The Patriot Post® · A 'Record Number of Mass Shootings'?
Predictably, there was a lot of boilerplate “gun violence” rhetoric from Joe Biden and his Leftmedia publicists this week, regarding the record number of so-called “mass shooting” cases this year. It is the same script they roll out every chance they can politicize the blood of innocents to promote the Democrat Party’s perennial gun control narrative.
In this case, the catalyst was a tragedy on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus, where a former college professor with an MBA from Duke University launched a high-profile attack targeting staff at Lee Business School. The assailant killed three people and wounded at least one other person before being killed by police. According to reports, the 67-year-old assailant had applied for work with UNLV’s Lee School but had been rejected. Notably, the lockdown response to the attack continued for hours after the Las Vegas PD announced the assailant had been killed, sowing a lot of additional fear and angst. Officials also informed a ground stop of all flights at Las Vegas International Airport, a shutdown similar to the recent Thanksgiving Day closure of Buffalo International Airport after a false report of a “terrorist attack” at the Niagara Falls bridge.
The assailant’s former East Coast students indicated he was obsessed with “sin city” and devoted many of his lectures on his sordid activities there. The assailant also had a fascination with serial killers, having claimed he used his genius MENSA skills to solve the Zodiac killer case. He claimed on his social media pages to be “a total crackpot” — apparently a deadly crackpot. Astoundingly, and typical of asinine tone-deaf posts by major social media platforms, the UNLV assailant’s LinkedIn page noted, “In memory of [XXXXXXXXXX] — This account has been memorialized as a tribute to [XXXXXXXXXX’s] professional legacy.” Isn’t that special. (That page has now been removed.)
The focus on the high-profile Las Vegas incident eclipsed two other rare multiple-murder incidents this week: a murder/suicide of four victims in Washington State, and six murdered in separate incidents by a single sociopathic assailant in Texas.
Predictably, none of the victims were overlooked by Biden for their usefulness as fodder for his political agenda. Biden issued his standard “gun violence” statement: “This is not normal, and we can never let it become normal. For all the action we have taken since I’ve been President, the epidemic of gun violence we face demands that we do even more. But we cannot do more without Congress. Republican lawmakers must join with Democrats in Congress to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, pass a national red flag law, enact universal background checks, require the safe storage of guns, and advance other commonsense measures that will help stem the tide of gun violence.”
Actually, none of those legislative measures would have stopped any of these three attacks — and no so-called “assault weapons” were used. Fact is, rifles and shotguns of any type combined are used in less than 3% of all homicides, but Biden never lets facts get in the way of his political agenda.
Of course, the type of weapon is irrelevant because guns don’t commit violence, thugs and sociopaths commit violence.
Moreover, what actually happened when Biden took office is that he and his Demos unleashed a record surge of violence nationwide, which continues largely unabated. But they now ubiquitously and falsely label the murderous contagion they seeded “gun violence” and focus exclusively on the rare high-profile “mass shootings,” which account for only a tiny fraction of the 26,000 homicides in the U.S. last year.
Democrats are very deliberate about only focusing on the infrequent high-profile attacks because they can’t escape responsibility for the vast majority of murders on their degraded urban poverty plantations. They want to avoid at all costs the “inconvenient truth” about race and violence, which is the direct result of failed Democrat social programs.
Likewise, the three latest murder scenes were not overlooked by The Washington Post either, which, like Biden and his Demos, pays no attention to the epidemic of black-on-black murders plaguing our nation. According to the Post, the most recent attacks “set a grim U.S. record.” The Post, which uses a reputable database of “mass shootings” and defines such as when “four or more victims were killed,” claims that in 2022, the previous record was 36 incidents, but the Texas and Washington cases this week push the 2023 total to 38. (Yes, you can ignore those fake news numbers being propagated by some leftist media outlets claiming there were almost 600 mass shootings this year.)
Notably, these attack numbers do not include mass murders with other weapons, like the murder of four people by an assailant with a knife last week.
WaPo noted the total death toll from 2023 “mass shootings” was 197 — out of what will likely be more than 25,000 murders this year. Again, a fraction of 1% — so why do Democrats only focus on less than 1% of murders nationwide? (Rhetorical question.)
The answer is that because 99% of murders in the U.S. are not the result of mass attacks, those deaths aren’t useful for the Democrats’ gun control narrative, which they use to invoke emotional reaction from mostly wealthy white suburban women, who form the Demos’ largest constituency.
