When a country issues a travel warning to their citizens, it’s typically one of two things. One is that it’s a way for the government to express legitimate fears about violence in another country. The other is to make some kind of a political point or to grandstand just a bit.

That second one was at the top of my mind when I learned two nations have issued travel warnings to their citizens about the United States.

Two countries issued travel warnings to their citizens about the United States following two mass shootings that killed 31 people.

Both Venezuela and Uruguay warned their residents about violence and hate crimes in the United States Monday.

Uruguay’s Office of Foreign Ministry issued an advisory Monday saying citizens should “take precaution amid the growing indiscriminatory violence, specifically hate crimes including racism and discrimination” when traveling to the United States.

Of course, I’m forced to ask how the violence can be motivated by discrimination and still be indiscriminatory. The two are kind of at odds with one another, don’t you think?

Anywho, Uruguay and Venezuela think that their citizens coming to the United States is a bad idea.

Well, if they’re trying to stop illegal immigration to the United States, awesome. However, that’s probably not what they’re trying to do. After all, travel warnings are issued regarding things like lawful immigration, business trips, and vacations. They’re telling their citizens they’re safer staying home.

And, well, that’s not the case.

While El Paso is fresh on everyone’s mind, violence isn’t anything new for either the U.S., Uruguay, or Venezuela, nor anywhere else on the planet, truth be told.

However, of those three, the United States is the safest place. Taking a look at homicide rates, the U.S. has a rate of 5.3 per 100,000 people. That’s bad if you or someone you love is one of the 5.3, but compared to both Uruguay (8.2) and Venezuela (a whopping 56.33), it’s not nearly as bad as suggested by the travel warnings.

In fact, citizens of those countries would be far, far safer in the United States. That’s especially true of Venezuela where they don’t just have the third-highest homicide rate in the world, but they also lack things like food and toilet paper thanks to socialist policies. Frankly, the lack of food alone is a good enough reason for those folks to want to come here.

Look, I don’t want people coming into the country illegally, but this isn’t about that. It’s about two countries trying to act morally superior to the big dog on the block. To the entire world right now, we look like we’re overrun with violent racists. That’s because our media is talking about El Paso nonstop. Other countries don’t air their dirty laundry the way the United States does, from what I understand. Folks there think that our press is like theirs, where it tries to save face for the nation by not reporting on things unless it gets really out of hand.

They don’t get that our media doesn’t care about any of that, they only care about how many eyes lock onto what they produce.

These two countries have latched onto those reports and saw an opportunity.

However, if they want to tell their citizens to stay home, they have a whole lot of house cleaning to do before we Americans do more than point and laugh at them.