The Patriot Post® · Psaki: Crime Surge a 'Gun Problem'?
In a scripted layup question for Joe Biden’s press secretary, ABC News reporter Cecilia Vega asked Jen “Circle Back” Psaki about the surge in violence over the last year: “A look back over the weekend and over the last year. This past weekend, there were more than a dozen mass shooting across this country — 4,000 more people shot and killed by guns in 2020 compared to the year before. Is there a crime problem in this country?”
“Shot and killed by guns,” not the violent offenders using guns and other weapons to kill.
For the record, the FBI, which maintains national homicide and assault data, has no definition for “mass shooting” — and the Left is as loose with those words as it is with “assault weapon.” But there were 12 assaults this past weekend resulting in 11 deaths and 69 injuries — the vast majority of which were thug, drug and gang related. And the unofficial homicide rate for 2020 has surged 25% over 2019.
That surge is being driven by major Demo urban centers who dumped cops and funds last year. The Los Angeles Police Department cut $150 million (8% of its budget) and New York Police Department cut $1 billion (15% of its budget). Homicides were up by 36% and 45% respectively.
In Minneapolis (“Minnopolice”), the epicenter of the “defund police” movement after the death of George Floyd, the city and metro Police Department budgets were cut by $22 million, and more than 200 officers. Homicides surged 46% last year and are already up this year by 113%. (And remember that once-beautiful and safe city of Portland, where protests were allowed to flourish for months. In Portland, homicides were up 766%.)
The abject stupidity of Vega’s question notwithstanding, clearly, she gave Psaki an opportunity to deflect blame for the real cause of the dramatic surge in homicides and assaults in Demo-controlled urban centers — leftists’ deadly “defund the police” advocacy and their empowerment of the violent Marxist so-called “Black Lives Matter” movement. Both of those strategies were designed to foment violence in order to blame Donald Trump ahead of last year’s election.
Psaki responded: “I would say certainly there is a gun problem, and that’s something the president would say, and there are communities where local violence and community violence is an issue, and that’s one of the reasons that we have proposed and now are implementing funding for community violence prevention programs across this country. I will say that we don’t often highlight — and you just gave me the opportunity to — the fact that between mass shootings, mass shootings that get a lot of attention … there are hundreds, thousands of people who lose their lives, and that’s one of the reasons the president will continue to advocate for the Senate passing [gun control measures] but also advocate for actions in states where we have seen the greatest level of activism over the past several years.”
That was a convoluted way of insisting that the grossly disproportionate black-on-black murder and violence is a “gun problem” rather than what it actually is, a cultural problem created primarily by years of misguided leftist social policies.
Despite her disjointed answer, Psaki managed to use Vega’s question as fodder for leftists’ relentless assault on the Second Amendment, which they know is the most formidable barrier to their relentless assault on other civil rights.
Time for Psaki to circle back for a reality check. The Democrat Party is the author of cultural violence in America, and until the party addresses the real problem, the underlying policy issues that have resulted in the cultural devolution of its most loyal constituency, the violence will continue unabated.
Finally, on this the anniversary of George Floyd’s death, we’re hard-pressed to find a single good outcome from all the riotous outrage. The agenda-driven Leftmedia and Leftist politicians insisted that the riots were “mostly peaceful protests,” ostensibly in the name of eradicating “systemic racism” – both assertions being demonstrable and despicable lies.
Fittingly, at George Floyd square in Minneapolis, as reporters were gathering to do what they do best, they were forced to scatter like rats as gunfire erupted in the middle of the day.
Floyd’s family and their lawyer were not present for the Minneapolis celebrations. Joe Biden flew them in for a White House photo op, presumably at taxpayer expense so they would not have to draw on their record $27 million civil settlement days before the Chauvin trial started.
Finally, what Psaki did not mention: I would draw your attention to the law enforcement officers who have been killed in the line of duty since Floyd’s death. We maintain dedicated End of Watch tribute pages to each of them.
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
Please join us in prayer for our nation’s Military Patriots standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, for their families, and for our nation’s First Responders. We also ask prayer for your Patriot team, and our mission to, first and foremost, support and defend our Republic’s Founding Principles of Liberty, and to ignite the fires of freedom in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.