Conservatives are outraged over the double-standard they see in the release of mass-murderers’ “manifestos,” contrasting the quick release of a Florida mass-killer’s murderous, anti-black screed with the ongoing non-release of transgender-identified Audrey Hale’s manifesto five months after she shot up a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.
Hale shot six people, including three students, dead at the Presbyterian Covenant School March 27, before she was gunned down by police at the scene. Ever since then, conservatives have been clamoring for authorities, including the FBI, to release of the information Hale left behind explaining her motives.
However, there is a complicating factor in the comparison between the two senseless slaughters: parents representing more than 100 families with children at Covenant School are suing to keep the Hale documents – journals, laptop files and other materials that collectively comprise what is called the killer’s “manifesto” – private.
They argue that a full release of the documents could “traumatize survivors of the attack or inspire copycat shootings,” as USA Today reported in June. Media companies and groups favoring transparency in government are fighting in court to release the documents.
Female mass-shooter at Nashville Christian school reportedly identified as ‘he/him’
Nevertheless, the quick release of a manifesto of Florida mass-murderer Ryan Palmeter’s manifesto, which police called the “diary of a madman” for his stated goal of killing black people, has led critics to say this is only the latest example of a two-tiered justice system and biased media coverage that repeatedly favors narratives on the Left. Palmeter allegedly killed three black people inside and outside a Dollar General store in Jacksonville on Saturday before turning his gun on himself.
When NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Sunday if he was “ignoring” the Florida shooter’s manifesto and the social-media forces that allowed such hate to spread on the internet, Ramaswamy shot back: “I do think that we have two standards that we’re even applying if we’re having a conversation about manifestos. We still have not yet even seen that manifesto of that transgender shooter in Nashville of a Christian school, and yet here [in Florida] we’re focusing on the motive.”
“So if we want to look at this through a politicized lens, let’s look at what the political media and the political establishment is doing differentially in how they analyze different crimes and then create a new narrative around it,” the GOP candidate rising in the polls said.
The X account @TrumpsCat containing the media clip was brutal to the journalist despised by so many on the Right: “Up Chuck Todd Tries To Race Bait And Gaslight Vivek Ramaswamy But Vivek Turns It Right Back On This Soulless Degenerate.”
Rogan O’Handley, a D.C. attorney whose X handle is @DC_Draino, posted this Sunday: “Anyone else notice how we got the Jacksonville shooter’s manifesto within hours of the ‘racially motivated’ incident, but we still don’t have the Nashville Trans Terrorist’s manifesto 5 months after they murdered Christian schoolchildren? … It’s a simple explanation: One boosts the regime’s racially divisive narrative … The other doesn’t.”
The popular X account Libs of TikTok expressed similar thoughts Sunday: “The trans terrorist who murdered 6 kids at a Christian school 5 months ago left a manifesto which still hasn’t been released….The terrorist in FL who killed 3 in a racially motivated attack had details of his manifesto released a few hours after the shooting….Why?”
Jason Jones posted a cartoon meme and summed up what he believes is the bottom-line explanation for the squelching of the gender-bending Nashville mass-killer’s manifesto: “Doesn’t fit the narrative.”
‘Cover-up’: Where’s the Nashville ‘trans’ mass-murderer’s manifesto?
As WKRN reported in late May, parents of Covenant School students are urging the court to release only selective documents from Hale’s manifesto, while shielding most of her writings from the public.
“This Court can shield Jane Doe and John Doe from a lifetime of abuse and harassment by the shooter from beyond the grave,” the attorneys for the parents say in the court filings, obtained by WKRN. “The Parents believe that the large tranche of documents they do not object to will provide the public with the information needed to understand this horrific crime.”
“We are in ‘uncharted waters’ because we have a unique opportunity following a mass murder at an elementary school to prevent the shooter’s writings and anything else that is likely to inspire future attacks from being released and causing pain and suffering to the victims,” the lawyers write, according to WKRN.
But transparency advocates say shutting down information could set a dangerous precedent for controlling the public’s access to information in future criminal cases.
This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
This post originally appeared on WND News Center.