May 11, 2022

Guns Don’t Commit Homicide; Violent Thugs Do

Fact check the erroneous CDC/MSM ‘Gun Homicide’ propaganda and the Demos’ gun control agenda.

If you have seen any of the Democrats’ Leftmedia headlines this morning, you know that the CDC released a study on “Firearm Homicide and Suicide Rates” for 2020. A quick search finds hundreds of headlines asserting, “Gun homicides spiked 35%,” or some variation on the theme that guns committed the crimes. You know, because it’s a “gun problem.”

For the record, the CDC is the primary repository for national mortality data, and despite the CDC’s politically adulterated and grossly flawed COVID death data, in “normal” years the CDC has done a reasonable job of accumulating data on deaths. One would think homicide data should be maintained by the Department of Justice, but the FBI’s annual crime data is deeply flawed and has been for years.

Thus, as our analyst Thomas Gallatin noted previously, predictably, under the Biden/Harris regime, the CDC has increasingly become a political agenda enforcer. The regime has now charged the CDC with a key role in solving the “gun violence epidemic.”

Of the latest data dump, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky declared, “The tragic and historic increase in firearm homicide and the persistently high rates of firearm suicide underscore the urgent need for action.” Walensky previously said: “Something has to be done about [gun violence]. Now is the time — it’s pedal to the metal time.”

(Note: Firearms used for suicide represents 54% of all deaths involving firearms. The Left’s support for assisted suicide is in conflict with their support for gun control.)

While the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control director, Debra Houry, insists that advocating for political agendas is something the “CDC does not do and has never done,” that assertion has been blown apart in the last two years.

Recall that Biden has repeatedly claimed our nation is besieged with an epidemic of “gun violence” given the surge in criminal violence.

Our nation is besieged with an epidemic of cultural violence, most of it urban, which is the direct result of generations of failed statist Democrat policies that have eroded our culture from top to bottom. Demo policies have created generations of poor Americans and enslaved them on urban poverty plantations in every major city nationwide — modern-day plantations that are the locus of much of our nation’s cultural devolution. The devastating consequences of the institutionalization of poverty play out in an endless loop of daily violence.

The fact is, violent crime is a culture problem, not a gun problem, but for Demos, suggesting there is a culture problem would undermine their entire political platform.

What do we know about murder in the most recent year with complete data, 2020? According to CDC and FBI data, homicides jumped 30% to 21,570, which coincided with the first year of the government-mandated ChiCom Virus pandemic shutdowns. That is 4,901 more than in 2019, and a larger percentage increase in more than a century. Firearms were involved in 77% of homicides, though rifles and so-called “assault weapons” were involved in less than 3% of homicides.

Despite the sharp increase in 2020, homicides remain 22% lower than in 1991 and about the same as 1996, though incoming data from 2021 indicates that murder in big urban centers remains high. Indeed, the latest ranking of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world includes four U.S. cities: St. Louis (#14), Baltimore (#23), Detroit (#44) and New Orleans (#50).

According to the latest FBI data on “mass shootings”, which it defines as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area,” there were 38 victims in 2020. There were 43 victims in 2021, and including Buffalo and Sacramento, there have been 30 victims this year.

To what does the CDC attribute the significant increase: “The COVID-19 pandemic might have exacerbated existing social and economic stressors that increase risk for homicide and suicide, particularly among certain racial and ethnic communities.” In other words, “increased risk” where the vast majority of violent crime occurs in any year.

The problem with that conclusion is that there was little change in 2020 suicides in which the deceased used a firearm. So what could have caused the surge in homicides?

What the CDC did not mention, first and foremost, is that guns don’t commit homicide; violent thugs do.

The study does not take into account the fact that 2020 was the year Demo hate-hustlers launched their BIG “Systemic Racism” Lie, fueling a violent summer of rage featuring their Marxist Black Lives Matter radicals and their so-called antifa movement fascists — and they cheered them on. It only tangentially references “strains in law enforcement-community relations.” This was all orchestrated just ahead of the 2020 election with the intended results.

The CDC also did not mention the Demos’ defund-police movement, which is clearly linked to surging violence and has also resulted in a violent war on cops — police assaults and killings are already up 43% this year, over 100 officers have been shot in the line of duty this year. (We post a tribute to all LEO’s KIA on our End of Watch page.)

Apparently, promoting “gun violence” is, in effect, a Democrat Party policy — bloody fodder for its efforts to undermine the Second Amendment, the biggest obstacle to its lust for power and control.

Meanwhile, 107,000 Americans who died from drug overdoses last year – a lot of those drugs, and the criminal thugs muling and selling them, arrived thanks to Biden’s open border policy – which hit a new monthly record of 234,088 in April. In other words, the murder rate is almost 80% less than the overdose rate. Maybe the CDC should pay some attention to our southern border…

Finally, while I expect the Demo MSM to parrot Demo propaganda about “gun homicides,” I expect better out of conservative media. But the Beltway echo-chamber groupthink inevitably works its way into the right side of the ledger.

To that end, the otherwise straight-thinking editors at The Washington Times led the day with “CDC reports gun homicides spiked,” and the story read more like it had been written by their counterpart scribes across town at The Washington Post. The Times article was replete with references to “gun homicides,” but no mention of “criminals” or “assailants.”

FOOTNOTE: Regarding so-called “gun violence” and “mass shootings”: For the record, murders of multiple people, particularly mass murders, are very rare in our nation of 330 million people. There were approximately 25,000 homicides in the U.S. in the latest year of record, which you can view state by state, and fortunately there are indications that homicides may be declining after the surge in violence unleashed by Joe Biden and his Democrat agitators in 2020.

The Demos ubiquitously and falsely label the generational murderous contagion they have seeded, “gun violence,” and 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 on Democrat-controlled urban centers.

In a country and culture that ignores the rising generation of sociopathic murderers – thugs in violent urban centers who are saturated with cultural violence to the point of glorifying it, it is fortunate that the incidence of mass murder is not ten 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 degraded urban poverty plantations because they want to avoid at all cost, the “inconvenient truth” about race and violence, which is the direct result of failed Democrat social programs. Those murders aren’t useful for the gun control narrative they invoke to evoke emotional reaction from mostly wealthy white suburban women, whom form the Demos’ largest voter constituency.

As for actual mass murders, that is detailed in the FBI’s data on “active shooter incidents” – which it defines 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 more relevant 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 range between 20 and 40 incidents.

FOOTNOTE 2: Regarding firearms and suicide, 54% of all deaths involving firearms are suicide, most also involving drugs or alcohol abuse, but the big numbers in “gun violence” reports often do not distinguish between murder and suicide. It would seem that the Demos’ support for assisted suicide is in conflict with their support for gun control.

FOOTNOTE 3: 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 4: Regarding alcohol v firearm deaths, Demos should ban alcohol because alcohol abuse is far more deadly than firearm abuse. More than 140,000 people died from alcohol abuse last year – that’s SEVEN times the number homicides associate with fire arms. Drunk drivers are responsible for 28 deaths per day. And notably, it is estimated that alcohol is also a key factor in at least 30% of homicides involving a firearm. (Include illegal drug use and that number jumps to about 60%.)

If Democrats are serious about homicides, they should outlaw alcohol. Problem is, 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, while lawless users don’t.

FOOTNOTE 5: Regarding why Democrats only focus on less than 1% of murders nationwide – they are intentionally using these rare high-profile tragedies to foment fear – most notably 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 are intentionally propagating 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, especially among their female constituents, in order to advance their gun control agenda.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

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