Liberalism Unmasked

by Richard Houck

  When I hear Liberals argue that the fear of a tyrannical government is baseless, irrational, and nothing more than a delusional, paranoid, conspiracy theory, I think of those mass graves and I wonder, what kind of monsters would mock these unarmed deaths as conspiracy theorists or fringe lunatics?

  I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

  —Thomas Jefferson84

  The so called “assault rifles,” whose ban Liberals constantly espouse, account for 300-500 murders per year. Those terrifying rifles that Democrats running for public office continually promise to protect us from, are used in fewer murders than knives (1,700 per year), clubs and hammers (600 per year), and bare hands and feet (800 per year). More people each year are beaten to death by unarmed persons, than are killed with rifles.85 This horrifically absurd fact needs to be branded onto every Liberal politician’s forehead until they — or we — understand.

  The ten-year “assault weapon” ban that ended in 2003 had virtually zero effect on crime.86 During 2003, the last year for the ban, rifles were used in 2.7 percent of murders. Over a decade after the ban was lifted, the number of people killed by rifles was 2 percent in 2014. Despite the low rates of crimes and murders involving these arms, Liberals are still obsessed with getting rifles out of our hands.

  More people die from drowning at their own home each year, than are killed by rifles. More people die annually from overdosing on prescription Opioids than are murdered with firearms. More people die from prescription Opioids than any other drug.87 Yet politicians make no campaign promises to rid society of these poisons. No politician runs ads promising to fight the evils of big pharmaceutical companies. Hillary Clinton wants to hold firearm manufacturers responsible for firearm deaths, but not pharmaceutical companies for the deaths causes by their drugs?88 How telling.

  If the Liberal goal were truly to save lives, they would have a long list of evils to face before a few hundred annual deaths from rifles found its way to the top. Yet the stated Liberal goal of “saving lives” and “making the streets safer,” only ever applies to firearms. Thus the true Liberal agenda peeks out from behind the mask.

  A Look at the Numbers

  Liberal talking points and the data they choose to represent are incredibly dishonest. In the first place, Liberals nearly always include suicides in the data sets on gun violence and deaths, which I find abhorrent. The inclusion of suicides entirely minimizes and undermines the causes of suicide: clinical depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and a host of other anxiety and personality disorders. This is an issue that I take very seriously and I find it thoroughly repulsive that Liberals profit from the method which people use to kill themselves in order to politicize their gun agenda.

  According to the World Health Organization, The United States ranks 50th in suicide rates compared to other nations.89 In the nations in which firearms are uncommon, other methods become the number one method of taking one’s own life, from hanging, to poisoning, to asphyxiation. Judging from data taken from the top fifty nations by suicide rate, banning guns does not prevent suicides at all; in many of these countries, people do not have easy access to firearms at all, yet they still kill themselves at an even higher rate than United States citizens. For Liberals and Democratic politicians to conflate the heartbreaking issue of suicide with firearm control is dishonest, grotesque, and embarrassing. They willingly stand on these graves in order to push a political agenda.

  Every college textbook I have seen, and most news articles that depict graphs of intentional homicides by firearm in The United States as compared to other nations, always use the same trick. They place the US at the bottom of the list, and cherry pick twenty or so other countries with low homicide-by-firearm rates. The comparison countries are typically much smaller than the US, with mostly homogeneous populations, and have lower crimes rates in general. If you look up a global list of homicides by country, you’ll see that the US is directly in the middle of all countries. The bogus graphs also only use the rate of gun-related homicides. Honduras for example, has an incredibly high murder rate, but when we only account for gun-related murders, the rate drops dramatically. They are still killing each other; they just find other methods.

  The 2014 US murder rate per 100,000 people was 4.4. Broken down state by state, an interesting story begins to emerge. A dozen states have murder rates lower than 2.0. If those dozen states were their own countries, none would break the top 150 countries by homicide rate. On the other end of the spectrum, there are a dozen or so states with murder rates above 5.0, above and beyond the national average.90 Looking at the murder rates of individual cities, we see an even more revealing picture. St. Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans, Newark, Detroit, Washington, D.C., all have murder rates above 24.0 per 100,000 people. St. Louis tops the chart at nearly 60.0 homicides per 100,000 people. Over 20 US cities have murder rates more than four times the national average, placing them among the most dangerous cities in the world.91

  Murders in which a firearm is used are highly concentrated. 68 percent of all murders in which a firearm was used occur in just 5 percent of the nation’s counties, per data from The Crime Prevention Research Center. More than 50 percent of all firearm related homicides are in just 2 percent of US counties. The majority of US counties, 98 percent, have a murder rate similar to that of Canada, less than 2.0 per 100,000 residents.92 Perhaps most surprisingly, over half of all US counties have zero homicides.93

