A racist terrorist named Dylann Roof bought a firearm, and the American mainstream media helped him get it.
America’s utterly useless and hopelessly corrupt mainstream media has once again failed in its primary responsibility, which is to watch-dog the government — most especially the large and powerful, and increasingly unwieldy and corrupt, federal government.
On April 11 Dylann Roof was allowed to purchase the .45-caliber handgun he would use in June to murder nine innocent people in a Charleston, South Carolina, church. That Roof should not have been able to purchase this gun is not up for debate. Due to a March drug arrest, it was illegal for Roof to own a gun. Moreover, no one, including the NRA, believes that someone who has been convicted of a felony or who is facing a felony charge should be allowed to purchase a firearm.
In other words, this is the kind of gun control all of America agrees on.
In this sharply divided country of ours, we do all agree that everything should be done to keep guns out of the hands of Dylann Roofs.
But due to a bureaucratic snafu, that in retrospect is as heartbreaking as it is unfathomable, this evil, twisted, racist got his gun:
In an extraordinary acknowledgement of cascading bureaucratic failures, FBI Director James Comey said Friday that Dylann Roof should not have been able to purchase the gun police say he used in the June 17 Charleston, S.C., massacre.
Comey said an arrest record detailing Roof’s March 1 drug arrest by the Columbia, S.C., Police Department was not included in materials reviewed by the FBI’s National Instant Check System, which performs criminal background investigations on gun purchasers in 30 states. The contents of the record, the FBI director said, would have prohibited the April purchase of the .45-caliber handgun allegedly used in the church attack, which left nine dead.
The Feds screwed up, plain and simple, and did so at the most important job they have: keeping us safe by keeping firearms out of the hands of Dylann Roofs.
Without question, a devastating national tragedy that might have been avoided falls on the F.B.I. Sure, Roof might have been able to get an illegal gun elsewhere. What we do know is how he did get the gun that allowed him to commit this unspeakable crime.
So where the hell was our media?
Instead of rising up to their primary responsibility of watch-dogging the government… Instead of investigating and regularly testing the federal laws and systems already in place to keep guns out of the hands of Dylann Roofs… Instead of keeping the federal government on its toes by letting them know that they are always watching, testing, prodding… The utterly useless pail of rancid garbage we call the American mainstream media is instead…
Hot taking and here’s why-ing and pundit-ing and creating snappy videos and schmoozing and tweeting and talking head-ing and viralizing and scheming today’s Narrative to attack the Right and forever scheming ways to give the central federal government even more power and relentlessly scheming to emotionally blackmail law-abiding citizens to give up their guns.
Currently, by a wide margin, there are more so-called journalists in Washington DC than ever before. Thousands of them — thousands of left-wing, hot-taking, mainstream media sheep with monstrous budgets and the kind of resources those of us in New Media can still only dream of. But because they are too busy using these resources to create a giant propaganda machine that shapes the outcomes of legislation and elections, no one is watch-dogging the federal government.
The media has all kinds of time to attack Duck Dynasty, Paula Deen, and cover shark attacks. The media has all kinds of time to launch shame campaigns against a flag, ask Donald Trump the same three goddamned immigration questions over and over and over. The media has all kinds of time to get on Twitter and giggle over Periscope and guacamole and back-slap each other every time a fellow leftist moves from one leftist news outlet to another leftist news outlet.
But no one had the time to watch-dog the…
And no one in the media had the time or desire to test, prod, provoke, challenge, or investigate the very mechanism that is responsible for doing what the media claims is oh-so very important to them: KEEP GUNS OUT OF THE WRONG HANDS.
You see, our media has a priority much higher than a few hundred dead people in Chicago, and 9 dead churchgoers in Charleston — and that is expanding the power of the government and the State.
Our media doesn’t want to tell and certainly doesn’t want to know about government failures because it undermines their primary political goal — a bigger, more powerful central government.
That’s why the media falsely blames an Amtrak derailment on a lack of infrastructure spending, a school shooting on too few laws, and every problem in society on a lack of federal government largess.
In the coming days, because the media always prioritizes government power over innocent lives, the media will almost certainly find a way to blame this tragic, bureaucratic bungle on — you guessed it — budget cuts, ie: conservatives and the Orwellian idea that bigger government is more efficient.
The very idea (and an idea worth pursuing) that these background checks might be more efficient at the state and local levels, will not be discussed because it cannot be discussed.
Nothing, not even 9 dead people, is worth raising the idea that the states might be better suited to handle things.
That idea can never even be floated, for fear it might give the populace the same ideas about other government programs.
And that’s why Dylann Roof got a gun.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC