Down The Memory Hole

The Jawa Report notes:

If you’ve been reading the papers and you have spotty knowledge of history, you might be forgiven for thinking that the shootings this week were the “worst mass murder in U.S. history.” If you’re a journalist with a lot on your plate, you may have forgotten the mass murder of September 11, 2001, which left over 3,000 dead. Then again, that was nearly six years ago & all.

After reviewing all of the excerpted newspaper items that the Jawa Report links to, it appears that the media’s decision to toss footage of 9/11 down the Memory Hole may have been a case of self-inflicted labotomy:

Truth is, the Virginia Tech shooting rampage, while tragic, was not “the worst mass murder in U.S. history.” It wasn’t the “second worst mass murder in U.S. history,” or even the third, or the fourth.

The 9/11 attacks (2,998 deaths), the Oklahoma City bombing (168 deaths), the HappyLand arson (87 deaths) and the Bath, Michigan bombing (45 deaths) all claimed more victims than the Virginia Tech shootings (32 deaths).

But, as Vinnie noted yesterday, those events don’t fit neatly into the anti-gun political agenda, so they need to go down the memory hole, thereby leaving the Virginia Tech shootings as “the worst mass murder in U.S. history,” with Charles Whitman’s shooting rampage taking a close second.