  Liberals have long argued that more guns do not make a nation safer. Perhaps they are right, but it is curious to me that in Vermont, for example, the gun ownership rate is over 40 percent, while the murder rate is 1.3. Meanwhile in Maryland, the gun ownership rate is just over 20 percent, with a murder rate six times higher than in Vermont. Baltimore, Maryland, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, has a homicide rate of 55.0 per 100,000 people.94

  In data taken from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, we can find an even more detailed view of murders in the United States. Men commit murder at a much higher rate than women. Rates of both being murdered and committing murder are much higher for eighteen to thirty-four year-olds. When broken down by race, whites have murdered at an average rate of 4.5 over the years from 1980-2008, and blacks at a rate of 34.4, a difference of more than seven times. What this means is that black males, who make up around 6 percent of the population in the United States, account for half of all murders annually. If we were to remove murders committed by just 6 percent of the population, the murder rate of the United States would drop to levels similar to those in Nepal, Belgium, and Finland, placing the rate in the bottom 25 percent of the world’s nations by homicide rate.95 If black America were its own country, it would be one of the most deadly nations on Earth in terms of homicide rate.

  Illegal invaders, making up only around 3.5 percent or so of the total population, commit a disproportionate rate of crime and murder, according to The General Accounting Office. In a 20 year span, at least 22,000 murders happened needlessly, inflating the murder rate in an artificial fashion. If we were to remove the black murder rate, the Hispanic murders, and the murders committed by illegals, which account for around 75 percent of all murders, the current, white only US murder rate would fall to just about 1.45 per 100,000. They would have among the lowest rates on Earth, while being among the most heavily armed groups of people on Earth. 96

  After sorting through piles of data, I have a hard time buying into the narrative that guns are somehow the root cause of murders in the United States — or anywhere else for that matter. Young men in America kill themselves and each other at incredible rates. 77 percent of whites that are killed with a gun are suicides. 82 percent of blacks that are killed with a gun are killed by other black men around their same age.97

  Not only do we find a very different pattern of gun deaths between races, but there is a pattern of percentage of firearm ownership that suggests the number of firearms in an area in no way predicts th
e relative amount of firearm violence.

  If we were to seek actual, pragmatic ways of lowering the deaths related to firearms, we would look at demographic control, not gun control. Studies show that those who identify as Liberal are more prone to crime; the majority of convicted felons are registered Democrats, and black men make up over half of all murders.98 99 Further, most homicides are concentrated in a small percent of US counties. Perhaps the regulation we need does not concern firearms.

  Data from the New York City Police Department reveals that in 2016, 73 percent of all firearm arrests were blacks, 22 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent whites. Time and time again crime data reveals that guns are not the issue. Yet the Left refuses to acknowledge any information that confirms the differences between groups in terms of behavior and criminality.100

  Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by Bureau of Justice Statistics, show that almost 68,000 times each year, a firearm is used for self-defense. That means at least 68,000 people who were not murdered, robbed, assaulted, or raped, and whose safety was guaranteed by owning a weapon. Over six times the amount of people used a firearm to protect themselves, than to kill.

  This figure of 68,000 is the lowest figure I found reported. Florida State University criminology professor Gary Kleck has conducted research that shows firearms being used for self-defense at much higher rates than are suggested in the Bureau of Justice Statistics report. Kleck estimates that firearms are used in self-defense at least 750,000 times per year.101

  During his presidency, Obama signed an executive order that granted the Center for Disease Control (CDC) ten million dollars in order to research firearm violence. In 2013, the 110-page report titled Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence was released. Much to Liberal chagrin, the report found that firearm use for self-defense was not only prevalent, but represented an important tool for crime deterrent. When firearms were used defensively during attacks, the report states that those with guns had “consistently lower injury rates” as compared to those without guns. Further, criminals used guns in less than 6 percent of the total number of aggravated and simple assaults.102

  Society-level, community-level, and individual-level factors were examined in relation to gun violence.

  At the society-level, low income, low social capital (which is caused in part by increased diversity), and chronic environmental stressors were implicated in leading to higher levels of violence. The number of employment and educational opportunities also contribute to society-level factors.

  On the community-level, residential turnover, unemployment, social isolation (again, a product of diversity), and neighborhood drug trafficking are all factors that contribute to more gun violence. Family disruption, low community participation, social disorganization, transiency, and poor economic opportunities also contribute to violence.

  Finally, at the individual-level, substance abuse, unemployment, high levels of impulsivity, and low levels of education, all factored into the increase of gun violence.103

  Of all the factors mentioned, the report did not find any evidence to suggest that higher rates of gun ownership or gun carrying lead to higher rates of violence. Quite the opposite. The paper, Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns, by John Lott and David Mustard, found that after passing concealed carry laws, the rates of aggravated assault, rape, and murder, all dropped in the states that permit people to defend themselves.104

  Gun Control Works! (Not Really)

  Liberals frequently appeal to the gun restrictions of other nations such as England and Australia as examples of gun control that “works.” They often cite misleading data which suggests that after England and Australia enacted strict gun control, including Australia’s much praised mandatory buyback (confiscation) program, gun suicides and murders declined.

