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.

So much for the claim that guns have changed so much in modern times -- first machine gun in 1718, eight shot revolver in 1597

This revolver is from 1597.



The Puckle gun was the first machine gun, patented in 1718.  one of the earliest weapons to be referred to as a "machine gun."  The gun could hold 11 shots in its cylinder.  It was able to fire 63 shots in 7 minutes, a rate of 9 per minute.  That compared favorably to the normal rate for muskets of 2 to 3 per minute.

What should people do when the police can't be there to protect them?: With grand jury decision due soon in Ferguson, gun sales surge

From CNN:

Lately, Dan McMullen has been bringing an extra gun to his office in Ferguson, Missouri. 

McMullen runs Solo Insurance on West Florissant close to where looting and vandalism briefly broke out in early August after a police officer shot to death teenager Michael Brown. 

"I bring an extra gun now only because it has a bigger magazine," McMullen says. He began carrying it after tensions increased in the area following the shooting. He says he would never use it to protect his business, but he would use it to save his life. 

"So maybe I get trapped here or something and have to have a John Wayne shootout," McMullen says before interrupting himself, smiling. "That's the silly part about it: Is that going to happen? Not a chance. But I guess, could it? I'm the only white person here." 

McMullen is particularly cautious now, as all of Ferguson and much of the nation waits to see whether a grand jury will indict Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting. Though the grand jury has until January to issue its ruling, the prosecutor's office has said a decision could come in mid-November. . . .

Canadian mail order guns from 1902 to 1975

The first ad is from 1902 and the second from 1975.  The ads are available here for many other years.  Mail order guns in Canada were available up until 1979.

A history of Canadian gun control is available here (1945-1977) and here (1867-1945).

Why Bob Costas' wager for his gun critics is unfair

From Politico:

“Here’s what I would say to anybody who any time they hear the word guns automatically goes off, like, ‘Oh, they’re going to repeal the Second Amendment,’” Costas said. “Let’s make a bet, you and me. Let’s say over the next five years we’ll do a Google search. We’ll have an independent party monitor it. You keep track of how many good and constructive things are associated with athletes having a gun, and I’ll keep track of all the tragedies and criminality and folly. And let’s see who comes out ahead or behind as the case may be.” . . .

The problem here is a simple one.  It would be a fair bet if all the defensive gun uses got media attention, but athletes have little incentive to report every time that they use a gun defensively.  We know that people generally don't get news coverage for their defensive gun uses, and given how the leagues feel about athletes possessing guns, athletes have very little incentive to report these cases.

The problem might be that Costas actually believes that he will get an accurate representation of the rate of defensive guns uses from the media coverage.  If you want a good idea of how the media only tends to cover bad news from guns and not their benefits, see this discussion here.

An additional problem arises if Costas is willing to concede that the possibility that athletes have guns serves as a deterrent for criminals.  Put it this way: Would Costas be willing to put up a "Gun-free zone" sign on his home?  He might feel that he can hire enough security protections that he doesn't need it, but I suspect that he still wouldn't put up such a sign.  If so, even he must acknowledge that simply counting newspaper stories, even if they accurately recorded all events, would still not provide an accurate reflection of the benefits of gun ownership.

More evidence of the "Obama effect" on gun sales

Please click on figure to make it larger (original here).

Note how gun sales spiked in November 2008, but they were down in November 2009, though still higher than previous Novembers.  The same spike occurred again in November 2012, and again the November a year later shows the same pattern -- lower than November 2012, but still higher than all the previous Novembers.  

The pattern seems clear: Obama wins election and there is a very large temporary increase in gun sales.  Gun sales remain high a year later, but down from what they were right when Obama was elected.

Another shotgun giveaway program

From Fox News:

A gun group is offering free shotguns to residents in a central Florida neighborhood. 

Member of the Armed Citizen Project say arming residents is a way to stop crime in the area. They've recently been handing out fliers in the Sunshine Gardens neighborhood near Orlando. 

WESH-TV reports Florida program director Ron Ritter says his group hopes to work with gun manufacturers and dealers to provide free or discounted guns to homeowners. He says the effort is "perfectly legal." . . .

Louisiana State Rep. Jeff Thompson Says He’ll Dump Starbucks For Only ‘Gun-Friendly’ Coffee Shops

As I have noted previously, I think that the Starbucks issue is more noise than any actual change in policy, so if it were me, I would just let the whole thing slide.  But some don't see it that way.  From Fox News:

Now that Starbucks is dissuading customers from coming in with weapons, Louisiana State Rep. Jeff Thompson says he will drink java only in “gun-friendly” shops. 

