The horrific shooting in Monterey Park, California, on Saturday evening that killed ten at a dance club during Lunar New Year celebrations set off the usual wave of speculation.

Politicians proudly proclaimed their condemnation of anti-Asian hate (thank you very much, Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff), which looked very awkward when the shooter was identified as an Asian male. Oops. But never fear, you can always find someone willing to stretch that preferred narrative for all its worth!

Kyle remains the undefeated “I will do anything I can to make an event fit my narrative facts be damned” champ. pic.twitter.com/5ozstyGLv9

— Rev. (@iMattBell) January 22, 2023

And as the day went on, that precious narrative of some kind of white supremacist shooter using an “assault rifle” to target the Asian community just kept falling apart. By Sunday evening, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was prepared to give a press conference on the now-confirmed deceased shooter.

Huu Can Tran, 72, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a white cargo van in Torrance that law enforcement officers had surrounded and forced their way into about 30 miles from where the massacre occurred, authorities said.”

Authorities said they found a handgun and other evidence inside the van. An investigation is ongoing, and authorities said they’re still working to determine the motive.”

Tran is also the suspect in an incident that took place at a dance studio late Saturday in the nearby city of Alhambra, authorities said.”

In the Alhambra incident, which occurred 17 minutes after the Monterey Park shooting, an Asian man entered the dance studio with a gun, and several people there wrestled the weapon away from him before he fled the scene. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Sunday evening that were it not for two community members who jumped in to disarm the suspect, there could have been more victims, calling the two people “heroes.”

The weapon recovered from the Alhambra location was a “magazine-fed semi-automatic assault pistol” that had an extended large-capacity magazine attached to it, Luna said.”

The sheriff said he believes the handgun found at the Alhambra location was not legal in the state.”

“California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, but yet look what we just had today,” Luna said, “the status quo is not working.”

Okay, let’s back up the narrative track just a little bit. The shooter was not white – strike one. An “assault rifle” wasn’t used – strike two. The shooter is an older man – strike three. What’s left? THE GUN! Let’s call it by a big scary name, and lament that California’s gun control laws are clearly not working. Is that the narrative the police and the media are truly going to go with now? Well, CNN actually identified the “magazine-fed semi-automatic assault pistol” that was recovered in Alhambra, where the shooter was disarmed.

The gun wrestled away from the man in Alhambra was a Cobray M11 9mm semi-automatic weapon according to a law enforcement official. This firearm is designed to take 30-round magazines that allow for rapid fire without having to frequently change magazines.”

In response to a reporter’s question, Luna said, “I believe the weapon that was recovered at the Alhambra location is not legal to have here in the State of California.”

Which led to this commentary on Twitter.

CA does define certain pistol configurations as "assault weapons". So either this thing had a threaded barrel or one of these other features, or it's just a regular pistol and he threw "assault" in for fun. pic.twitter.com/UxltH5qKed

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) January 23, 2023

More importantly, it literally wouldn't matter if the barrel was threaded or whether he had a suppressor, because the same people would be the same amount of dead in the exact same way.

— Amy Swearer (@AmySwearer) January 23, 2023

Let’s also point out that this particular 9mm handgun is not exactly popular, but it looks big and scary. Is it legal to own in California? I’m sure we will find out in short order. Does the Monterey Park shooting represent a failure of California’s gun control laws? The Cobray M11 9mm is a handgun that happens to look like something you might see in a movie, but if it is a legally owned gun, what will the sheriff have to say for himself? With all their precious narratives gone, the gun is the only thing left that the media and the left will be able to keep harping on.

I know that few people remember the Laguna Woods church shooting from last May, but the Monterey Park shooting shares some strong similarities with that one. An older Asian man decides to use a gun to kill those he disagrees with. In Laguna Woods, one man was murdered and the shooter survived after the congregation fought back and disarmed him. It was later determined that the shooter had a political motivation against this Taiwanese church, which resulted in hate crime enhancements being added to his charges. Right now, we have no clear idea what motivated the Monterey Park shooter, though it was alleged earlier that it was a domestic dispute.

Now, am I suggesting that we have an emerging problem with older Asian men using firearms? No, but if these were two white men, you can bet your bottom dollar that these shootings would be added to the list of “angry white men” shootings and we would not hear the end of the “white supremacy” narrative.

With ten people dead, it will be a lot harder to memory hole Monterey Park the way that the media quickly forgot Laguna Woods. However, if it truly was a domestic dispute and the shooter knew the victim or victims, and the gun ends up being legally owned, and there are no massive red flags that should have tipped off authorities, then the media will do its absolute best to make Monterey Park nothing more than a “local crime story.” Unless they can find a narrative hook to beat the right or those who support the Second Amendment over the head with, then there’s no point to keep bringing it up. Only shootings that are politically useful continue to get media coverage, as those of us who watch the media know. The ten people who died deserve better than that.

Featured image via kat wilcox on Pexels, cropped, free for use under Pexels license