Debunking the Lie That Cities, States, and Countries With Strict Gun Control Laws Are Safer
In all my years covering politics, I've never seen a more intense push for gun control by Democrats and corporate media. They mean business, which means we need to share the truth.
In the wake of two mass murders, leftists and corporate media have been joined by international media to try to paint the United States as being too soft on firearms. This is the standard response following any controversial attack of the magnitude we've seen recently, but the rhetoric and gaslighting are ramped up to 11 this time. The push for gun control has never been more fierce than it is right now.
It's an emotional response, which is why it always begins within minutes after a reported mass murder. The left needs to latch onto emotional responses because the facts simply do not support their conclusions. It is their hope that people will step on the surface logic of "fewer guns means fewer crimes" without digging deeper into the true takeaway. The most logical conclusion is invariably that fewer gun restrictions and removing gun-free zones will decrease murders. But it's more than just logical. It's statistically demonstrable.
On the latest episode of The Midnight Sentinel, I covered a Twitter thread posted by Andrew Follett from Club For Growth that lays out how statistically speaking, stricter gun laws are tied to increased violence and Democrats are clearly to blame:
A thread on how the media is telling you two major lies about mass shootings and gun control 1: Other countries with vastly stricter gun laws than the US have higher rates of mass shootings. 2: US jurisdictions w/ gun laws have exponentially higher rates of gun violence
Although events in the U.S. tend to get the lion's share of media exposure, mass shootings are clearly a worldwide issue. The US makes up about 1.15% of the world's mass shootings while having almost 5% of the world's population.
Out of 97 countries with data, the US is 64th in frequency of mass shootings and 65th in murder rate. And rates of mass shootings elsewhere are rising faster
4 times as many per capita died in mass shootings in FRANCE as in the US. 21 times in Norway. In addition to those fairly nice nations, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland have higher mass shooting death rates.
All of those are pretty nice countries which MUCH stricter gun control laws than the US...and all have higher per capita deaths from mass shootings than the US.
According to this 2018 study (surveying data over an 18 year period), the US is 64th in the world in terms of mass shooting rates per capita (which sounds far worse than it is...because all the countries in gray below didn't report data.)
If anything our policy structure is actually pretty good at preventing this by global standards...especially relative to fairly nice countries of the type we want to compare America to.
2: The highest gun-ownership state with the loosest gun laws in the nation is Wyoming, where 59.7% of households have a gun (really!) Wyoming gun laws are arguably the LEAST restrictive in the United States.
Wyoming does NOT HAVE a gun homicide problem, with a rate of only 1.4 per 100,000–actually lower than right across the border in more gun-controlled Canada– and only about a third of that of the nation as a whole.
The highest murder rate of any jurisdiction in the US is Washington, DC, which has a murder rate of 21.8 per 100,000... more than twenty times that of most European countries!
But DC also has the most restrictive gun laws in the country... and the lowest rates of legal gun ownership, with numbers less than in many European states!
I'd say that data suggests that the factors making DC have such high gun violence rates are part of the story of why America as a whole is so deadly, but these cannot include high gun ownership or a lack of gun regulation...by definition.
If stricter gun laws reduced gun violence rates, you'd expect jurisdictions with those laws to have lower rates of gun violence. Instead, we find quite the opposite.
Now, maybe you think "of course those jurisdictions have higher gun violence rates, that's why they enacted the laws." I doubt that...but the data is CLEAR that those laws haven't reduced the rates.
The factors making DC so deadly are part of the story of why America as a whole is so deadly, but these cannot include high gun ownership. Facts don't care about your feelings.
And blaming this on Republicans' (which Libs made trend ALL of yesterday is...stupid. Washington DC hasn't had a Republican mayor since literally 1933...and hasn't had a single Republican on its city council since 2008.
The same thing is true of ALL the cities with REALLY BAD gun homicide rates. In 2019: St Louis, 64.54 murders per 100k, last GOP Mayor left in 1949 Its the 9th most violent city in the world.
The murder rate in Baltimore is 58.27 per 100,000. Its the 11th most violent city in the world...and has VERY strict gun laws.
This goes and and on down the list...check it for yourself. I stopped looking for a Republican mayor after a while because it was all Dems forever.
Yet...as I noted yesterday... Libs PRIMARY RESPONSE is to blame the GOP for this...when they are LITERALLY THE ONES IN CHARGE of the cities choking under gun violence.
You want to know how to convince me the Libs are serious about gun control? When they actually bring down gun homicide rates in the cities they've politically dominated for decades. Instead, they ALWAYS cast blame on everyone but themselves.