Kamala Harris chimed in with this erroneous assertion: “Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children throughout our nation.” If by “children” she means gang- and drug-associated murders of those under age 21, then yes.
Of course, Demos are intentionally using these events to foment fear.
The fear and angst Demos intentionally create is taking a toll on Americans’ mental health. Psychological researcher Dr. Riana Elyse Anderson observes: “Watching it time and time again on your phone or on the headlines can really impact you in ways that I don’t think we knew before to be as impactful. It’s so ‘in our face’ all the time and we have access to so much footage, so many pictures, so many videos, so many accounts that we’re ingesting it in ways that’s really unhealthy for us.” The result for many mothers is an irrational fear that their children will be shot.
That is precisely the fear that Democrats want to perpetuate in order to advance their gun control agenda.
Frankly, I am shocked that the number of mass murders is not much higher. In a country of 330 million people with a culture that ignores the rising generation of sociopathic murderers — countless thugs in violent urban centers who are completely saturated with violence to the point of glorifying it — it is fortunate that the incidence of mass murder is not 10 times higher.
Further, as noted crime researcher John Lott reports, “[The Democrats’] ‘guns first’ approach ignores a basic fact — over 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms.”
Finally, and arguably, the only thing keeping the number of murders and assaults from being much higher is that about 40% of households — roughly 125 million Americans — are legal and responsible gun owners and have a means of self-defense.
NOTES:
The First Civil Right is To Keep and Bear Arms. It is, as James Madison’s Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story, rightly defined it, “the palladium of the liberties of the republic,” the ultimate assurance of all other rights.
What follows are a few key notes that all defenders of American Liberty and its foundational guarantor, the Second Amendment, should be prepared to articulate, in order to refute the rhetorical gun control agenda disinformation propagated by Democrats and their Leftmedia publicists.
While some of this data is based on annual findings, most of that data does not vary significantly year over year.
FOOTNOTE 1: Regarding so-called “gun violence,” there were approximately 19,600 homicides involving firearms in the U.S. in the latest year of record, which you can view state by state. Fortunately, there are indications that homicides may be declining after the significant surge of violence unleashed by Biden and his Democrat agitators in 2020. The 2022 homicide rate was 30% higher than in 2019.
The Demos ubiquitously and falsely label the generational murderous contagion they have seeded as “gun violence,” and they focus exclusively on the infrequent high-profile “mass shootings,” which account for only a tiny fraction of all homicides. More than 99% of murders in the U.S. are not the result of mass attacks. (Notably, guns don’t commit violence, thugs and sociopaths commit violence.) The oft-cited Gun Violence Archive defines a “mass shooting” as any incident that involves a “minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed.” The vast majority of those violent attacks are the result of drug and gang violence committed in Democrat-controlled urban centers.
In a country and culture that ignores the rising generation of sociopathic murderers — mostly thugs in violent urban centers who are saturated with cultural violence and indoctrinated with mass-media glorification of violence — it is fortunate that the incidence of mass murder is not 10 times higher. Arguably, the only thing keeping that number from being higher is that 125 million Americans are legal and responsible gun owners.
Democrats don’t focus on the vast majority of murders, particularly the epidemic of black-on-black murders on their decaying urban poverty plantations, because they want to avoid the “inconvenient truth” about race and violence, which is the direct result of failed Democrat social programs. In fact, black people (13% of the population), are 12 times more likely to be murdered, per capita, than white people (62% of the population).
That gross racial disparity in murder rates isn’t useful for the gun control narrative Democrats invoke to evoke emotional reaction from mostly wealthy white suburban women, who form the Demos’ largest voter constituency.
FOOTNOTE 2: Regarding so-called “mass shootings,” for the record, murders of multiple people by one assailant are very rare in our nation of 335 million people. Less than 1% of all murders nationwide are classified as “mass shootings” and high-profile attacks, such as the 2017 mass murder in Las Vegas, are extremely rare.
The FBI defines “active shooter incidents” as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” In 2022, the FBI reported 50 incidents resulting in 313 casualties (100 killed and 213 wounded). That number was up significantly from 2020 when the FBI reported 40 incidents resulting in 164 casualties (38 killed and 126 wounded).
A broader record of “mass shooting” data is maintained by the Associated Press and Northeastern University, which uses the Department of Justice definition of mass public shooting: “A multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms.” These numbers fluctuate significantly year over year, and they range between 20 and 40 incidents. But notably, over the last 30 years, the number of black mass assailants is almost as high as the number of white assailants.
