The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

When Anti-Gun Propaganda Actually Doesn’t Support the Anti-Gun Narrative

Posted on | June 4, 2022 | 2 Comments

In the wake of the mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo last month, Democrats and their media friends want to tell a story about how this is a “crisis” for which “assault weapons” are to blame, and we need to enact “common-sense laws” to prevent such atrocities.

22 mass shootings. 374 dead.
Here’s where the guns came from

That’s the headline on an Associated Press story by Michael Sisak which says that the gunmen in Uvalde and Buffalo “are just the latest suspected U.S. mass shooters whose ability to obtain guns has raised concern”:

After the shootings, which together left 31 people dead, President Joe Biden renewed calls for stronger gun laws and questioned whether people as young as 18 should be allowed to purchase firearms. In the past, Biden has called for banning assault-style weapons and expanding background checks. Many Republicans oppose the measures.
A look at how suspects in mass shootings over a decade obtained guns, based on police accounts, court documents and contemporaneous reporting . . .

Now, that’s interesting — to get that headline number, the Associated Press had to go back a decade, i.e., to 2012. during Obama’s first term. In other words, over the past 10 years, the kind of “mass shootings” that generate national headlines have occurred about twice a year, producing less than 40 deaths annually. Keep in mind that, according to the FBI, there were 16,425 murders in the United States in 2019 (the last year for which we have complete data). Compared to that number, 40 deaths a year is two-tenths of a percentage point, a proverbial drop in the bucket.

In other words, 99.8% murders are not “mass murders.” As much as recent shootings — two high-profile incidents in the span of a week — may have contributed to the sense of a “crisis” that demands legislative action, these incidents are not a statistically significant phenomenon, when viewed in the larger context. Also, many of the mass shooters didn’t use rifles to commit their crimes:

  • Samuel Cassidy used three 9-mm pistols to kill eight people before committing suicide in San Jose, California, in 2021.
  • Robert Long used a 9-mm pistol in a shooting rampage that killed eight women at massage parlors in the Atlanta area in 2021.
  • DeWayne Craddock used two .45-caliber pistols to kill 12 people in Virginia Beach in 2019.
  • Ian Long used a .45-caliber pistol to kill 11 people and then commit suicide in Thousand Oaks, California, in 2018.
  • Dimitrios Pagourtzis used a shotgun and a .38-caliber pistol to kill 10 people in Santa Fe, Texas, in 2018.
  • Dylann Roof used a .45-caliber pistol to kill nine people in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
  • Aaron Alexis used a 12-gauge shotgun to kill 11 people at the Washington Navy Yard in 2013.

So, of the 22 “mass shootings” included in the Associated Press list, seven didn’t involve a rifle. These shootings accounted for 52 of the 374 dead in the AP headline. And examining the details of the 22 mass shootings chronicled in the AP story, there is no reason to believe they would have been stopped by any of the “common sense” laws Democrats propose.

Meanwhile, in New York:

Democratic lawmakers in Albany plunged into the national debate on Thursday, wielding supermajorities to enact protections denied elsewhere in the wake of recent mass shootings and a conservative shift in other states and on the Supreme Court.
The State Legislature passed a broad package of gun bills that will raise the minimum age to buy a semiautomatic rifle to 21, ban most civilians from purchasing bullet-resistant body vests and revise the state’s so-called red flag laws, making New York the first state to approve legislation following shootings in Buffalo and Texas that left a total of 31 dead.

So, in a state where Democrats wield complete control, this is what they’ve done, and what will it do to reduce the homicide rate in New York? Probably nothing, because the Democrats in New York are against effective public-safety strategy, i.e., putting criminals in prison.




 

Category: Crime

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2 Responses to “When Anti-Gun Propaganda Actually Doesn’t Support the Anti-Gun Narrative”

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