A little over an hour ago, social media began to freak out over the possibility of an “active shooter” (I’m coming to prefer Ron Borsch’s rapid mass murder terminology for accuracy’s sake) at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

As time wore on, I noticed—among the requisite mainstream media hysteria—that two essential things were missing from the story.

There were no accounts of any actual shooting going on.

There are no reports of anyone being injured.

Now, I’m not always right about all things, but I’m pretty sure for there to be any accuracy in reports of a shooting, that some sort of shooting needs to have taken place. Otherwise, we merely have a “man with a gun” call, and more that all too often ends up being a “moron with a phone” call.

It turns out that there was a scheduled “active shooter” drill scheduled… and someone didn’t get the memo.

As a result of the drill, someone at Andrews saw base security carrying long guns—more than likely M4s or even AR-15s, but maybe shotguns—and called the police… on the police.


Folks, in this Chicken Little world I would strongly advise you to take any “active shooter” accounts from any source, no matter how official-sounding, with a tremendous degree of skepticism if you don’t immediately hear confirmations of shots fired and casualties.

Reporters are going to report anything and everything they’re told, no matter how implausible, because they don’t want to miss a story and they’d rather be first than right.

Hone your ability to separate fact from fiction, because in the mad rush for airtime and page views, accuracy will always suffer.