By Dr. Miguel Faria
The mainstream media (MSM) have been sensationalizing mass shootings for the last three decades, reaching a crescendo in the last several months. They sensationalized gun violence as a way to put pressure on and force Congress to pass unconstitutional gun control laws that disarm the law-abiding citizen while doing nothing to stop criminals.
These laws range from attempting to ban assault weapons to passing so-called Red Flag laws — all of which, as written, circumvent the Second Amendment or violate the Due Process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. In countering the gun control propaganda and discussing mass shootings, two points that are never cited by the MSM need to be brought forth and emphasized.
First, there is the fact that these deranged madmen perpetrating mass shootings must be taken down from the zenith of celebrity status at which the MSM has placed them and instead sink them into the nadir of the cesspool where they belong.
“But how can we do this without describing the perpetrators?” whine the MSM. These deranged malcontents and criminals should not be celebrated with the epithet of a “heavily armed gunman with ‘assault weapons’ and clad in full military gear…” These are jingoistic appellations the criminals apparently enjoy in seeking celebrity status even in death.
Instead, the media should use the appellation, “malcontented monsters, who maim and kill defenseless and hapless victims, including women and children.” And when appropriate to such despicable description, it should be added, “the deranged madman cowardly shot himself when confronted by an armed citizen” (which has happened on several occasions), or “… was shot to death in a well-deserved hail of bullets by the valiant police.” Those are the proper epithets that should be used in describing these sanguinary freaks who perpetrate rampage shooting incidents.
The police or armed citizens who stop these deranged madmen should be described as the true heroes they are. It is they who should be celebrated and not the criminal perpetrators. The constitutional or concealed carry options and the beneficial use of weapons by law-abiding citizens should be encouraged rather than demonized!
The second issue that should be brought forth is the propagandizing and misuse of the victim body count. This is a favored sensationalizing tool that the MSM — supported by the gun-grabbers — use continuously in their specious gun control arguments.
Daily we are inundated with the “mounting” body count of mass shooting incidents and the number of victims killed in common crimes. Just last week a headline blared, “Gun violence in 2019: There have been 251 mass shootings in the U.S. in 216 days.”
A previous report published by PBS claimed that “more than one mass shooting happens per day in the US.” Not to be outdone, The Washington Post has claimed, “in 2015 alone, there had been 294 mass shootings that killed or injured 1,464 people.” In each headline, some new statistical landmark seems to be reached to propagandize the last shooting as the worse to date!
As we have seen, the MSM and their anti-gun activist allies have deceptively tried to label any incident with two or more casualties as a mass shooting. As I pointed out in my forthcoming book, America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey Into Politics and the Public Health & Gun Control Movements (2019), anti-gun public health officials have been torturing statistics until they confess, even attempting to lump murder-suicides as mass shootings.
In my book I describe in detail the concerted effort of the public health establishment (PHE) to push for gun control, claiming that gun violence is a public health problem, rather than a criminological issue. As far as the PHE is concerned, gun availability and gun violence have reached the level of an epidemic and guns must be eradicated. They ignore the fact that civilian gun ownership is a constitutional right and that self-defense is an inherent God-granted, natural right that precedes government.
Be that as it may, the number of mass shootings represents a very small percentage of homicides, fewer than one percent. Moreover, the body count is misleading in discussing gun violence on a rational basis. That is, unless both sides of the gun violence debate enter the equation.
In 2012, for example, the Violence Policy Center (VPC) claimed in an article published in the Los Angeles Times, that good citizens killed only 259 criminals each year. To the VPC activists and the Los Angeles Times, the 259 figure of criminals killed by citizens was very small. They erroneously concluded that the beneficial shooting deaths “in comparison with the 1.2 million violent crimes committed that same year did not reflect much of a benefit in gun ownership.” They are dead wrong.
As I also discuss in my book, the figures cited for the criminal body count are wildly underestimated. The FBI Uniform Crime Report makes the assignation of “justifiable homicide” from the preliminary data of the reporting officer, and not from final determination; therefore, the number of “justifiable homicides” is under-reported. They are classified as criminal homicides, when in reality up to 20 percent of the initially classified “homicides” are eventually judged correctly to be “justifiable homicides,” although they do not appear as such in the final report.
