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Guest editorial: Story of Maryland shooting doesn’t fit media narrative

Mike Quinones
Park City

“No news is good news.”

I’m sure you’ve heard that one before. The phrase, possibly adapted from James I of England, who purportedly once said, “No news is better than evil news,” suggests that, without any information or evidence to the contrary, we can assume that all is well.

That must be why the mainstream media has uttered but a peep about the latest school shooting out of St. Mary’s County, Maryland.



The school resource officer on duty at Great Mills High School engaged the shooter and stopped the threat Tuesday morning, leaving the 17-year-old gunman dead.

St. Mary’s County Sheriff Tim Cameron said that “School Resource Officer Deputy First Class Blaine Gaskill immediately responded and engaged the shooter,” identified by authorities as Austin Wyatt Rollins. Cameron noted that “only seconds — ‘less than a minute’ — elapsed between the time when the first shot rang out, and when Deputy Gaskill eliminated the threat to other students in the hallway.”



Rollins killed one student — a 16-year-old female — and injured a 14-year-old male before Gaskill was able to stop the threat.

This story isn’t getting nearly the coverage it deserves or it should. Why hasn’t the media jumped to share this news out of Maryland. For the anti-gun advocates who say armed guards in schools or trained staffers carrying in schools don’t make the schools safer. They sure as heck do. The Maryland story proves it again.

So no news is good news — except in the media. In the media, good news, especially that involving firearms, is NO news, because it doesn’t further a decidedly anti-gun agenda.

The media controls the narrative … not only by what they tell us, but — more importantly — by what they don’t. By what they leave out. By what they don’t want you to know.”

Indeed. That being said, here’s what the media doesn’t want you to know about what happened in Maryland.

What DIDN’T stop Austin Wyatt Rollins:

-Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban

-Maryland’s 10-round magazine limit

-Maryland’s universal background check requirement

-Maryland’s law requiring an exhaustive application process to obtain a permit to purchase a handgun

-Maryland’s law prohibiting purchase of more than one firearm per month

-Maryland’s law requiring handgun registration

-Maryland’s law requiring licensing of handgun owners

-Maryland’s extremely limited approval of concealed carry permits

-Maryland’s refusal to honor any concealed carry permit from another state

-Federal law prohibiting handgun purchases for people under 21

-Laws against carrying without a permit

-Gun-free zone laws

-Laws against discharging a firearm in public

-Laws against attempted murder

What DID stop Austin Wyatt Rollins:

-An armed person at the scene who engaged the shooter in less than a minute

Responsibly armed Americans know the truth of this story, regardless of the picture the media tries to paint. And if the price we must pay for not hearing the news is that an evil teenager hell-bent on doing harm was STOPPED by a good guy with a gun before that evil teenager had a chance to continue his rampage … well, I’m OK with that.

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