Thompson’s call, made Friday on the Defend Louisiana website, is in response to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz asking customers to not “bring fire arms” into Starbucks coffee shops. Defend Louisiana is a campaign Thompson founded in opposition to new gun laws. . . . .

"15 Of The Craziest Disguised Guns Ever Made"

100 years ago in England just about everything that could be made into a gun was done so.  It is hard to believe that there were so incredibly few gun murders in the country at the time.  In 1900, in London, when there were no gun laws and guns took all sorts of disguises, there were two gun murders and five armed robberies.  In any case, here is a link to some pictures of guns that have been disguised as different things.  

The picture above reminded me of what some of the guns were once like in England.  While I think political correctness has infected some of the discussion, in particular ignoring that these guns were overwhelmingly owned by non-criminals (as the crime statistics for London discussed above implied), you can see this from the Black Museum in London:

We start at the gun drawer. As well as the rifles and replicas, it’s full of walking sticks, umbrellas, flick knives and other random bits of metal.  The Curator asks me to guess which are guns, pauses for a heartbeat, before stabbing with his finger: shotgun, shotgun, pistol, shotgun, pistol. The walking stick and umbrella are guns. Even the flick knife is a gun. All have been used on London streets. He demonstrates how quickly and easily they convert, where the barrels and triggers are, and shuts the drawer. The Curator is enjoying himself now, less begrudging by the minute. He picks up a sword and hands it to me. As I reach for it, he pulls off the hilt, which is a short, detachable blade, and makes to gut me with it. The Curator explains: a man attacked some people in a pub with the sword, pretended to hand it over when the police arrived, only to whip out the stabbing blade as the officer exposed his body. . . .

Handing out free shotguns in poor areas of Tucson, Az

Why are Democrats so upset about people donating guns to poor people in high crime neighborhoods so that they are better able to protect themselves and their families?  Why is it that Democrats bother claiming that they support the Second Amendment and people's right to defend themselves when they have these types of reactions?  A similar program to the one in Tucson was set up recently in Houston.  From Fox News:

A former mayoral candidate in Tucson, Ariz., is drawing heated criticism from Democrats after he launched a program this week to hand out free shotguns in high-crime neighborhoods.  

Shaun McClusky, who kicked off the program Monday, financed it with initial donor commitments of $12,000. He told FoxNews.com that with those private donations alone, he can arm and train 36 people -- and hopes to begin that process in 60 days.  

McClusky said he's already received more than a dozen responses from residents, "none of them negative, all of them positive." . . . 

Helping people in high crime areas defend themselves: The Armed Citizen Project

Houston weather, traffic, news | FOX 26 | MyFoxHouston

This is an interesting project located in Houston, Texas:

The Armed Citizen Project is dedicated to facilitating the armingof law abiding citizens, and analyzing the relationship between increased firearm availability and crime rates. We will choose a mid-high crime neighborhood in Houston, and offer defensiveweapons to citizens that can pass a background check, and that will take our safety, legal, andtactical training. . . . 

From Fox News Houston:

A University of Houston graduate student is doing an unusual study. He's going to give away 20-gauge single-shot shotguns in high-crime neighborhoods to see if it reduces crime."We're not just tossing a bunch of shotguns into a community and walking away," says Kyle Coplen. "What we're doing is finding residents who are interested in protecting themselves. we're not forcing guns on anyone."

From CBS:

A University of Houston graduate student says he’s conducting a study to hopefully answer the question being asked across the country, “Do more guns reduce crime or not?” 

Kyle Coplen, who founded the Armed Citizens Project, is giving away 20-gauge single-shot shotguns to residents in mid- and high-crime neighborhoods to test whether or not the weapon will help reduce crime in the area, according to the group’s website. Coplen says the weapons are not of much value to criminals, but are especially useful for citizens looking to protect themselves from criminals. . . .

Thanks to Kyle Coplen for contacting me earlier today. 

What might be interesting is a picture that showed the ratio of news coverage to deaths

From US News available here.

Excellent piece on Israel's gun ownership rate

So what is the secret why terrorists are successfully attacking Israel's schools? "Why Israel Has No Newtowns: It’s the Jewish state’s gun culture, not its laws, that prevents mass shootings like the one in Connecticut"

Dan Ingberman sent me this link.

"Buy an Engagement Ring, Get a Free Shotgun" produces a "1,000%" increase in sales

For some reason the video links aren't always working when I paste them in so you can also see the original video here.

"Moms packing heat"

A video is available at the KHOU website here.

Some women do it for recreation and others do it for safety, but when it comes to learning, they do it together.

