USA –-(Ammoland.com)- With some rushing to judgment in the wake of the early Friday shootings at the opening of the third installment in the Batman trilogy, “The Dark Knight Rises,” at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, a member of a Tea Party group who shares the same name as the shooter has responded with justified irritation to a report by Brian Ross of ABC News that “there is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year, as well.”
“Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes, but it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado,” Ross continued, and it’s well he made that caveat–because ABC has since issued an apology, although why they chose to run with such a statement before properly vetting it has some wondering if media bias played a part, particularly noting the exchange took place with Democrat operative-turned-“newsman” George Stephanopoulos.
That Jim Holmes reacted on his Colorado Tea Party Patriots website page to “[t]he blatantly lazy and inept report of Brian Ross that I am, and by extension CTPP, is linked to the deranged murderer in Aurora.”
Mr. Holmes has a very good point. A cursory search of sites like Zabasearch and WhitePages.com turns up numerous same name hits in his area, which makes floating a name and an affiliation out before a national audience irresponsible at best, as are counter-charges, offered as yet without corroborating documentation, that the shooter is a member of “Occupy Black Bloc.”
Affiliations may or may not be fair game, depending on whether or not an individual acts in accordance with a group’s goals and agenda. But until those affiliations are established, leaping to conclusions is destructive, and not just to individuals and their associates caught up in the finger-pointing.
Individuals interested in the truth would do well to allow the facts to come out and leave the jumping to unfounded conclusions to others.
About David Codrea
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Read more at www.DavidCodrea.com.