Mass shootings aren’t a uniquely American problem. That’s something I touched on earlier today. Instead, though, it’s a complicated problem that we really don’t understand all that well. We don’t know what makes people into mass shooters. We have no clue if there are socioeconomic triggers or whether there’s an undiagnosed psychological disorder at play. We simply don’t have enough information.

Yet anti-gunners and their allies in the media continue to push the idea that gun control is the One True Way to end mass shootings.

Honestly, I’m not surprised anymore by the media’s corruption on this topic. I just hate it when they’re so damn transparent about it, like this report from Florida.

Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. The Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. A Sebring bank. A yoga studio in Tallahassee. A naval air base in Pensacola.

At least 81 people have been killed in mass shootings scattered throughout Florida since 2016, and the death toll keeps rising from other gun violence that, in some pockets of the state, has become almost the norm.

All of this for a story about how there’s a legislative divide in the state on the topic of guns.

What do those mass shootings really have to do with the divide in Florida’s legislature? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Then why include it?

That’s easy. You see, this is nothing more than a transparent effort to list all these mass shootings to create an emotional outrage leading into the rest of the article. We all know damn good and well that people remember how they felt after things like Parkland. They remember the outrage they felt after the Pulse shooting.

So, one includes such a list to bring those feelings back up to the surface, which can then be used to predispose you to be outraged over lawmakers not feeling gun control needs to be addressed.

Oh, I’m sure the writer will claim it was nothing more than a bit of a flourish, a way to make the article sound less mechanical, but I’m calling BS on that in advance.

No, this is a blatant attempt at propaganda and nothing else, a writer trying to embrace the role of an activist rather than a journalist.

Look, I have no problem with biased reporting, in and of itself. Frankly, I think all people are ultimately biased so it just makes sense that it’s going to infect journalism the same as anything else.

What I hate, though, is the media acting like they’re unbiased while writing crap like the quote above. Those who are unwary can easily fall into these traps and find their opinion formed not by facts, but by manipulation.

If the media wants to be biased, then fine. Embrace it. MSNBC did. So did Fox News and One America. I know when I read a report from MSNBC that it’s coming from a particular slant. Same with OANN or Fox. I know where they’re coming from, so I can filter it.

Pretending to be unbiased, though, is nothing more than dishonesty when we all know you’re anything but.