One of the most successful hip-hop/pop groups of the past decade is doing a “We Are the World“-style all-star remake of their first major hit, “Where is the Love?” in an effort to “end gun violence.”

After a five-year hiatus, Black Eyed Peas have reunited for an all-star remake of their 2003 song “Where Is The Love?” to end gun violence. On the new version, entitled “#WHERESTHELOVE,” will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo, and Fergie are joined by a whole mess of celebs including Justin Timberlake, A$AP Rocky, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Puff Daddy, Jamie Foxx, Ty Dolla $ign, DJ Khaled, Jaden Smith, the Game, and Jessie J, and the video features Quincy Jones, Snoop Dogg, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Randy Jackson, Wilmer Valderrama, Omarion, French Montana, Wiz Khalifa, LL Cool J, Shailene Woodley, Vanessa Hudgens, Lance Bass, Connie Britton, and more.

The original song featured a catchy tune, and the lyrics served a pop-culture prayer of peace.

What’s wrong with the world, mama
People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas
I think the whole world addicted to the drama
Only attracted to things that’ll bring you trauma

Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin’
In the USA, the big CIA
The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK

But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you’re bound to get irate, yeah

Madness is what you demonstrate
And that’s exactly how anger works and operates
Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love, y’all, y’all

People killin’, people dyin’
Children hurt and you hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preach?
Or would you turn the other cheek?

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’
Where is the love (Love)

Where is the love (The love) [2x]
Where is the love, the love, the love

It just ain’t the same, old ways have changed
New days are strange, is the world insane?
If love and peace are so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don’t belong?

Nations droppin’ bombs
Chemical gasses fillin’ lungs of little ones
With ongoin’ sufferin’ as the youth die young
So ask yourself is the lovin’ really gone

So I could ask myself really what is goin’ wrong
In this world that we livin’ in people keep on givin’ in
Makin’ wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends
Not respectin’ each other, deny thy brother
A war is goin’ on but the reason’s undercover

The truth is kept secret, it’s swept under the rug
If you never know truth then you never know love
Where’s the love, y’all, come on (I don’t know)
Where’s the truth, y’all, come on (I don’t know)
Where’s the love, y’all

People killin’, people dyin’
Children hurt and you hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preach?
Or would you turn the other cheek?

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’
Where is the love (Love)

Where is the love (The love)? [6x]
Where is the love, the love, the love?

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I’m gettin’ older, y’all, people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin’
Selfishness got us followin’ the wrong direction

Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema

Yo’, whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness and equality
Instead of spreading love we’re spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading us away from unity

That’s the reason why sometimes I’m feelin’ under
That’s the reason why sometimes I’m feelin’ down
There’s no wonder why sometimes I’m feelin’ under
Gotta keep my faith alive ’til love is found
Now ask yourself

Where is the love? [4x]

Father, Father, Father, help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’
Where is the love?

Sing with me y’all:
One world, one world (We only got)
One world, one world (That’s all we got)
One world, one world
And something’s wrong with it (Yeah)
Something’s wrong with it (Yeah)
Something’s wrong with the wo-wo-world, yeah
We only got
(One world, one world)
That’s all we got
(One world, one world)

It’s a well-meant vanity project and I sincerely thank all the celebrities who want to be a part of this, but this song isn’t likely to change any minds, and it certainly isn’t likely to save any lives.

Why?

Well, that’s simple.

They’re attacking a problem that doesn’t exist in any way, shape, or form, and you can’t address the real problem if you can’t even define it properly.

From a purely statistical view, per capita homicides are the lowest they’ve been since the Federal Bureau of Investigation started tracking homicides on the national level three generations ago. The FBI’s data clearly shows that criminal homicide all kinds keeps dropping in terms of raw numbers as well.

There were just over 8,100 criminal homicides with firearms in a nation of 320 million people, and roughly a firearm for every man woman and child.

Put bluntly, if guns were really the problem, we’d all be dead.

This steep decline in criminal activity with firearms coincides with efforts by the firearms manufacturing and training industries to provide better safety training for both gun owners and better gun safety training to “gun-proof” kids. The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Project ChildSafe is going a long way to help educate consumers about the importance of keeping guns safely stored when not in use, while the National Rifle Association’s 97,000+ strong instructor training arm and the Eddie Eagle program has helped to dramatically lower accidents with firearms in the past 20 years (PDF).

So if actual criminal violence is dropping nationwide, including violence with firearms, and accidents with firearms are plummeting as well, why are we seeing so much in the media about so-called “gun violence?”

Let’s go back to one of the lines in the song which neatly encapsulates the problem.

Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema

We have a cultural sickness, my fellow Americans.

While violence and accidents are both on the decline nationwide, there are spikes in violence in some specific areas and in specific communities around the country.