The more correct figures are that between 600 to 1,500 criminals are killed by good citizens in self-defense (i.e., justifiable homicides) every year. Armed citizens kill at least twice, and as many as three times, the number of criminals as do police.
The good guys (cops and lawful citizens) do not kill unnecessarily, as violent criminals are prone to do, but only when they absolutely have to protect themselves or their fellow citizens. Violent offenders, many of them repeat criminals, kill in the commission of crimes and to get away with whatever they intend to do with little regard for life or property.
Some criminals kill for the sake of killing, but good guys do not. As I stated in my book, from data collected by criminologist Gary Kleck and summarized by Dr. Edgar Suter, a former director of a gun rights organization advocating integrity in science:
The true measure of the protective benefits of guns are the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved, and the property protected—not the burglar or rapist body count. Since only 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of defensive gun usage involves the death of the criminal, any study that counts criminal deaths as the only measure of the protective benefits of guns will expectedly underestimate the benefits of firearms by a factor of 500 to 1,000. The defensive uses of firearms by citizens amount up to 2 million to 2.5 million uses per year and dwarf the offensive gun uses by criminals. Between 25 and 75 lives are saved by a gun for every life lost to a gun.
In conclusion, the real heroes in mass shooting incidents are the police and the armed citizens who intervene and help stop deranged madmen involved in these tragic and barbaric incidents. These criminal malcontents blame fellow citizens and society for their own personal failures. The Democrats and their allies in the MSM must stop demonizing guns because the most efficient way to stop mass shooters is to eliminate gun-free zones, and instead have more law-abiding citizens carry firearms for self, family, and fellow citizen protection.
Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D. is a retired Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery and Adjunct Professor of Medical History at Mercer University School of Medicine. He is Associate Editor in Chief and World Affairs Editor of Surgical Neurology International. He served on the CDC’s Injury Research Grant Review Committee.
His latest book is America, Guns and Freedom.
The article originally appeared at drgo.us and is reprinted here with permission.
Gun control has not and has never been about controlling crimes or violence. Any more than spear, bow or sword control has ever been about crime at any pre gunpowder time in history.
Nothing good ever comes to a population that has been disarmed. Atrocity. Genocide. These are what happens to a disarmed populace.
I will keep my guns.
Climate change, gun control, mandatory vaccines are all about stripping people of their individual rights while using the same false collective narratives of public safety and the greater good. Fixed it for ya jwm.
Got my flu shot today! Enjoy your pneumonia Gp2!
You make a habit of bragging about how stupid you are? Priceless.
Really? I thought you made a habit of showing how ignorant you are. This is a firearms forum. You want to rant against vaccines do it on a medical forum. We’re tired of hearing it.
Name 1 ignorant statement I’ve eve made in this forum. Being called ignorant by the likes of someone like yourself who replies to posts that you don’t even understand is a compliment.
“Name 1 ignorant statement I’ve eve made in this forum.”
The vast majority of you have ever written here qualifies as ignorant.
I suppose you’re gonna tell me polio and smallpox just *disappeared* all on their own? 😉
Any attempt of an insult coming from you Geoff is a real compliment. You’re one of the fools here that pretends to champion individual liberties while attacking them at the same time.
Pg(two) = PgII = Gp2
Same troll. Same vaxx.
Funny how “guesty” and “Geoff” always seem to reply to my posts in unison…..
GP2,
You have it correctly: the people who want to limit our freedoms in the name of climate science are the same who want to implement medical tyranny (vaccines being just one example) and are the same who want to take our guns. To win on one front we need to fight on all three.
The false collective narratives are the same for all 3. Busting balls on the idiots here that are too stupid to understand this can be entertaining.
LifeSavor and Gp2, I buried my father on September 5, 2019. He was 90 years old. He was handicapped by polio since he was eight years old. Never walked a step since. I remember as a child standing next to him, he on his crutches, waiting for my Salk vaccine. Even as a child I wondered how he felt. Gp2, you sir, are full of shit.
