At The Federalist: Data Shows White Supremacists Are Not The Most Likely Mass Murderers

 I have a new op-ed at The Federalist.

Democrats are lying to Americans about the most likely motivations for mass murderers and the prevalence of guns in violent crime. 

In his Buffalo, New York speech last week following a mass shooting, President Biden showed he still has only two things on his mind regarding crime: guns and white supremacists.

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No one can defend white supremacists. But with violent crime soaring and this latest attack in Buffalo, people want something done. Yet Biden’s agenda won’t make people safer. 

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“Look, we’ve seen the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; in Pittsburgh. Last year in Atlanta. This week in Dallas, Texas, and now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York. White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison. It really is. Running through our body politic. And it’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. I mean, no more.”

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Of the 82 mass public shootings from January 1998 to May 2021, 9 percent have known or alleged ties to white supremacists, neo-Nazis, or anti-immigrant views. And many of the anti-immigrant attackers, such as the Buffalo murderer, hold decidedly environmentalist views that are more in line with the Democrat agenda. 

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Other groups commit mass public shootings disproportionately more than whites do. While non-Middle Eastern whites make up about 64% of the population, they make up 58% of the mass public shooters. Another nine percent are carried out by people of middle eastern origin, who make up only 0.4% of the country’s population. That makes middle easterners the most likely ethnic/racial group to carry out mass public shootings. Blacks, Asians, and American Indians commit these attacks at a slightly higher rate than their share of the population. Hispanics commit them at much lower rates (11% lower) than their share of the population.

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Seventy-one percent of mass public shooters have no identifiable political views.

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But you would never know this from watching TV police dramas or listening to Biden’s constant claim that white supremacists pose the biggest threat of domestic terrorism.

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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed in testimony in April that white supremacy is the top terrorism-related threat to the homeland. But when pressed, Mayorkas couldn’t name a single white supremacy case that his department referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

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White supremacists with guns are not the threat that our government would have us believe. It’s not just that white supremacy is rare – so too are gun crimes. The number of gun crimes has been falling dramatically, and they now make up less than 8% of violent crimes in America.

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“We can keep assault weapons off our streets. We’ve done it before. I did it when I passed the crime bill last time, and violence went down, shootings went down. We can’t prevent people from being radicalized to violence, but we can address the relentless exploitation of the internet to recruit and mobilize terrorism. We just need to have the courage to do that, to stand up.”

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Biden’s focus on guns, and particularly assault weapons, is misplaced. On Tuesday, Biden again bragged about how wonderful his 1994 assault weapon ban was in stopping mass public shootings, but even studies paid for by the Clinton administration couldn’t find evidence of its effectiveness. 

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If the Federal Assault Weapons Ban really drove the changes in the rate of mass public shootings, attacks with assault weapons should have become less common during the ban. Then they should have become more common, at least as a share of total shootings, after the ban ended in 2004. But that isn’t what happened. Comparing the ten years before 1994 to the ten years after, we find that the percentage of mass public shootings with assault weapons rose slightly when the ban was in effect (going from 22.2% to 23.5%) and then fell in the ten years after the ban ended (23.5% to 18.2%).

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Biden’s “guns first” approach ignores a basic fact – over 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms. In addition, although Biden blames guns for the increase in violent crime, the latest data show that gun crimes fell dramatically.

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A new McLaughlin & Associates survey of 1,000 likely voters from April 20th to 26th for the Crime Prevention Research Center shows how misinformed people are. People across the country, of all races and incomes, have wildly inaccurate beliefs about how frequently violent crime involves guns. The average likely American voter is way off, thinking that over 46% of violent crimes involve guns. The people who had the most inaccurate views that the rate of violent crime with guns was the highest were the ones who most strongly supported gun control.

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It might not be easy to accept, but focusing solely on guns and white supremacy isn’t a wise use of resources. 

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John R. Lott, Jr., “Data Shows White Supremacists Are Not The Most Likely Mass Murderers,” The Federalist, May 23, 2022.

In the Missoulian: This election will determine future of private gun ownership in US

Excerpt:

This past week, President Trump claimed the election will determine the future of private gun ownership in the United States. 

He’s right. And Montana voters’ choice for the U.S. Senate looks set to determine its balance of power. If they gain control, Joe Biden and Senate Democrats promise to eliminate the filibuster, allowing them to pass any legislation they want with a simple majority vote. 

But the Senate won’t just determine what gun control legislation gets passed — it will also determine what judges get confirmed. 

There are few issues that divide Democrat- and Republican-appointed judges more consistently and completely than gun control. President Trump's 200 federal judicial confirmations have only just brought the courts into balance, with Democrat-appointees still controlling circuit courts for 24 states plus D.C. 

The states Democrats control judicially are ones that they also tend to control legislatively. These circuit courts approve any and all of the regulations they get passed, no matter how flagrantly they infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. 

Don’t expect the Supreme Court to restrain these courts. All four Democrat appointments claim people don’t have a right to self-defense. Indeed, they have already noted they will vote to overturn the court’s 2008 Heller and 2010 McDonald decisions. Those rulings merely ensured the government could not completely ban guns . . . .

The rest of the piece is available here.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks about declaring a national emergency for gun regulations

A transcript of Pelosi's comments are here:

just think of what a president with different values can present to the American people.

You want to talk about a national emergency? Let's talk about today, the one year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America. That's a national emergency. Why don't you declare that emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would. But a Democratic president can do that. Democratic president can declare emergencies as well. So, the precedent that the President is setting here is something that should be met with great unease and dismay by the Republicans.

And of course, we will respond accordingly when we review our options. First we have to see what the President actually says.

CBS News: "Even in gun country, Democrats shift towards gun control"

Like abortion, the Democratic party is going to exclude anyone who disagrees with the party othodoxy on gun control.  From CBS News:

Just 18 months after declaring his opposition to banning assault weapons, Nebraska Democrat Brad Ashford has changed his mind. 

The former one-term congressman, now trying to win back an Omaha-area seat he lost in 2016, used to consider it futile to push for a ban while Republicans held power on Capitol Hill. But the student activism that has followed the rampage at a school in Parkland, Florida, has changed his thinking in a way that other high-profile shootings, including two in his hometown since 2007, had not. 

Ashford's conversion mirrors the one underway in his party. Not long ago, a moderate record on guns would have been considered a plus for a Democratic candidate in the GOP-leaning suburbs and conservative outskirts of Nebraska's largest city. Today, even with Ashford's reversal, it's a vulnerability that his opponent in the May 15 Democratic primary has been quick to exploit. 

That contest, along with races in Virginia, rural Pennsylvania and other places where gun control has been taboo, shows how far the Democratic Party has traveled on this issue. The November elections will test whether Democrats will make room for candidates who don't back all gun control measures. 

"He should have been stronger on this," said Kara Eastman, the 46-year-old political newcomer running against Ashford for the nomination in the 2nd Congressional District. "We need leaders who are going to stand up and fight for the kids." . . .