There are people in positions of influence who want to craft the illusion that these small spikes in a small number of geographically limited areas are symptoms of a nationwide epidemic that only they can solve.

You’re being had.

You’re being lied to.

Led astray.

Hoodwinked.

Bamboozled.

Run amok.

“The media” can be divided into two parts, and both of these are contributing to crafting the illusion of a “gun violence problem.”

The first part, and arguably the most dangerous part is the mainstream news media. The other half of the equation is the entertainment media. Sadly, there isn’t enough separation between these two groups. Both groups are also heavily infiltrated and influenced by political ideologues who are firmly convinced that “more government involvement” is the answer to nearly every problem.

You’re easily forgiven if you can’t tell the difference between politicians and the journalists you see on every news broadcast and in most major newspapers. After all, we are literally talking about the exact same people. It is shockingly common to see the revolving door of personalities who work on political campaigns and for political parties who then find jobs as reporters, anchors, editorialists, and pundits. Bias is rampant, and outright direct collusion between politicians and their peers media is shamefully commonplace.

These same thoughts pervade the entertainment media, where actors and screenwriters and singers and lyricists who are guilty of “wrong think” simply aren’t allowed to work by moguls that are deeply in bed with the feel-good, mother-knows-best collectivism that seeks to concentrate power in the hands of the “worthy few” because, my fellow Americans, actual free thought and expression are dangerous.

Quick, order up another movie remake, laugh-track driven sitcom, profanity-laced cartoon, or cookie-cutter song!

The political left, being collectivist in nature, is hostile to the idea of individual rights being more important that communal rights.

For that reason, they seek to crush the freedom of expression via “hate speech” laws and “free speech” zones on collect campuses, where now students are so resistant to the marketplace of ideas that they beg for “safe spaces” from new ideas that may challenge their biases, assumptions, and prejudices, “triggering” them.

Part of this attempt to politicize and undermine speech and free thought itself is control of the language. Those who control the language control the culture and then easily control the world.

Unfortunately for those who would control us, the is a very large impediment to controlling people when those people are both philosophically opposed to being oppressed and maintain the physical capability to resist being controlled by force.

That prevailing force that keeps politicians and the media from simply forcing their ideologies down our throats is the human right to bear arms against enemies both foreign and domestic, as reflected in the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment is a giant middle finger thrust in the face of collectivists by free Americans, regardless of their specific political parties, preferred candidates, or pet causes.

Gun owners run the gamut of political opinions, races, ages, sexualities, religions, and ideologies. If we’ve learned anything during the rise of Gun Culture 2.0 in the last decade it is that nearly everyone can be a gun owner and probably should be unless they have some sort of medical, mental health, or adjudicated reason not to be armed.

So how does all this relate to “gun violence?”

“Gun violence” is the attempt to craft language to shape an idea.

Collectivists who hate the idea of individual rights—especially the idea that the common man could resist their “superior” ideology by force—need a way to make the very concept of using force to defend ideas and life unpalatable.

As the concepts of freedom and liberty are tough to attack directly, collectivists have hit upon the idea of grossly inflating the perceived amount of criminal human violence that citizens unlawfully perpetrate upon one another into being much greater than it actually is.

While crafting this illusion that this criminal human behavior is running rampant (remember, it is actually at all-time historic lows), they’re also selling you the narrative that it isn’t the criminal human behavior which is at fault, but the physical tools used by some violent criminals that is the real problem.

Hence, “gun violence.”

They then promise that if you remove the tool of firearms from American society, that the violent behavior of these criminal subcultures will change.

They’re trying to convince you that tools shape your behavior, and that if you remove these tools from criminals, that their criminal behavior will stop.

There’s a term for self-evidently false claims such as these, but I forget what it is at the moment.

This bring us back around to will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo, and Fergie, otherwise known as the Black Eyed Peas.

While they are probably sincere in wanting to change lives and stop criminal human violence in those communities where it is running rampant and even locally increasing, they’re not doing anyone any good by perpetuating the collectivist fiction that one of the most commonly-owned and used tools in the United States—remember, we buy more than 2.5 million guns each month, and less than a fraction of one percent of those will ever be used in crimes—is responsible for human behavior.

If the Black Eyed Peas were truly serious about addressing the criminal human violence in those relatively small communities where violence of all kinds is not only endemic but expected, they’d focus on addressing their fellow musical artists who shape and perpetuate “thug life” culture, where violence is not just reflected upon, but celebrated.

“Thug life” is celebrated in a very limited way in television, and a bit more in the movies, but is heavily influenced the the music industry.

I firmly believe that musicians can help change the culture of violent human behavior that is a way of life in certain subcultures in the United States.

They simply lack the testicular fortitude to challenge their collectivist allies by addressing the real problem.