Garden Flag,
Heartfelt condolences for you family! What happened to your Dad was tragic. Clearly, he was remarkable in not letting polio prevent him from living a full life.
I have spent sufficient time in places on this planet where polio has not been eradicated, to have seen the pain and tragedy it brings, especially, among the poor.
I have also seen, in my own family, severe damage from vaccines. The ‘vaccine court’ in the USA has paid out over $2.5B in settlements, all with gag-order restrictions. There is something wrong with the way we do vaccines.
When we refer to vaccines and medical tyranny, it is with this in mind.
Again, and respectfully, a prayer for you, your family, and your Dad.
Gp2,
Yes. Have seen data on the DDT connection. You might like the research published by Dr. Suzanne Humphries.
But, to the point of this blog, if we continue to allow our freedoms to be eroded, we will eventually lose the 2nd, also. Fighting for th 2A, must be a fight for all of our rights!
I’ve read her book, it’s excellent. JB Handlys book, “How to End the Autism Epidemic” is another great read. Science is not on their side. They rely on appeal to authority fallacy and insults. And fear mongering.
LOL! Looks like we are reading the same books! Handley is popular at our house!
Bringing this back to guns, due to death threats, Suzanne Humphries now has armed guards whenever she makes a public appearance. I have been told, but have not been able to confirm, that she also carries wherever she can.
Mike Adam’s not only carries, but considers himself an expert marksman and is a strong 2A advocate. He consistently encourages his readers to embrace their 2A right.
There are others, also. The fight for medical freedom is winning people to the 2A. That is how I got here.
She’s the real deal. Have spoken to her many times. And the threats on her life are all the proof you need the vaccine industry does not care about real public health: As if we needed anymore proof.
Funny how pg duece accuses everyone who disagrees with him as being a fake poster but then some never b4 seen poster shows up to be his personal echo chamber and cheer section almost on que.
Ad, you can think and believe what you want. But it’s pretty transparent the Geoff and Guesty handles are used by the same person or entity. And very likely other profiles here as well.
Remember polio? Probably not, you might have read about it in a history book. Vaccines all but eradicated it. It’s making a small comeback thanks to morons like you…
Sometimes the stupid here hurts. No, the polio vaccine did not eradicate polio. I’ve explained this in this thread already, which you’ve decided not to read before repeating bumper sticker slogans you’ve heard before. Liberal much?
JWM,
Quoting you: “Nothing good ever comes to a population that has been disarmed.”
Exactly. First, come the promises of free healthcare, free tuition, government protections from evil corporations. Then, come the controls, “You MUST take ONLY the government approved medical treatments, you MUST study ONLY government approved curricula, and, oh, by the way, we will be taking your guns so you cannot object”.
That is why we will not tolerate further restrictions on the 2A and must fight to have the existing restrictions abolished.
This is all happening now. Yeah, yeah, I know I sound like a tin-foil underwear conspiracy theorist. But I am not. My briefs are made-in-the USA from organic cotton.
So true. Here is a simple reference:
https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/the-right-to-own-and-carry-weapons-in-england/
Thank you for that post. Interesting to read a British perspective.
Please use the proper terminology for the Media….
It’s the Mother F’n Media (MoFoMedia)
“Deranged”? How about Nut, or lunatic, or better yet deficient unsocialized miscreant? And call the people who knew and did nothing, enablers. The legal system that did nothing in Parkland, the ditzy mother in Sandy Hook, and the psychologist in Aurora.
Let us face facts the Republicans are responsible for preventing a civilized National Health Care Plan that all other civilized Nations have had for decades. People in need of mental health care are not getting it.
Also the corrupt politicians appointed for life thorough the corruption of gerrymandering and the criminal Electoral College have let unscrupulous greed monger Businessmen ship high paying jobs overseas and those jobs that are left are populated with worker drone slaves because the power of the Unions was broken under the mad man Reagan who was no friend of gun owners or the Second Amendment.
