Short form: about two weeks ago there was a drive-by shooting in a suburb of Houston, Texas. A seven-year-old black girl was shot in the head and killed. The initial reports had it that the killer was a white man with blue eyes, which led to the supposition that this was a racially motivated “hate crime,” and led to opinion pieces such as this:

Was Jazmine Barnes a victim of domestic terrorism? Will white America own it?

Where white people are essentially told that we should collectively bear responsibility for the murder of the child.

Small problem: the white guy who was seen speeding from the scene was merely a bystander, who not unwisely decided to get some distance. The actual shooter? Black feller. Whoops, there goes the narrative.

But that’s not all. As part of “white domestic terrorism is a bignormous threat,” the idjit writer uses an example of a gun “buy back” program in Baltimore where someone turned in a rocket launcher. This is touted as a major example of the NRA being evil gun nuts.

But the thing is, the rocket launcher is little more than an expendable fiberglass tube, no more dangerous than a whiffleball bat. The biggest scandal is that the BPD actually spent $500 for a worthless – and harmless – bit of Army surplus. Behold:

Update: City of Baltimore paid $500 for this spent rocket launcher in its gun buyback. Military and ATF contacted for tracing pic.twitter.com/enlJcBUUHx

— Jayne Miller (@jemillerwbal) December 21, 2018

The thing I wonder about is the submachinegun *next* to the AT4 tube. I don’t immediately recognize it; it really looks like the sort of gun that could be knocked out by a reasonably well equipped home machine shop. If that is in fact the case, that should be a *way* bigger story than an expended rocket launcher tube.