Check this out, and make sure to use the link to the amazing NBC report:
On Saturday morning, Dec. 15, one day after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, NBC’s chief justice correspondent, Pete Williams, spoke with “Today” show host Matt Lauer.
Williams shared “new information this morning from a couple of federal officials and state officials.” Said Williams, “They say now that there were actually four handguns recovered inside the school, not just two as we were initially told; four handguns and apparently only handguns that were taken into the school.” (Italics mine)
Williams said that Lanza also brought an “assault style, AR-15 style rifle” with him to school, but, he added, “We have been told by several officials that he left that in the car.”
Later that same Dec. 15, Dr. Wayne Carver held a press conference. Gun-control zealot Piers Morgan did not like what he saw and savaged the conspicuously lab-coated Carver via Twitter.
“Extremely disrespectful press conference going on with #Newtown medical examiner,” Morgan tweeted. He added later, “Really disgusted by this medical examiner’s showboating behaviour – should be kept well away from cameras in the future.”
What Morgan did not foresee, however, was that the showboating Carver had introduced a new bit of information, that, whether true or not, Morgan would exploit for weeks to come.
As Carver explained, he and his team of his team of 14 assistants had started the autopsies of the 20 children that morning and finished by 1:30 p.m. Only in the Q-and-A did a question arise about the weapon used:
Reporter: Doctor, on that examination, could you tell which caliber of the handgun compared to the rifle on these shooting victims were?
Carver: It’s a good thing there’ll not be a prosecution ’cause then I couldn’t answer that. All the wounds that I know of at this point are caused by the one weapon.
Question: So the rifle was the primary weapon?
Carver: Yes.
Question: What caliber was used?
Carver: The question was what caliber were these bullets. And I know I probably know more about firearms than most pathologists, but if I say it in court, they yell at me and make me answer. So I’ll let the police deal with that for you.
As he admitted, Carver had only done seven of these hastily performed autopsies himself. He did not even know the caliber of weapon used. He and the reporters seemed unaware of Williams’ authoritative report just hours earlier that federal and state officials had only found handguns at the scene.
To watch Carver in his fumbling 15 minutes of fame is to understand that he was only accidentally part of a media-government plot to focus on “assault” weapons.
The initial reporting on the press conference likewise failed to grasp the narrative that was about to emerge. I could not find a single headline that mentioned assault weapons. “Children at Sandy Hook were shot multiple times” was one common theme. “Worst I’ve ever seen,” was another.
In the days that followed, the story would shift to the AR-15, not as the exclusive weapon – two handguns remained in the narrative – but as “the primary weapon used in the attack.” On Dec. 19, CNN reported, “Police say Lanza’s rifle used numerous 30-round magazines.”
This, of course, may be true, and Williams’ sources may have been wrong, but my investigations into TWA Flight 800 and the Oklahoma City bombing have taught me that the early reporting is often the most reliable, especially when there is a Democrat in the White House with an agenda.
Comments