I kept an eye on the story over the weekend, and in particular, I watched with interest the propaganda campaign kick into gear to describe the event as “gun violence.”
I hate that term, not because the violent acts don’t involve firearms. But it is as useful a description as the Brits’ “knife violence,” or describing both as “hand violence.” It’s stupid and intentionally deceptive.
I don’t want to get into yet another stupid fight about gun control. When any liberal starts mouthing off about how we need to control guns, I don’t even bother to argue most of the time anymore. I simply ask them, “How?” There are more guns than people in the United States, and trillions of rounds of ammunition. Even if you wanted to do it, explain how. Until you can, keep quiet and let rational people discuss how to deal with violence of any kind, the best we can.
And as soon as you think about it, the reason why we have “mass shootings” of the most common kind (not the random crazy people, although often in their cases as well) is clear: liberals won’t let us incarcerate known criminals. Because almost every “mass shooting” in those statistics liberals keep pointing to in their statistics is gang violence.
As soon as news started breaking about the violence in Stockton at a kid’s birthday party, the left went into high gear blaming the availability of guns. My first thought was different: what do you want to bet that the perpetrators were known to the police, and the intended victims as well?
I was right, of course. It was a gang shooting, and the whole reason why these poor children are dead or wounded is that everybody around them is a degenerate, violent criminal who is known to the police.
Whether convicted or not, they are all criminals, have likely been through the criminal justice system (or should have been if anybody cared to enforce the law and incarcerate them), and all of this courld have been prevented if the lawmakers, activists, police, and especially the prosecutors and judges did their job instead of cultivating a culture of violence and impunity.
Almost every perpetrator of horrific crimes is a “known wolf.” Most of the violent crime in our society is committed by a very small group of easily identified criminals, and most of them have had many interactions with law enforcement over the years. A lot of these people have active social media accounts where they brag about their exploits, and most of them know that they can commit crimes with impunity because they know the system will let them off.
Most of the time, that isn’t true if they get caught committing murder, unless they are juveniles, which is why gangs recruit juveniles to commit those crimes.
Violent crime in U.S. cities is not evenly spread. Not culturally. Not geographically. Not mathematically.
It’s concentrated – absurdly concentrated – in fractions of fractions of the population.
This isn’t ideology.
It’s decades of DOJ, PD, and academic data all pointing at the same tiny cluster:
• ~0.5% of residents linked to 50–70% of shootings
• Most homicide suspects have 8–12+ prior arrests
• Victims usually know their attackers
• Violence clusters block-to-block, not citywide
You are not going to solve the “violence” problem solely by focusing on the known wolves. But you will solve most of it, including the violence that threatens society. There will still be domestic violence, people who snap, and all the usual ills that have plagued mankind since we emerged from the primordial ooze, but we can pretty easily prevent shootings like this if we choose to.
We don’t have to go to El Salvador’s levels of repression of gang members to get things back under control, because we don’t have El Salvador’s levels of violence yet. We already have the tools, consistent with our Constitution, to dramatically change the dynamic. For the most part, we know who is doing these crimes, have had them in custody many times, and have let them back out into the streets. They often provide the evidence against themselves by advertising their impunity.
NEW: Stockton, CA, vice mayor reminds residents that it’s “never been gangster” to kill kids after three children were killed at a birthday party.
Officials now say the incident at a family gathering was due to “group gang violence.”
Three children and one adult were killed. Eleven others were injured.
The victims were ages 8, 9, 14, and 21.
“It’s never been gangster to kill kids, never,” said Stockton Vice Mayor Jason Lee to residents.
Actually, yes, it is “gangster” to kill kids. Quit gaslighting us.
We have to quit making excuses for the criminals. We have to quit being squeamish about race. We have to crush the culture of impunity.
Crime will still exist, but Chicago-style crime will not. The biggest barrier to curbing gang violence is the very liberals who complain about “gun violence.”
Welsh policeman Ernest Rollings was one of millions of men who enlisted for active duty in #WorldWarI
El Salvador: Gang members drop into CECOT megaprison 2024 gang homicides: Stockton, CA → 54 El Salvador → 0 One country coddles criminals. The other ended them. Choose your policy.
