Monday, December 07, 2015

Epidemic of Induced Hysteria


News of mass murders and terrorist attacks seems to fill the headlines these days.  And of course the self-righteous politically correct candidates for public office who surround themselves with 24 hour a day security teams use the news to further their agenda of disarming the American people.  After the latest incident in San Bernardino, Hillary says, "I refuse to accept this as normal.  We must take action to stop gun violence now."  Bernie Sanders says, "Mass shootings are becoming an everyday occurrence.  We must take action to stop gun violence now."  Obviously the second sentence from each is one of the scripted Democratic Party talking points produced every day.

Barack pontificated, "We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world (actually not true - see #1 below), and there's some steps we could take to improve the odds that they don't happen as frequently, such as common-sense gun safety laws, stronger background checks."  As usual, ownership of guns is blamed.

But perhaps a little perspective is in order.  The number of murders annually in America climbed from an average of 10,618 during the 1960's to an average of 21,166 in the 1990's.  Over the last 15 years the average number of murders per year is 15,729 - the highest number 17,030 in 2006 and the lowest 14,249 in 2014.  That is a substantial drop in murders since the 1990's.  The highest number of murders any one year was 24,700 in 1991.  The number of murders last year has dropped over 42% in the last 24 years (see #2).

Of course over the last 55 years the American population has grown from just over 179 million in 1960 to nearly 319 million in 2014.  Consequently the number of murders per 100,000 Americans has dropped significantly during that period.  The peak decade for murders was the 1970's, with an average of 9.06 murders per 100,000 people.  That has declined to 4.83 in the current decade.  The Democrats vigorous campaign against the epidemic of gun related deaths in America appears to be considerably misinformed.

Interestingly, the decline in murders and murder rates corresponds with the increase in the incarceration rate in America.  An average of around 230 per 100,000 was the rate of people in jail or prison from 1925 through 1975.  That grew to 270 per 100,000 people in 1980 and then skyrocketed to 990 per 100,000 in 2010 (see #3).  I would bet money that the murder rate decline and the incarceration rate increase are not unrelated.

But today terrorism and mass murders, defined by the FBI as murdering four or more people during one event, are a serious threat to Americans, and they are on the rise.  Why is that?  Could it be that the Obama administration is ignoring the source of terrorism and limiting the ability of law enforcement authorities to prevent these crimes?

You can't tie the hands of law enforcement, from the local police to the FBI and CIA, and expect criminal and terrorist activity to go away.  What do liberals expect to happen when they arrest and prosecute police officers for doing their jobs while encouraging civil disobedience in response to often justified handling of dangerous situations, championing rehabilitation and early parole rather than incarceration for violent criminals, and not providing the much needed treatment and institutionalization for the seriously mentally ill.

You cannot continue to ignore the source of terrorism and expect the terrorists to stop committing their atrocities.   Profiling and investigating Muslim's is perhaps not politically correct, but it is required if the nation is serious about protecting itself from terrorism.  In the PC world of today, apparently many think it is more important to not offend anyone than save American lives.

Is it any coincidence that the incidents of violence and terrorism have skyrocketed in America during the 7 years of the hate promoting presidency of Barack Obama?  I think not.  Particularly when this president continues to ignore the reality of terrorism while polarizing the country by creating an imagined war on women, an imagined war on minorities, an imagined war on LGBT's, and an imagined war on the global climate.  Instead he conducts a real war on law enforcement, free speech, private enterprise, small business, the energy industry, fixed income investors, and traditional American principles and values.

Besides, the horse is out of the barn regarding gun ownership in the US.  There are nearly 300 million guns in circulation.  Banning gun shows and requiring people to buy or sell through a licensed dealer is not a bad idea.  But requiring individual gun owners to have permits or a license will solve nothing.  Just like a driver's license, any moron can get one.  And automobiles have become weapons of mass destruction too, particularly when a driver is talking or texting on a cellphone.  It certainly wouldn't be a big surprise to find out that many of the people bitching about guns are the same ones who constantly chat away on cellphones while driving an automobile.

Liberals want to believe in ideological fantasy rather than rely on common sense to deal with reality.  The reality is that there is no epidemic in gun related murders in America.  At this point perhaps it would be a better idea to encourage gun ownership to allow people to defend themselves, their families, and associates from terrorists and the mentally deranged than to try to take guns away from the people who own them.  Apparently the one thing that all mass murder victims have in common is that none of them were carrying a firearm to protect themselves.

1.  http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/12/03/facts-shoot-holes-in-obamas-claim-that-us-is-only-host-to-mass-killings.html

2.  http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

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