Author: Laura Carno

President Biden, in his widely-televised June 2^nd speech on gun control, made the following statement.

“And in the 10 years it [the 1994 “assault weapons” ban] was law, mass shootings went down.  But after Republicans let the law expire in 2004 and those weapons were allowed to be sold again, mass shootings tripled.  Those are the facts.”

Is this true? Did “mass shootings” triple after the ban expired? No, this is not true.

“The new mass-shooting database shows that there were 31 mass shootings in the decade before the 1994 law, 31 in the 10 years the law was in force (Sept. 13, 1994 to Sept. 12, 2004) and 47 in the 10 years after it expired. As noted, some of that increase stems from population growth.”

One thing that may have changed after the expiration of the ban is the definition of “mass shooting,” and, moreover, how this term is leveraged by the media to promote the democrat gun control agenda. 

“According to NPR, as of May 15 there had already been 213 mass shootings in the United States. In fact, The Washington Post reported that there were at least 12 mass shootings over Memorial Day weekend alone. Does that seem like more mass shootings than you’ve heard all over the news this year? If so, it’s probably because the definition of a such instances differs among groups.”

President Joe Biden did not tell the truth when he said “mass shootings” tripled after the expiration of the 1994 “assault weapon” ban. Additionally, American media is largely in the democrat, and anti-gun camp. 

Also note that there is no legal definition of the often-used term “assault weapon” or “assault rifle.” That is the reason it appears in quotation marks. Can we trust anything we are told regarding “assault-weapons” and “mass shootings”?

The fallout and post-incident analysis has begun in the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas on May 24^th, and some familiar patters are emerging. 

It has been learned the shooter had threatened violence in the past via social media, and, reportedly, also had a history of being abusive to animals.

“[The shooter] could be cryptic, demeaning and scary, sending angry messages and photos of guns. If they [his female social media audience] didn’t respond how he wanted, he sometimes threatened to rape or kidnap them — then laughed it off as some big joke.”

This troubled behavior has been seen before on many, many occasions, including the 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, in addition to many other such attacks. 

“In the days leading up to the deadliest school shooting of 2021 in the U.S., 15-year-old [name redacted] made a series of disturbing comments and messages  — both online and in a drawing. He had been caught at school searching online for bullets. The drawing on his desk, discovered by one of his teachers, depicted a gun pointing at the words ‘The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.’”

In both these, and many other school shootings, the perpetrators tend to display violent and erratic behavior prior to the event. And time and time again, we see a failure of adults and authorities to intervene. 

You would think that creating strategies to prioritize mental health of young people would be a high priority for elected representatives. Instead, democrats are using this shooting, as they’ve done so often in the past, to attack law abiding gun owners, the National Rifle Association, and also demonize republicans. 

“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also was quick to blame Republicans. There is no such thing as being ‘pro-life’ while supporting laws that let children be shot in their schools, elders in grocery stores, worshippers in their houses of faith, survivors by abusers, or anyone in a crowded place,” she wrote on Twitter. “It is an idolatry of violence. And it must end.”

To my knowledge, politicians using the murder of innocent children to advance a long-standing political agenda of gun restrictions has never worked to prevent future murders. I believe if we truly want to prevent these horrific acts from occurring again, different approaches are needed. Taking violent threats seriously, and intervening early on, would be a good start.