When people have no hope for the future even the naive young people see what a farce life is in the U.S. and how in the last 50 years the plight of the working man has gone from the American Dream to Troglodyte Worker Slave. Divorce rates have soared to include over 50 per cent of all marriages and those that are left force both husband and wife to work two or three part time shit minimum wage jobs with zero benefits, no health care and no retirement, no vacations and no holidays off. Europeans are aghast that anyone would even want to live in the Shit hole of the Industrialized world , the U.S. of Hey. When Herr Drumpf pointed his finger at Africa the Moron had 3 fingers pointed right back at his own Nation. A Nation of modern day Serfs and no better off than the Serfs of Europe of long ago.
All this has resulted in the biggest wave of mass murder the U.S. and the world has ever seen during peace time. It is a Nation in the process of implosion and self destruction. Just as Rome self-destructed because of the Rich lived the good life while the people begged for bread and the economy collapsed because of a lack of jobs as well as all the tax money being spent on an over-bloated military so they could wage wars of rape, pillage and conquest for the increased wealth of the filthy rich. So too 2,500 years later history repeats itself in the U.S. The Military Industrial Complex that Republican President Eisenhower warned us about rules the country and eats up 54 cents of every tax dollar collected. All for the blind greed of the Politicians, the Industrialists and the Military Generals.
The knee jerk reaction and the cheap way out is to disarm the people because the criminals in power for life know that the people are a threat to them and their obscene wealth and if the people are to remain enslaved they are to have no weapons of any kind. Mass murders that have panicked the public are now the excuse to carry out the master plan of disarmament with the power mad courts blessing every gun ban law passed while they shit turds on the Second Amendment.
In the mean time blind greed is destroying the planet we all live on. Industrial Pollution, auto emissions and coal and oil burning are creating carbon in the atmosphere that is now at catastrophic levels. The weather patters are now beyond the point of no return and the clock is ticking down to the final destruction of the planet and all life on it. With food soon to be running out and the temperature rising to an inferno level on earth guns will do no one any good. This time it really is the end of the world.
I might add that over 50 years ago the great environmentalist Jock Cousteau warned the entire world what was coming if nothing was done. By 1973 it was already too late and the movie Soylent Green and its predictions have now all come true, every God damn one of them.
Read the book Soylent Green. The movie bore only a passing resemblance to it. You want to read a really good, and much more realistic, end of civilization novel. Try Alas, Babylon, or Lucifer’s Hammer. Although, the Hammer stretches it a little.
Lucifer’s Hammer is an excellent book. As for Vlad the Cornholer. How about We as a community. Simple refrain from playing His/It’s game. Keeping in mind: You should never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Darkman, the whole pig thing made me spew my tea through my nose. Mind if I borrow it? One of my best friends recently gave me a first edition of Lucifer’s Hammer. Which I immediately reread. The first time was 1977. Good books never get old.
As a long time reader of the genre, I agree both are excellent reads.
My Big Mac is made out of people??
the is only one park with a few twig trees in NYC?
I lick a spoon of jam remembering what we all had only a few years ago???
“”””its predictions have now all come true, every God damn one of them””””
ahhh not so much?
maybe in the commie land your boss wants…
So how many people has blap tp eaten do you think?
Shut up Vlad. You’re stupid and everyone knows it except you. The author hit the nail on the head. Especially the desire of the perpetrator for his 15 minutes of fame. Deny him that and watch these incidents wither on the vine.
Use it well…This bit of wisdom was imparted to me by my father some 50 years ago. Over the years it has served me well. Especially when dealing with the Idiots,Fools and the Unteachable.
From your own linked article, Doc…
“Why was this man in possession of a firearm? If someone has a military conviction and is dishonorably discharged from the military by US federal law, he forfeits the right to own firearms.”
Nope. You fail the 2A. Here’s your goat.
I have a question, has there ever been another mass shooting in the same place more than once? I’m very curious to see if there has ever been one. To say it is all about safety and protecting the public is nothing more than fear-mongering and declaring war on the American public in which %99.999999999 have had nothing to do with mass shootings. If you take a body count, and I know this comes across as callous, but seriously does the math add up to the point of justification to take what is a natural/God given right away from the people?
James, in a word, no.
