The Seattle Times reports that a young man was shot this morning on the Route 132 bus. He is currently in critical condition at Harborview Medical Center. The police have arrested one person in connection with the crime. The shooters wore masks. It's unknown if any of this is gang-related.

That said, the Seattle Times' reporters added to their post this curious comment, which was made by the husband of a woman who witnessed the shooting:

[A man who] came to the scene after he was called by his wife, who was on the bus and witnessed the shooting. She told him two masked men climbed aboard the bus, shot the victim and then fled, he said.

“I’m going to have to buy a car,” the man said. “My wife is never going to ride the bus again.”

If the husband had made a comment about the prevalence of guns in our society, we can bet that it would have been ignored. Such statements are clearly too political. This is a report on a crime—not a pamphlet for gun control.

An anti-public-transportation and pro-car statement, on the other hand, passes through all of the editorial checks with no problem because it is regarded not as political but to be plain common sense. Everyone knows it is safer to be in a car than on a bus. Buses are filled with the poor, weirdos, and violent types. A car protects you from gangsters, guns, and poverty.

Of course, this is just rubbish—guns are the main problem, road-rage incidents often involve guns, cars are not the safest mode of transportation. What the car comment in the report exposes is not anything close to reality but car ideology in a state of perfection.