The country of China is one of the worst human rights violators in the world today. I mean, anyone who has literal concentration camps within their borders is not exactly someone who respects rights of any kind.

Yet the country continually pretends their crap doesn’t stink while trying to paint the United States as some kind of dystopian nightmare.

Their latest effort includes trying to paint the lack of gun control as a human rights violation.

s China continues to face scrutiny by the U.S. for human rights abuses against ethnic minorities—including allegations of genocide—China has flipped the script, claiming America’s human rights violations worsened in 2021.

The U.S. Department of State continues to document China’s human rights abuses, and recently imposed sanctions against the nation for detaining over a million Uyghurs—a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority in the East Asian nation, as well as other Muslim minorities—in internment camps. The U.S. alleges the Chinese Communist Party is inflicting “torture, physical and sexual abuse, mass surveillance, family separation, and repression of cultural and religious expression.” China has repeatedly dismissed allegations of mistreating Uyghur Muslims and is now accusing America of human rights violations.

China’s State Council Information Office issued “The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2021” on Monday. The report alleges that human rights in the U.S. declined in 2021, as “political manipulation” led to a sharp surge in COVID-19 deaths, and fatal shootings in the country hit a new record.

Now, let’s ignore the COVID thing for a moment–difficult because China’s own failures led to the pandemic in the first place–but focus on “fatal shootings.”

See, when people talk about human rights, they generally think about how the governments treat the people. However, fatal shootings are generally not the result of government action. They’re carried out by individuals who aren’t acting on the behest of any governmental body.

How can the government of the United States be guilty of human rights violations because of the actions of private parties who are then sought for punishment after committing the crime?

Of course, China has long tried to paint the United States as evil for not having the same gun control as they do.

The problem with this is that gun rights are actually human rights. Even most anti-gunners pay lip service to the idea, though they don’t see it as absolute.

So how, praytell, is the lack of restriction on a basic human right a human rights violation?

Plus, China is talking out of both sides of their mouth. On one hand, they preen and posture about how insufficient gun control is a human rights violation, then allow companies to export goods meant for the gun market here in the United States.

That includes legal accessories and even some firearms from companies like Norinco, but also things like “solvent traps” and automatic switches that circumvent existing American gun laws. If China were so concerned with such “human rights violations,” why wouldn’t they regulate against these items being exported to the United States?

It’s not like they’re that concerned with free-market principles considering how much industry is still at least partially owned by the government.

They don’t, in part because this is just a diversionary tactic. They want to complain about our supposed human rights abuses in hopes that the international community will ignore the Uyghurs in concentration camps and tennis stars disappearing for weeks after accusing a senior party official of rape, only to reappear later with a “my bad” that no one believes.

No one is falling for it.