While ur wondering what is on Netflix plz take a few seconds to help protect ur children’s & yr right by contacting ur reps to stop gun control! The Good News is that Congress & Trump are hearing our voices! The links below sends a Msg to ALL GOP Senators and Congress plus Trump!
Contact Congress 202-225-3121
https://gunowners.org/alert082119/
https://gunowners.org/alert090419/
Used the links to write and send postal mail. Old fashioned, I guess.
I am going to buy this guys book.
Yes there are more than one mass shooting in one place. Chicago has them every weekend. The corrupt politicians and media will not blame the gangs, blame the guns.
It only happens because they have no control over the guns in the neighboring states. Not their fault. Sarcasm but truth.
As they stated before, we need higher body counts to get them to surrender their rights. You can be sure that the people behind the gun control movement never go anywhere unprotected.
Gp2, when I enlisted in the Army I volunteered for a unit that had very little time to be on the ground. We were vaccinated against yellow fever, black plague, etc. I was glad to have those shots. When I worked hurricanes I was inoculated against hepatitis, tetanus, etc. No I’ll effects. Glad to have those too. Again, you want to whine about vaccines? Go to a medical forum. You’ve become tedious here.
Gadsden Flag,
Thank you for your service!!
Thank you to every one on this blog who has served or is in service. Military, police, firefighters, EMTs, most of us will never truely understand the sacrifices you and your families make.
Just saw this, and as Life has said, thanks for your service. But I think you’re missing my point. Having served, can I assume you served to protect the freedoms this country was built on? This country was not built on forced medical/pharmaceutical procedures. We have military dying all over the globe to protect our freedoms, and back at home we disgrace their sacrifices by rolling over and giving up the freedoms they are dying to protect.
@Gp2:
What are you talking about? Except for time spent in the military (more than 50 years ago) and, prior to that, under parental control, I have never been forced or even coerced into a vaccination or any other medical procedure for that matter. It has always been my own free choice.
If you want to go without a flu shot, it’s fine with me. But do you know that influenza has killed many thousands of people? So.. I’ll just take my flu shot, if you please.
Dave, maybe you’re living under a rock? There’s a national push to mandate vaccines for school kids, and Adults are next. CA Is already laying the groundwork for mandated adult vaccinations. And if you want a flu shot, that’s great for you, but if you believe the products are safe and work as advertised, then why would you care what anyone else does?
MSM NEVER mentions Chicago…. Wonder why?
In response to 911 what did the Port of Miami do? It added a mandatory Coast Guard (and now assisted by local police) presence when two or more cruise ships are in Government Cut. And guess what the USCG carry on their inflatable patrol boats? A 50 cal full auto fully loaded and with a round ready to chamber. When serious about protecting innocent lives more firepower was added not removed.
We’re going to argue about vaccines and health care on a gun blog? Seriously?
Get a grip.
If you want to bitch about the government stealing our “rights” (which don’t exist anyway except as mental constructs, which fact is proven throughout history that “might is right”), restrict it to gun “rights.”
People argue about “civil rights”, and the Framers may have believed in them, too, but vaccines are not relevant here.
If you want to discuss government taking away “rights”, become an anarchist like me – who knows the state is by definition all about taking away “rights” – or more specifically, about ruling people.
Then stop voting in morons like Trump or corrupt b*itches like Clinton or slick black Chicago hustlers like Obama or dumb oil-supported idiots like Bush…or any of the other clowns ruling this country for last, oh, two hundred years since maybe Jefferson…
Gp2 apparently can’t read or has extremely limited reading comprehension skills. This forum is not entitled The Truth About Vaccinations. Go waste everyone’s time somewhere else dickhead.
Pissing off Fudds who are too stupid to understand that the climate change agenda, gun control agenda, mandatory vaccine agenda are all part of the same agenda to strip the public of its individual rights using the same false collective(communist) narratives of the greater good, public health is always entertaining. Have a great day Joe.
Joe:
Simply refrain from playing his game and He/It/Whatever will tire and go away. Pigs like Him/It/Whatever. Can’t be taught and are a waste of time.
P.S.Gp2 Don’t waste your time. I ain’t Play-in.
Says another pissed off Fudd.
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