Talk to any Lib about Chicago gun violence...which is so bad there's literal websites dedicated to statistically tracking it...and they'll blame Indiana's gun laws.
This is because the ONLY move Libs have to distract from the fact that places they've subjected to VERY STRICT gun control laws is to...blame neighboring Republicans.
Laws that we know work (like cracking down on straw buyers) get entirely ignored in favor of oblivious attempts to gin up political support for policies we know DO NOT work bc we saw them fail in Dem controlled cities.
Statistically speaking, the most effective laws for reducing gun violence and gun homicides is cracking down on straw purchasing...that is someone buying a gun for a person not legally able to have one. And it isn't even close.
Basically every state (including ones with very intense gun laws) doesn't take straw purchases of firearms very seriously. It's MOSTLY a misdemeanor. Nobody bothers to enforce it.
As Kevin W of NR says...this is because of bureaucratic laziness more than anything else. Its easier to pressure a federally licensed retailers with fixed addresses and regular business hours than it is to go chasing Joe Gangster’s rap-sheet-free girlfriend all over St. Louis
If you can't read it, its the saga of one specific straw purchased gun being used in a dozen criminal acts. The person who bought the gun committed a felony in the state (Virginia) where he bought it. He pled guilty to this and got a slap on the wrist.
This is what annoys me so much about the "gun control" debate...its entirely media driven to gin up outrage, not solve problems. Media shift the responsibility for criminal violence away from the criminals who did it and onto 3rd parties that are easier to police.
And who just so happen to have deeper pockets. You can't sue Baker (the guy who bought the gun in the WaPo story) or Stunna (rapper who acquired the gun). There's no $ in that. But u can shake down Bob' Shotgun Emporium or Remington & that's what Libs ACTUALLY want
Meanwhile, a few U.S. ZIP codes, practically all of them represented exclusively by political party which always promotes gun control, are plagued by gun homicides and nobody in power is willing to lift a pinky finger to do anything meaningful about it.
Nobody cares on the left cares about saving lives in this debate, they care about the prospect of letting their lawyer friends make money and getting a bit of desperately needed extra political energy. That's all folks, going to dinner.
Follett's thread is definitely worth sharing, but he didn't go into the "why" behind all the gun control talk. This has nothing to do with public safety, as I noted on my podcast. This is all about disarming the people ahead of tyranny. Remember that when you read or hear about how the Uvalde massacre was handled.
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The Democrats have taken the 2nd Amendment out of Public Schools and made them
Gun Free Zones. Go to : www.thenewamerican.com
Ben Armstrong podcast May 26, 2022. Ben will tell you all about what's going on.
The Democrats have their children in private schools with security. When a school
shooting occurs, the first thing they talk about is gun control. :-(
If you truly want to all-but rid America of these shootings and other public crimes, we only need to return to the Bible’s non-optional responsibility to defend ourselves, our families, and others. With nearly every law-abiding man armed ready to engage any active criminal, these shootings would be all-but eliminated overnight.
The Second Amendment will never accomplish this and is, instead, part of the problem.
America was sold down the river when the 18th-century founding fathers replaced Biblical responsibilities (based upon the moral law of God) for Enlightenment rights, and nothing demonstrates it better than the Second Amendment.
Think about it: The Amendment WITH the wording "shall not be infringed" is the MOST infringed, licensed, and limited Amendment of the entire twenty seven. Furthermore, a future generation of our posterity is likely to see the Second Amendment whittled away entirely or repealed altogether. This is inherent nature and danger of optional Enlightenment rights versus non-optional Biblical responsibilities, such as the following:
"Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword [or today's equivalent] in their hand ... this honor have all his saints. Praise ye Yah." (Psalm 149:6-9)
"But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house [beginning with spiritual and physical protection], he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (1 Timothy 5:8)
Which is more potent: 1) An optional right, or 2) A non-optional responsibility?
Which is more likely to be infringed, licensed, and ultimately abolished altogether?
Which did the pre-Second Amendment Americans look to for their authority to bear arms, with little or nor infringement?
For more, listen to "The Second Amendment: A Knife in a Gunfight," delivered at the Springfield, Missouri Firearms and Freedom Symposium, at Bible versus Constitution dot org. Go to our Video page and scroll down to title.
At this same location, you will also find a radio interview Larry Pratt (Executive Director of Gun Owners of America) conducted with me on this same subject. I think you'll find Mr. Pratt's remarks especially interesting.
See also online Chapter 12 "Amendment 2: Constitutional vs. Biblical Self-Defense" of "Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective." Click on the top entry on our Online Books page and scroll down to Chapter 12.