Rush Limbaugh Falsely Equates Pennsylvania School Stabbing With Sandy Hook and Columbine

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During Monday’s airing of The Rush Limbaugh Show, host Rush Limbaugh spent his normal allotted time railing on liberals, Hillary Clinton and President Obama. However, he also decided to discuss the recent stabbing incident at a Pennsylvania high school, where a student went on a rampage on April 9th and injured 21 fellow students and a security guard with a knife. The student, Eric Hribal, has been charged with attempted homicide and aggravated assault and faces as much as 585 years in prison. Basically, in typical El Rushbo fashion, Limbaugh tried to use the tragic event as a way of uncovering a huge liberal media conspiracy.

Transcript from the show:

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CALLER:  I just noticed that with the tragedy we had at the high school down the street from me here, that it seems like the national news has dropped the story quickly.  There’s been none of this analysis of how can we keep it from happening again that we’ve heard after other school tragedies.

RUSH:  It’s amazing.  There’s still more attention on the missing airliner than there is that tragedy, and you know why, I’m sure you know why, ’cause there weren’t any guns used.

CALLER:  That’s what I wanted to ask you. It just doesn’t fit the liberal narrative, and I just wanted to see if that was your opinion, too.

RUSH:  That’s exactly right.  You talk about a boring story, knife stabbings?  There’s no way they can move their agenda forward by spending time on this.  There is no movement for knife control.  There is no constitutional amendment which guarantees anybody the right to use a knife, that they don’t think people should have.  So without a gun being involved here, after the first day of the story, that’s it.  If there were a gun involved, you wouldn’t have even hit the peak of coverage yet.

CALLER:  That’s exactly what it seemed like to me and my husband as well, but, yeah, I had an aunt write and say she hadn’t even heard about it yet.

RUSH:  Well, let me tell you something.  Look, the story stands by itself as something of great sorrow and all that, but still, I’m proud of you.  I’m encouraged that you saw this on your own ’cause you are dead right about it.  You’re exactly right.  They’ve dropped this story because it’s boring to them.  They dropped it because this story does not advance their politics.  They can’t find a political hook here to advance the Democrat Party agenda, so after they cover it it’s over and done with.  The injured, the victim, nobody knows anything about ’em anymore, nobody knows who they are. In the media, nobody cares, ’cause they can’t —

CALLER:  And I just think that’s truly sad because, you know, this was a tragedy just as much as that as Sandy Hook or Columbine or any other place.

RUSH:  It was.  It was a disturbed stabber just like we’ve had disturbed shooters but there’s no interest to find out why, is there?  There’s no interest to find out if this guy happened to listen to talk radio, if his parents were Tea Party members.  There’s no interest in that whatsoever.  Isn’t it amazing, there’s no interest. The only thing that’s been said about this, Kirsten, and this will also explain why they’ve dropped the story. Well, this was a school for rich white kids, and this is the kind of thing you can expect to happen there so, you know, we’re done and gone.  That’s about as incendiary as they have gotten in discussing this.

RUSH:  Now, if they could find some bullying here that they could really zero in on, they might be able to sustain the story.  See, the problem is they did, there was some bullying, but it wasn’t gay bullying, so they’re not interested in it.

CALLER:  Well, it’s still questionable if there even was bullying. No one can establish if there was or was not.

RUSH:  Obviously, otherwise the media would still be talking about the incident.  You’re absolutely right.  Nevertheless, it is an incident that has shaken that community like any other incident like it has, and yet it’s a nonstory.  So you’re right to spot it.  Kirsten, thanks much for the call.  I appreciate it.

 

Sigh. No, just no. There is so much wrong with this little exchange that I hardly know where to begin. First off, Rush and the caller are starting off with the false premise that this story has not been covered much by the mainstream media. That it just came and went and news outlets stopped reporting on it. This couldn’t be further from the truth. All of the major broadcast networks, and the three primary cable news networks, have given ample coverage to this story. So have numerous websites and newspapers. In fact, NBCNews.com, as of Monday evening, had 50 stories up on their site regarding this tragic event.

Then there is the other premise that the ‘lack of coverage’ of this incident is due to it not falling within a certain liberal narrative. Since there was no gay bullying, or that a knife was used instead of a gun, then the ‘liberal media’ doesn’t know how to cover it. Per Rush, the bleeding hearts can’t point to the need for more gun control with this story like they could with Columbine, Sandy Hook or Aurora. I mean, liberals can’t call for knife control now, can they?

Ugh. Can we point out one major thing that is different between the Pennsylvania school stabbings and Sandy Hook? Or Columbine? Or Aurora? Or Ft. Hood? Or the Naval Yard? Or Sunday’s Jewish center shooting in Kansas City? NOBODY died in the Pennsylvania stabbing incident! Yes, there are four people still in critical condition at the hospital. Yes, many people got hurt by a crazed attacker. Meanwhile, in each one of these other tragedies that I just pointed to, multiple people were killed.

One thing that can be pointed out, though, is that if Eric Hribal had a gun, or multiple guns with high-capacity clips, then it is very likely that he would have done far more damage than he actually did. While it is sad and tragic what occurred nearly one week ago, we should all be thankful that no fatalities resulted from Hribal’s vicious attack. We shouldn’t equally compare Sandy Hook or Columbine with this incident because there is no comparison. 26 lives were lost at Sandy Hook. 13 were murdered at Columbine. The assailants were far more dangerous than Hribal, due to the fact that they had multiple guns with them. That is a fact.

 


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