Fresh off the election of Donald Trump, the nation was greeted by news of the stunning rise in “hate crimes,” as detailed in the FBI’s latest iteration of its Hate Crimes Statistics report. At first blush, it offers frightening prospects for the safety of various minority groups across America. At second blush, not so much.

New York Magazine writer Eric Levitz breathlessly begins his article, “Hate Crimes Against Muslims Increased by 67 Percent Last Year,” with the angst-ridden declaration that these crimes had reached “their highest levels since the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, according to FBI data released on Monday.”

From the fainting couch, he continued, “In 2015, there were 257 reported crimes rooted in anti-Muslim bias, up from 154 incidents the previous year. Notably, this uptick coincided with a GOP presidential primary in which a candidate who decried the Justice Department’s concern with violent, anti-Muslim rhetoric finished second to one who proposed banning all Muslims from the country.”

As usual, the devil is in the details, so let’s point out a few that drastically change the narrative.

For example, the FBI analyzes incidents reported in 2015, but it wasn’t until late in the year that Trump’s candidacy really took off, so one would be hard pressed to explain why the increase could be attributable to Trump. Other factors are far more plausible, including the series of deadly Islamic terror attacks (Paris and San Bernardino among the targets), or the contention fomented by Barack Obama’s attempt (with the help of the Rainbow Mafia) to force Americans to allow grown men to share bathrooms with women and little girls, or violent protests led by Black Lives Matter thugs. Is it possible that maybe, like Newton’s Third Law of Motion, these actions triggered opposite reactions?

Another critical point to understand is that the number of these incidents is incredibly small, and the threshold by which an action qualifies as a “hate crime” is ludicrously low.

Of all hate crimes reported in 2015, two-thirds did not involve any form of physical violence. And of those that did, nearly 70% involved only simple assault, which the FBI defines as an incident where no weapon is used and no serious injury occurred. This category of crime includes intimidation (including verbal threats or name-calling), which accounted for 41% of all “assaults.” And considering how many privileged, weak-spined snowflakes roam America — grown adults reduced to sobbing when their “safe space” has been violated by the presence of “offensive” Halloween costumes — this number should be taken with a truckload of salt.

Simple assaults, including slapping, shoving, or spitting on, accounted for 39% of “hate crimes.” In other words, only a small fraction of hate crimes — the kind that spring to mind when we hear the phrase, like aggravated assault (18.7%), rape and murder (well under 1% each) — actually include significant physical violence.

Keep all this in mind as you read back over that headline of a 67% increase in hate crimes against Muslims. The total number of reported “hate crimes” against Muslims in 2015 was 257, and using the aforementioned percentages as a guide, that means that 51 Muslims were seriously assaulted in 2015, out of a total American Muslim population of roughly 3.3 million. So one out of every 64,706 Muslims suffered physical violence as a result of a hate crime in 2015, and one out of every 1,079,823 blacks. In fact, there were almost as many black-on-black murders in the city of Chicago in 2015 as there were total “hate crimes” against blacks in the entire United States the same year. Again, assuming these crimes were specifically motivated by hateful bigotry.

It should go without saying that unprovoked attacks against ANY individual, regardless of race, sex, religion, or any other factor, are completely unacceptable. At the same time, it is dishonest to portray America as a place where blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, homosexuals, transgenders, and women are living in constant fear of attack. That’s the narrative Democrats like Harry Reid despicably advance, though.

Another thing to consider is that these numbers are based on crimes reported to law enforcement authorities. Yet when there are numerous examples of hate crime hoaxes being perpetrated — like the Muslim woman claiming she was beaten by white male Trump supporters as they screamed racial slurs, who now admits she made it all up — even the reported numbers become suspect.

Oh, and by the way, Jews are more likely to be the victims of hate crimes than Muslims. But that doesn’t fit the narrative. Not when even criticizing Islam is a “hate crime” to some people.

The bottom line is that each and every violent criminal deserves to be prosecuted and jailed, and no decent, honest American should ever be subjected to this kind of abuse. But categorizing name-calling and being offended as “hate crimes,” or lying about these kinds of attacks, makes it harder for true victims to be believed and protected, and it instills in some of us an unjustified fear of fellow Americans, whom some erroneously believe to hate them. This serves no one except those who profit from social, racial and political discord.