Using deeply misleading rhetoric, Obama wasted no time in exploiting the tragic Oregon terrorist attack on Christian students, disarmed in yet another infamous “gun-free zone,” to push for even more unconstitutional restrictions on the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. In a speech that was regurgitated by establishment media outlets across America, Obama claimed that the United States was “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.” In the real world, if population size is taken into account, America is not even close to the top when considering the number of fatalities in mass shootings per capita — with multiple nations having ultra-strict gun control ranking far higher than the United States. Indeed, even among the three-dozen advanced OECD countries, America does not even rank in the top five, official data show.
As has become typical, though, Obama did not even wait for the blood of the massacred victims to dry before shamelessly politicizing and exploiting the tragedy. In a 12-minute speech delivered less than six hours after the slaughter, Obama, mentioning himself more than two dozen times, said the American people’s thoughts and prayers “are not enough.” “It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel,” he said. “And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America — next week, or a couple of months from now.” Meanwhile, Second Amendment activists have been making a far-more sensible argument, lambasting “gun-free zones” as magnets for mass-murderers that politicians cling to despite the well-documented deadly effects of disarming potential victims.
“We don’t yet know why this individual did what he did,” Obama said, though he would have known that the murderer was motivated by anti-Christian hatred if he had waited for the facts before pitching more attacks on the rights of Americans. “And it’s fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds, regardless of what they think their motivations may be. But we are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people. We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.” Perhaps still reeling from being called out about his last false statement on the subject, Obama appears to have added an additional caveat (“every few months”), but the claim was still extremely misleading.
After a National Socialist murdered nine Christians at a church in South Carolina, Obama used even bolder falsehoods to push his narrative. “But let’s be clear: At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries,” he claimed, falsely, at the time. Of course, that was not just false — it was blatantly false. The statement came just months after mass-shootings in Paris massacred some 20 people with illegal AK-47s purchased easily on the black market. All of the victims were disarmed and defenseless thanks to strict French gun control. It also followed a massacre in Norway, another “advanced” nation with ultra-draconian infringements on the right to keep and bear arms, that left more than 70 children dead.
In fact, a brief look at the official data reveals that Obama’s careful use of language was deliberately calculated to deceive gullible citizens. According to the Rampage Shooting Index, which used OECD data from 2009 to 2013, the United States was not even in the top five when it comes to rampage shooting fatalities per capita, or in fatal rampage shootings per capita. All five of the top nations’ gun laws were classified as “restrictive,” while the United States was classified as permissive. In first place, by a huge margin, was Norway, which places extreme restrictions on firearms, at 15.3 fatalities per million citizens and 0.2 fatal shooting rampages per million citizens. By contrast, the United States, which was in sixth place out of three dozen nations, featured 0.72 fatalities per million citizens and 0.12 fatal shooting rampages per million citizens.
In second place on the index was Finland, followed by Slovakia, and then Israel — all three of which impose ultra-strict gun control. Indeed, if Europe is taken as a whole, and if non-firearms related mass-killings are taken into account, Americans are far safer from mass-murderers than Europeans. One key difference, though, is that Americans can generally defend themselves with guns if needed, while Europeans have largely been disarmed and left defenseless by their rulers. And if mass shootings in the United States committed in so-called gun-free zones were excluded from the total, America would have virtually none, making it among the safest places in the world. Even the United Kingdom, which bans gun ownership and was touted in Obama’s latest speech, has mass-shootings, with one a few years ago claiming a dozen lives.
When compared with other nations that essentially ban private ownership of firearms, America is in fact an oasis of safety. Consider Honduras, for example, which has around 90 intentional homicides per 100,000 people annually, along with some of the strictest gun control on the planet. In Venezuela, where the United Nations helped the socialist regime disarm law-abiding citizens, there are more than 50 murders per 100,000 people. The United States, by contrast, has less than five per 100,000. Even Mexico, relatively advanced despite a near-total gun ban, has a murder rate that is around 500 percent higher than that of America. Similar trends can be observed around the world, and within the United States itself. Notably absent from Obama’s anti-Second Amendment ramblings, for instance, was any mention of the fact that murder rates in the United States have been plunging like a rock as guns in public continue to proliferate — with the most pro-gun states leading the way.
Obama, though, who famously ridiculed and demonized Christians for bitterly clinging to their guns and religion, appears to be uninterested in facts. Indeed, despite having to brazenly twist the truth to launch attacks on the constitutionally protected rights he swore to uphold, Obama vowed to keep hammering away until Americans agree to surrender their liberties. “And each time this happens I’m going to bring this up,” he pledged after proudly boasting that he was politicizing a tragedy. “Each time this happens I am going to say that we can actually do something about it, but we’re going to have to change our laws.” It was not immediately clear how Obama thought changing laws would prevent somebody willing to violate laws against murder from violating gun-control schemes.
But he vowed to keep politicizing tragedies until Americans submit to his agenda anyway. “And, of course, what’s also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue,” he said in the speech. “Well, this is something we should politicize.” He also asked Americans to lobby in favor of more infringements on their own individual rights, calling for a “change of politics on this issue.” Congress, governors, and state legislatures should all jump on-board his anti-gun rights bandwagon, too, Obama insisted. In a stunning display of audacity, Obama even called on God to give Americans the “strength” and “courage” to accept “change” — specifically, more unconstitutional violations of their God-given rights.
Responding to Obama’s shameless exploitation of massacred Christians to push assaults on gun rights, though, the non-profit Gun Owners of America instead demanded an end to existing infringements on the right to keep and bear arms that demonstrably contribute to mass shootings. “This is a very tragic day, and all Americans are mourning with the residents of Oregon,” said GOA Director of Communications Erich Pratt in a statement. “But we find it offensive to hear the White House use a tragedy like this, and instantly turn it into a political opportunity. The President spoke to the nation today, saying it’s proper for him to politicize this tragedy. He called for more ‘common sense’ gun control, which is insane, given that the criminally-minded don’t obey the law.”
Pointing to Obama’s listing of previous massacres in his latest speech — all of which occurred in “gun-free zones,” or victim-disarmament zones, as critics call them — Pratt said enough was enough. “Mr. President, you just identified the problem,” he explained. “Every public mass shooting since 1950, except for two, has occurred in a Gun Free Zone. This shooting is no different. And that is why GOA agrees with the 86% of police who say that these types of incidents would be prevented if the potential victims were not disarmed.” Pratt said that, apparently, policymakers have not learned the lesson from a 2012 mass shooting in Oregon during which a gun owner put a stop to the rampage by violating a no-gun policy. “Let’s repeal Gun Free Zones,” Pratt concluded.
Ironically, perhaps, Obama’s constant exploitation of tragedy and his predictable attacks on the Second Amendment appear to be having the opposite effect in the public consciousness. Consider a recent Rasmussen poll revealing that just one third of Americans even support any federal gun-control to begin with, a drastic decline from late last year. Support for gun rights, the number of guns, and opposition to gun control are soaring all across America and across all demographics. As more and more victims are massacred in areas where those victims have been forcibly left defenseless by politicians, whether it be in Europe or in domestic “gun-free zones,” those trends are likely to accelerate — regardless of Obama’s deceptive deception on the issue.
Photo of President Obama: AP Images
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at [email protected].
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