Nearly 47 percent more women are shooting today than a decade ago. Former special agent Tina Wilson has made it her mission to teach women about safety.
“At any time, at anyplace, violence can happen to us,” Wilson said.

She founded “She Can Shoot.” It is a four-hour firearms course that costs $55. Women walk away with a certificate of completion and knowledge of how to shoot safely.
“It takes away the intimidating factor of going into an all-male or male-dominated environment,” Wilson said. . . . .

Accidental firearm deaths for those under age 15 rise back up in 2010

CDC data show number of accidental firearm deaths for children under age 15 has gone back up to 62, a number that it was at in 2008.  The 48 accidental deaths in 2009 was unusually low.  A similar pattern also held for total accidental gun deaths for all ages: 2008, 592; 2009, 554; and 2010, 606.

However, over the longer term, the pattern for accidental gun deaths is similar to other accidental deaths in that is as long as we have data you see a gradual decline, though in recent years the decline in accidental firearm deaths has slowed.

Brad Pitt speaks out forcefully on gun ownership

Brad Pitt simply knows too much about guns.  People who rely only on the media for their information on guns are likely to be the most fearful.  From the San Francisco Chronicle:

. . . Pitt tells British magazine Live, “I absolutely don’t believe you can put sanctions or shackles on what is made. Nor do I want to pretend the world is different than what we witnessed that night… 

“America is a country founded on guns. It’s in our DNA. It’s very strange but I feel better having a gun. I really do. I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel the house is completely safe, if I don’t have one hidden somewhere. That’s my thinking, right or wrong. 

“I got my first BB (air) gun when I was in nursery school. I got my first shotgun by first grade. I had shot a handgun by third grade and I grew up in a pretty sane environment. I was in the U.K. when the shootings happened and I did hear the discussion about gun control start again, and as far as I know it petered out as it always does. 

“It’s just something with us. To turn around and ask us to give up our guns… I don’t know, we’re too afraid that we’re going to give up ours and the bad guys are still going to get theirs. It’s just in our thinking. I’m telling you, we don’t know America without guns.”

More on gun sales surging

Seems like a pretty rational fear to me.  From CNBC:

What’s driving the demand that has gun makers cranking up production?Speculation has focused on fears of a coming regulatory crackdown on gun ownership. Liberal administrations tend to be anti-gun and so, the thinking goes, an Obama re-election would set the stage for stricter gun purchasing requirements. Hence, people are buying now in anticipation of difficulty later. . . .

Public school demands that boy's name be changed because it claims that sign language for name violates their anti-gun policy

From Grand Island, Nebraska:

Three-and-a-half  year old Hunter Spanjer, who is deaf, signs his name by crossing his forefinger and index finger and moving his hand up and down.
To his family, friends and those who know the Signing Exact English (S.E.E.) language that the Grand Island, Neb., boy uses, that gesture uniquely means "Hunter Spanjer."
But to Hunter's school district, it might mean something else. The district claims that it violates a rule that forbids anything in the school that looks like a weapon, reports KOLN-TV.
And Hunter's parents claim that Grand Island Public Schools administrators have asked them to change their son's sign language name.
"Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous," Hunter's grandmother Janet Logue told the TV station. "This is not threatening in any way."
Hunter's father Brian Spanjer said, "It's a symbol. It's an actual sign, a registered sign, through S.E.E." . . .

Gun sales in Colorado dramatically jump after Movie Theater attack

From the Denver Post:

Background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado jumped more than 41 percent after Friday morning's shooting at an Aurora movie theater, and firearms instructors say they're also seeing increased interest in the training required for a concealed-carry permit. "It's been insane," Jake Meyers, an employee at Rocky Mountain Guns and Ammo in Parker, said Monday. When he arrived at work Friday morning — just hours after a gunman killed 12 and injured 58 others at the Century Aurora 16 theater — there already were 15 to 20 people waiting outside the store, Meyers said. He called Monday "probably the busiest Monday all year" and said the basic firearms classes that he and the store's owner teach are booked solid for the next three weeks, something that hadn't happened all year. . . .

Gun sales also apparently rise in other places.

Gun sales across the state are spiking in the wake of the Aurora movie massacre, and Florida is on its way to becoming the first in the nation to reach one million concealed weapons permits. . . .
State numbers also increased. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, there were 2,386 concealed weapons background checks run on the Friday after the shootings, up 14 percent from the week before. . . .
Florida tops the nation with an estimated 950,000 active concealed weapons permits, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Between 10,000 and 12,000 permits are issued in Florida each month, and the state is on its way to becoming the first in the nation to reach one million active permits. . . . 

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