After last week’s tragic shooting at the Fort Lauderdale Airport that left five people dead, six wounded and the suspected killer, a military veteran, in handcuffs, a false narrative has once again been projected by various news outlets.

One that bears the name of a fictitious vet: “Rambo.” The New York Times, as you may recall, debunked it profoundly this past summer.

Yet, in the past few days, media companies have pushed out content like the following:

Not only is this wholly inaccurate and irresponsible, as the website Mediaite published in its recent op-ed on the subject, it’s simply bad journalism:

Let’s get the obvious point out of the way: no, NBC New York has never made a timeline listing every mass shooting carried out by those who follow a certain ideology. When people of those ideology commit those shootings, we are buffeted with assurances that is is wrong and immoral to stigmatize millions based on the actions of a few. That courtesy evidently does not extend to our men in uniform.

The list itself is a bit odd, since there’s a fourteen-year gap between 1996 and 2010 where not a single veteran or serviceman carried out a mass-shooting. Now usually, that’s a pretty good indication that your trend is nonexistent. But NBC dug up three shootings from two decades ago, and if you’re going to smear America’s veterans, why not go the full mile?

The clear impression a reader would get is that serving in the military somehow causes one to carry out a mass shooting (I guess they’re going for PTSD?). There’s actually a lively debate on whether there’s a correlation between the two, but there’s nothing academic or nuanced about a listicle. Missing from a timeline is the fact that correlation does not imply causation: for one thing, mass shooters are nearly all men, and 24% of U.S. men are veterans.

The writer goes on to point out that the suspects in the shootings cited were attracted to violence by motivations that had nothing to do with the military. Race wars and ethnic supremacy among them.

It’s been proven again and again, but it’s never, ever wise to paint with one broad brush.

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