  There are two crucial elements missing in this misleading data; first, they typically ignore the fact that gun-related suicide and murder rates were already declining before the strict gun laws were passed; and second, they neglect to mention the fact that violent crime overall increased. Further, although the rates of gun suicides of course dropped, other methods became more common. After the gun restrictions were enacted, both England and Australia saw a rise in robbery, home invasions, assault, and rape. The two “go-to” nations for supporting gun control, the two nations that Liberal politicians constantly laud as bastions of gun-free peace, are not so coincidentally both bearers of the highest rates of violent crime in the world. Since enacting strict firearm control, the rate of firearm use in crimes has doubled in the UK.105 In both nations, home invasions, robbery, and rape have increased since their firearm bans.106 The data show that United States citizens are victimized at half the rate of both England and Australia. Despite the fact, or because of the fact, that there are not many guns in the UK or Australia, their citizens are far less safe than Americans.107

  It is not hard to understand why. Imagine that you take away everyone’s guns: criminals become more bold and less fearful, while law-abiding citizens are now defenseless. Perhaps if the Swedish people were allowed to carry guns they would not suffer the highest rates of rape on the planet. Perhaps if every woman were allowed to carry a gun, rapes and domestic abuse generally would plummet.

  These are talking points the Left refuses to acknowledge, for they are far too damaging to the Liberal narrative that guns, and not people, are the problem. It’s far too uncomfortable for a Liberal to face the fact that certain cultures and certain groups of people commit virtually zero crime, despite being heavily armed, while other groups commit an overwhelming amount of violent crime, armed or not.

  But these facts fall beyond the pale. And by ignoring them, the Left is putting us all in danger. By trying to solve the crime problem by banning guns, they will do nothing but raise crime and cause more unnecessary violence against innocent people. The data from Europe and Australia prove this beyond any doubt. The suicide figures from the rest of the world again prove beyond any doubt that banning guns will not save more lives. All it will do is cause suicidal people to find other lethal methods, and embolden criminals to rape, plunder, and pillage more than they already do.

  Switzerland drives the final nail into the proverbial coffin of the European gun-free utopia. Switzerland boasts one of the lowest rates of homicide in the world, a rate of 0.5 per 100,000 people — and the Swiss have the some of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, with an estimated 50 percent of all Swiss citizens owning firearms. Switzerland has lower crime rates than England, Australia, and the United States, while having higher gun ownership rates.108

  In an effort to reduce gun homicides and gun suicides, Liberals have not only overseen skyrocketing rates of violent crime and non-gun suicides, but also in vehicles used as weapons.

  2016 — Nice, France. 86 deaths. 458 injuries.

  2016 — Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. 13 injuries.

  2016 — Berlin, Germany. 12 deaths. 56 injuries.

  2017 — Westminster Bridge, United Kingdom. 6 deaths. 49 injuries.

  2017 — Stockholm, Sweden. 6 deaths (5 human, 1 canine.) 15 injuries.

  2017 — Paris, France. 6 injured.

  All of these mass murders and attempted mass murders were accomplished without the use of a single firearm.

  It’s almost as if some groups of people are violently attacking other, more peaceful groups of people; its almost as if they have been doing so for better than a thousand years. Meanwhile the Liberal media and politicians incessantly blame — the guns. In Sweden, the most popular newspaper, Aftonbladet, suggested banning cars in cities as a solution to the recent wave of automobiles used to kill.109 France, despite having incredibly strict gun laws, has nonetheless suffered the most violent incidents in Europe since the second World War, with nearly 500 casualties in November of 2015 alone. Liberals want to ban guns, ban cars, create gun-free and car-free zones, all the while r
efusing to address the actual issue, which the data makes painfully clear. The root cause of this violence does not fit their politically correct narrative. In the meantime, the rapes, murders, and vehicular homicides will continue apace.

  Former President Barack Obama, has claimed on at least a dozen occasions that mass shootings are something exclusive to the United States:

  “We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.”

  “At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.”

  “You don’t see murder on this kind of scale, with this kind of frequency, in any other advanced nation on Earth.”

  “I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings: this just doesn’t happen in other countries.”110

  Thankfully, the Crime Prevention Research Center has released reports that set the record straight. Because Obama specifically mentioned advanced nations, the Crime Prevention Research Center compared the United States mass shootings to twenty-eight countries in the European Union and Canada. They found that in frequency of shootings per one million people, the United States ranked twelfth in the list, behind the likes of France, Austria, and Norway. In terms of the death rate from mass shootings, the U.S. ranked eleventh.111

  During the November 2015 Paris attacks, there were 498 casualties from shootings in one day. This means that there were nearly as many casualties in one day in France than there were in the United States during Obama’s entire eight-year term presidency. Mass shootings not only happen in other advanced nations, but they tend to be even worse.112

  Irrational Fear