Tag: violence

4 Reasons Gun Control Can’t Solve America’s Violence Problem

The gun-control paradigm—the idea that the solution to American violence is more laws restricting guns—is unhelpful.

Gun control doesn’t work. Indeed, any statistical connection between gun policy and violence is tenuous. But even if gun control was effective, it would still be flawed.

Gun control burdens the free exercise of the constitutionally-protected Second Amendment right to bear arms, so it’s subject to compelling legal challenges and is flatly rejected by many Americans. In addition, the enforcement of stringent gun control invariably inflicts heavy burdens upon other civil liberties—especially in poorer communities and among marginalized populations.

Gun control’s coexistence with the values of a free society is, at best, an uneasy one. But it’s even less viable in the particular context of the United States. Consider the 400 million guns already in private circulation, plus the totally irreversible and ever-increasing ease of the self-manufacturing of firearms. No matter what laws are passed, widespread distribution and access to firearms are (and will remain) immutable facts of American life—especially for people who are willing to break laws.

In this context, it’s evident that gun control cannot solve the problem of violence in this country. The following four observations about American violence suggest some promising alternative paradigms.

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If The Answer To Every Question Is ‘White Supremacy,’ Someone Is Lying To You

According to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2018, there were 182,230 attacks against Asian people. Every race except for Asians was most likely to be victimized by someone of their own race. Asians, however, were most likely to be victimized by a black person. 27.5% of attacks against Asian people were committed by black people, compared to 24.1% by white people and 24.1% by Asian people. Just 7.0% of these attacks were committed by Hispanic people.

Representing 13.4% of the U.S. population, black people are vastly overrepresented among perpetrators of violent acts against Asian Americans, making the “blame white supremacy” line ever more challenging for the opportunistic Left.

What makes matters “worse” for the Left is that several attacks against Asian Americans have been shared widely on social media, further contradicting their claim that anti-Asian violence is unique to white Americans. For example, security cameras recorded an attack committed in New York, in which a 65-year-old Asian woman was brutally beaten in the street, reportedly by the later-identified and arrested Brandon Elliot. Elliot is black.

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U.S. murder rates increased by 30% in 2020

The U.S. murder rates were up dramatically in 2020 by numbers the country has not seen in decades.

“Homicides rose sharply in 2020, and rates of aggravated assaults and gun assaults increased as well. Homicide rates were 30% higher than in 2019, an historic increase representing 1,268 more deaths in the sample of 34 cities than the year before,” said a study conducted by philanthropy group Arnold Ventures and the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice.

The study also found that aggravated assault was up 6%, gun assaults were up 8%, and motor vehicle theft was up 13%. However, there was a decline in robberies by 9%, residential burglary was down 24%, and drug offenses were down 30%.

The study said that “urgent action is necessary.”

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