Democrats focus on these rare instances of multiple murders because these high-profile tragedies are political fodder to foment fear — most notably when they can toss out their oft-repeated but erroneous claim that “gun violence is the leading cause of death for children.” If by “children” they mean gang and drug-associated murders of those primarily between the ages of 16 and 21, then yes. Democrats are experts at fomenting fear and division.
The fear and angst Demos intentionally propagate are taking a toll on Americans’ mental health. Psychological researcher Dr. Riana Elyse Anderson observes: “Watching it time and time again on your phone or on the headlines can really impact you in ways that I don’t think we knew before to be as impactful. It’s so ‘in our face’ all the time and we have access to so much footage, so many pictures, so many videos, so many accounts that we’re ingesting it in ways that’s really unhealthy for us.” The result for many mothers, in particular, is an irrational fear that their children will be shot. That is precisely the fabricated fear Democrats want to perpetuate, especially among their female constituents, in order to advance their gun control agenda.
But here is a fact Democrats and their mainstream media platforms will not tell you about those rare high-profile shootings on school campuses: Young people between the ages of 6 and 22 are far safer on a campus than they are off campus.
(Notably, the deadliest school assault in American history did not involve a firearm. A sociopathic school board member in Bath, Michigan detonated a bomb outside an elementary school, murdering 38 children and six adults.)
FOOTNOTE 3: Regarding what Democrats and their Leftmedia publicists ubiquitously and falsely label “assault weapons,” an actual assault weapon, commonly known as a “machine gun,” is select-fire and can rapidly cycle rounds in fully automatic sequence. Very few select-fire weapons are in civilian hands, and only then subject to stringent licensing requirements.
In fact, civilian firearms in common use, like the AR-15 and other semiautomatic sporting and hunting rifles, are not “assault rifles.”
For much the same reason the Demo/Media talkingheads focus only on rare high-profile “mass shootings” to generate fear and angst, they also call semi-automatic rifles sometimes used in those attacks, “assault weapons.” Predictably, Demos then call for what Hillary Clinton framed decades ago as “common sense gun laws,” inevitably followed by calls for an “assault weapons ban.”
In 1994, Bill Clinton banned the sale of “military-style assault weapons,” but that ban was not renewed 10 years later because it was determined the ban had no effect on crime reduction. According to Rand Research, “We found no qualifying studies showing that bans on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines decreased any of the eight outcomes we investigated.”
The fact is, rifles and shotguns combined are used in less than 3% of all homicides, but Democrats never let facts get in the way of their “assault weapon ban” political agenda.
Both the Clintons were prolific prevaricators, masterful obfuscators of the truth. And Joe Biden has followed their template, establishing himself as the standard bearer of the “lying dog-faced pony soldier” cavalry.
FOOTNOTE 4: Regarding firearms and violent crime, researcher John Lott reports, “Over 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms.” Again, the only thing keeping that number from being much higher is that 125 million Americans are legal and responsible gun owners.
FOOTNOTE 5: Regarding firearms and suicide, almost 60% of all deaths involving firearms are suicide, most also involving drug or alcohol abuse. But the big numbers promoted in “gun violence” reports do not distinguish between murder and suicide, thus implying that homicide rates are much higher. And does this mean that Demo support for assisted suicide is in conflict with their support for gun control?
FOOTNOTE 6: Regarding alcohol versus firearm deaths, if Democrats are serious about protecting Americans, they should outlaw alcohol. Alcohol abuse is far more deadly than firearm abuse. More than 178,000 people died from alcohol abuse last year — that’s NINE times the number of homicides associated with firearms. Drunk drivers are responsible for 37 deaths per day. And notably, it is estimated that alcohol is a key factor in at least 30% of homicides where the assailant uses a firearm. (Include drug dealing or use as a factor and that number jumps to about 60%.)
Of course, the vast majority of alcohol users possess and use it legally and responsibly. Likewise, the vast majority of firearm owners possess and use them legally and responsibly. Enacting a prohibition on firearms is tantamount to enacting a prohibition on alcohol. In both cases, only law-abiding users obey the laws.
BOTTOM LINE: Let me restate this point — only law-abiding citizens abide by the law. Only outlaws perpetrate acts of violence. Making good people helpless won’t make bad people harmless.
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776