Perhaps I’m becoming more paranoid in my old age but I find it suspicious that one day after Paymar announced that he wouldn’t pursue universal background checks a news story broke that there was a reported active shooting at a middle school in New Prague, Minnesota:
Authorities in New Prague responded this morning to a 911 call concerning an “active shooter” at the middle school, but a staff member later said everyone is safe and there is no danger inside the building.
“We are in the process of trying to clear all the schools at this time,” Scott County Sheriff Kevin Studnicka said at about 8:30 a.m. “We have not come across any injuries at this time.”
At about 9:30 a.m., administrators told families that classes in all schools were canceled for the day.
A School District official said the middle school was on a “code red” lockdown soon after what 911 police scanner chatter termed a “weapon complaint.”
Was the caller a student looking to cause some chaos or a gun control advocate hoping to reignite demands for gun control? I have no idea but the zealous manner in which gun control advocates danced in the blood after the Connecticut shooting leads me to believe they would stoop to almost any level to push their political agenda. My paranoia aside, this story also demonstrates the issue with knee jerk reactions. When the news first broke I saw numerous comments on Facebook saying there was an active shooting happening at the New Prague middle school. It wasn’t until I did some digging that I found out that the only source of this information was a new report saying somebody had called 911 about a weapons complaint. Taking a news story about a 911 call and conjuring up an active shooting is a massive departure from logic and demonstrates how quickly people can take a rather mundane report and turn it into a wild story.
Always take a moment to gather all the available facts before believing what you read or hear. Words that indicate potentiality are often dropped from second hand reports. When you read a friend’s post about an active shooting on Facebook take a moment to determine whether their comment is accurate or conjecture.