California responsible for 1 in 8 attacks, despite more than 100 gun restrictions…
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) An analysis of the statistics used by left-wing media to hype the “mass shooting” epidemic in America may also help debunk several of the gun–control myths being promoted by them.
Among the revelations from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive:
- A typical NFL game in Baltimore is likely to include at least one mass shooter.
- California accounts for an eighth of all the mass shootings nationwide, despite having the most gun laws.
- The average number of attacks (and deaths) by mass shooters in former President Barack Obama’s last two years of office exceeded the average in President Donald Trump’s first two years.
‘Mass Shooting’ Semantics
The media once again sought to manipulate gun violence statistics to create a sense of panic in the wake of two mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
According to the Agence France Presse, a global wire syndication service that distributes to many other news outlets, the tragic attacks were the 250th and 251st “mass shooting” incidents this year.
Naturally, to reach such a sensationalist number, it was necessary for the journalists to apply a loose definition of “mass shooting” while manipulating statistics drawn from the Gun Violence Archive.
The group insists it is not an advocacy organization and that its goal is simply to document incidents for use in analyses and reports.
“It is hoped that this information will inform and assist those engaged in discussions and activities concerning gun violence, including analysis of proposed regulations or legislation relating to gun safety usage,” says its website.
But by leaving out the context of its “mass shooting” data, the group is, in fact, providing deceptive and misleading statistics that virtue-signaling, liberal journalism outfits are more than happy to cite without further scrutiny.
The mass shooting total “counts any attack in which at least four people are killed or wounded, not including the shooter,” according to the AFP report.
However, when you remove injuries from that tally and look only at incidents in which four or more people were killed, the number drops from 251 to 20 for the year.
Even by expanding the data to include incidents in which one or more people were killed, the number is 126—meaning roughly half of the mass shootings the group is claiming involved no fatalities.
Such incidents, far from being domestic terrorism, could simply be ones in which a single person was targeted and other injuries were collateral damage from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When the number of fatalities is raised to two or more, the total drops again to 53 “mass shootings” this year. For three or more deaths, it is 31.
While these counts are certainly too high for anyone’s liking, additional context may debunk the oft-repeated leftist trope that the cause of the incidents is an uptick in “homegrown domestic terrorism” as a result of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric.
Gangs and Drugs?
Not surprisingly, many of the mass shootings take place in major urban areas where drug- and gang-related violence are prevalent.
In Baltimore, for instance, after many Democrats attacked Trump’s recent criticism of the crime-plagued Maryland metropolis and called the president “racist,” the Charm City reached another milestone of 200 homicides over the weekend—during a supposed community “ceasefire,” the Baltimore Sun reported.
Of the slayings in Baltimore this year, according to data from the Baltimore Police Department, a total of 176 homicides involved firearms as of the end of July.
In fact, based on the Gun Violence Archive, the Democrat-run city—represented in Congress by Elijah Cummings—has been responsible for 10 “mass shootings” this year, although all involve no more than a single homicide.
By that measure, which amounts to a per capita rate of 1:62,000, the typical crowd on any given Sunday at the 71,000-capacity M&T Bank Stadium, where the Baltimore Ravens play, would include a mass shooter. (Thank goodness for security!)
Chicago, a city of 2.7 million that is notorious for its gun and gang violence, is doing comparably well, with a mere 23 mass shootings this year—only one of which involved multiple fatalities (2).
Red State vs. Blue State
According to an article from CNBC last year touting the effectiveness of gun laws, the states with more Draconian restrictions had fewer incidents than those without.
However, the latest data may belie those claims.
Since Gov. Gavin Newsom took charge in January, California alone, it seems, has been responsible for 32 mass shootings—or roughly one-eighth of the nationwide total.
Even before Newsom took office, as of February 2018, the state already had 108 gun laws according to CNBC—and that number has surely risen this legislative session.
On the low end of the scale is Alaska, which is sparsely populated by comparison and had a mere four gun laws in the CNBC analysis. It has had zero mass shootings so far this year.
In total, the 30 states that supported Trump in the 2016 election accounted for 136 of the “mass shooting” incidents this year, or about 53 percent.
Including the two recent incidents in Texas and Ohio, which brought the count up by 32 more victims, there have been 175 mass shooting fatalities in Trump-won states this year.
Although those numbers may still be staggering, even more so is that the remaining 47 percent of mass shootings—including 100 of the 275 fatalities (36 percent)—come from the 20 Hillary-supporting blue states with extreme gun-control laws.
The Obama Legacy
Of course, those who seek to blame Trump and his rhetoric are more than happy to overlook the many such incidents in the Barack Obama presidency—during which disturbed individuals like the Aurora, Colorado movie-theater gunman and the Newton, Connecticut school shooter flouted the many laws and red flags in place that should have hindered them.
For the final two years of Obama’s presidency (2015-2016), the average number of “mass shootings” per year was 359, including a yearly average of 410 fatalities, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
For the first two full years of Trump’s presidency (2017-2018), the annual average of “mass shootings” was 343, including a yearly average 405 fatalities.
Clearly the partisan posturing over gun control and political finger-pointing over divisive rhetoric—although they may be exacerbating the problem—are doing nothing to meaningfully address it.