First, there was David Hobbs, and this post that was getting lots of shares:
This made it's rounds claiming that Hogg had claimed to be a survivor of a school shooting in California. Now, Hogg was in fact in California, and was on the news there. The incident was over a surfboard. Hogg was vacationing there, and was vlogging for his YouTube channel. He posted a video about the incident on his channel, the local news caught wind of it, and interviewed him. However, the mere fact that he had appeared on a news story prior to the Parkland shooting left many Conservative right continuing to claim Hogg as a hired "crisis actor" even after presented with the facts.
Today, I started seeing this post popping up all over my feed:
This particular one originally made it's rounds in 2015, as some may remember. However, the Arapahoe High School shooting occurred in 2013, which is definitely not "this past Friday"! The shooter was NOT the only one dead after this tragedy. Claire Davis was shot in the head by the shooter as she tried to flee the school library. She died in the hospital 8 days later. Now, there are several of the Conservative right who try to claim that still leaves the claim of "he ended up the only one dead" valid...grasping onto that straw. No, it does not! It really doesn't matter if she died immediately or a week later...in the school, in the ambulance, or in the hospital. If the shooter did not die, he would have been charged with murder the second that Claire Davis was pronounced dead!
And let's move on to the death of the shooter. This meme goes on to claim that an ARMED school resource officer confronted the shooter. The claim leads our Conservative right friends to stand that the officer shot and killed the shooter, thus preventing more death. However, the real story is quite different! The officer was in another part of the school and in fact headed toward the library once he heard what was going on. By the time the officer reached the library, the shooter had already shot himself! Presenting this fact to my Conservative right "friends" today, I got the argument, "He shot himself because he heard the officer was headed his way. He would have taken more lives otherwise!" That is only speculation. The shooter was specifically looking for the librarian, angry that she had cut him from the debate team. There is no certainty that he would have even left the library, even if the officer was not already on hand at the school.
And finally, the claim that mainstream media did not cover this shooting...I mean, since we have heard nothing about it since "this past Friday". Truth is all major media outlets did cover this story back in 2013 when it actually happened. Of course, the media would not be covering this now 5 years later. But, all these actual facts presented, those Conservative right "friends" grasp at every straw to assert their claim that "guns save lives" when every point on the meme is disputed with actual facts.
I point this out, because these are the very people who went ape shit over false claims on social media and the likes that there have been 18 school shootings in 2018 in the US. Now, in the "18 school shooting" claim, the fact is that there have been 18 instances of guns being fired on school grounds. Not all of them were mass shootings...and some of them weren't even considered shootings, as no one was injured or killed. There was at least one case of someone committing suicide in a school parking lot, for example. But our Conservative right "friends" never pointed out those facts...they just screamed "WRONG" and ran away. Much like folks calling them on their bullshit claims...they just want to run away. They can dish out the claims of "false facts" or "fake news", but they really can't take it when they are found to be spreading falsehoods themselves!