thursday afternoon, the Capitol Police officers who stopped Miriam Carey got a standing ovation - but not much else.
The 1,800 officers who protect the nation's capital are currently working for free thanks to the government shutdown.
The officers are considered essential staff - so they are turning up for work, but won't get paid for their service until the impasse ends and Congress agrees to fund the government.
Congressmen tweeted about hiding in coat rooms and ducking behind cars during the harrowing moments before Carey was killed within sight of the Capitol Building.
Meanwhile, the officers who risked their lives haven't been paid since Tuesday, thanks to Congress' in-fighting over whether to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund day-to-day operations.
And ABC News reporter Tahman Bradley got almost all the way through his live report Friday morning before dropping this comment: “Those brave men and women of the capitol police who stopped this threat are not being paid. They’re not going to see their money until this government shutdown ends.”
If the gun control fanatics were true to their opposition to so-called “gun violence,” they might be whining that there is nothing particularly brave about dozens of gun-toting cops descending on a single woman driving erratically through downtown streets, and then fatally shooting her.
What is different about all of this? For one thing, it happened in Washington, D.C., home of the elected elite and their burgeoning bureaucracy. Ms. Carey presented a threat to their safety, not the average citizen rubes out in “fly over America.”
Secondly, Ms. Carey did have a weapon, a 3,000-pound motorized bludgeon, and she used it.
Thirdly, the police, just like any other legally-armed citizen, had no idea who they were facing or what they were dealing with. That is, they were confronted with an attack by a stranger whose background they knew nothing about, and they had to make split-second decisions in the interest of personal and public safety. They weren’t getting their heads pounded against the pavement, but they could have been killed nonetheless, either by being run over or perhaps by a crude car bomb.
Thursday’s incident was tragic, especially for the toddler who will grow up never knowing her mother, but probably always knowing how she died.
But the incident did demonstrate that there are times when shooting unarmed people is the only way to prevent something far worse from happening.
Suggested reading:
Kurt Hofmann on China and the Second Amendment
David Codrea on the death of Tom Clancy, life member of the NRA
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