Have we had an insane number of mass shootings of late?

Some would say we have, while others disagree. I’m in the disagree camp.

I mean, we’ve had some, sure. Two in Sacramento, for example, and now the one in Buffalo. Funny how they’re all taking place in pro-gun states.

But some say there are many more. One of those saying such is CBS.

On Monday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Norah O’Donnell began and ended her broadcast by lying and pushing her leftist gun control agenda in the aftermath of the horrific mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store on Saturday.

“Tonight, this is a community in mourning — ten people were killed, three injured, eleven of them were black,” O’Donnell announced at the top of her program, before repeating an outright lie that has been previously debunked by NewsBusters: “it was a deadly weekend here in America — the United States has seen 202 mass shootings so far this year, four of them happened on Sunday.”

In reality, there haven’t been 202 mass shootings in America this year. As NewsBusters Deputy Managing Editor Nick Fondacaro wrote in April at the link above:

When reports of a “mass shooting” break, the common understanding is that a person went to a public place (school, shopping center, est.) and started shooting indiscriminately with the intent to kill as many as possible. But what the liberal media are currently citing is data from the Gun Violence Archive, a supposed “independent” aggregator of incidents involving guns.

But CBS is citing the anti-Second Amendment Gun Violence Archive which uses a much more liberal definition of four or more people simply being shot, not including the gunman. That means gang warfare routinely gets labeled as mass shootings by their number.

Yet as noted above, that’s not the common understanding.

CBS News knows this. They know what people are thinking when they hear about mass shootings. They still push the number and are very uncritical about it.

That’s a huge problem.

The folks at Gun Violence Archive aren’t people simply interested in documenting when someone misuses a firearm. They’re essentially activists trying to create political change; in particular, restricting our right to keep and bear arms.

They’re not unbiased, so ignoring that bias is journalistic malpractice.

Of course, for CBS and Norah O’Donnell, that’s not that big of a deal. That’s because those who call themselves journalists today are little more than activists with press credentials. They no longer seek to inform but instead, hope to use their podium to sway the political winds.

So them using such a biased and manufactured number doesn’t surprise me. It’s far too common in the mainstream media these days.

Why be critical of information when it’s what you want to hear?

It’s a trap all who call themselves journalists should be wary of, especially if they make it to the national stage. Unfortunately, that’s just not how the profession roles in this day and age, now is it? They’d much rather make the news than just report it.