Sometimes, it's tricky to really address your arguments correctly. Far too many people live in an echo chamber and aren't really sure what the other side is saying, so they attack what they think people are saying, or what they want people to believe the other side is saying.
This is a strawman.
And the power of the strawman is that it can be whatever you want. It's easy to argue against a strawman because you can stack that straw however you need in order to have your own talking points hit as hard as possible.
While looking for gun-related news for today, I came across this prime example of strawmanning.
In the aftermath of the high-profile assassination of far-right political figure Charlie Kirk, America is once again spiraling into a familiar and dangerous cycle — one where Black communities are being targeted, surveilled, and threatened, despite having no connection to the violence.
Across the country, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)have reported a wave of death threatsdirected at students and staff, prompting evacuations, increased campus security, and emotional trauma for entire communities. These threats — driven by baseless speculation and racial scapegoating — come in the wake of an act committed not by a Black person, but, as has been the trend, by a white male assailant.
In a viral video now circulating on social media, a white woman bravely confronts this disturbing trend. She methodically runs through a list of America’s most infamous mass shooters and domestic terrorists, and points out a fact that remains wildly underdiscussed in national conversations: roughly 90% of them are white men.
The facts back her up. According to data from The Violence Project, two-thirds (66%) of mass shootings since 1966were carried out by white men. Some of the deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history — Las Vegas (58 killed), Sandy Hook (26 killed), Uvalde (21 killed), and Charleston (9 killed at a Black church) — were all perpetrated by white men.
Despite this, Black communities are consistently over-policed and blamedafter acts of violence they did not commit. This racialized response is not only factually wrong — it’s dangerous.
Of course, I'm not about to condone or defend people threatening HBCUs, if that is actually happening. I'm not a fan of academia, regardless of what race historically attends the university in question, but threatening anyone is uncalled for.
As for the rest, well, let's get into the absolute stupidity.
However, this idea that seems to permeate throughout this piece, laid pretty bare in the last sentence quoted, is that somehow, black people are made to pay for the actions of white men.
However, let's understand that there's a difference between most violence and mass killings.
Yes, they're all violent actions, but mass murders account for a tiny fraction of a percent of total homicides each and every year. True mass killings--which is what The Violence Project counts--are still rare. The worst year they report is 2018, when there were nine.
Nine.
Now, I'll agree that white men are responsible for most of those, but it's funny how the data shifts, isn't it?
Normally, anti-gunners like to use statistics from the Gun Violence Archive. That's because they have a far more expansive definition for mass shooting, which bumps the numbers up significantly.
While GVA doesn't count the race of the shooters in their numbers, many of the incidents they report are the result of gang activity. In other words, these are often black and Hispanic men.
The truth is that while these mass killers are, in fact, white dudes, they still aren't the massive threat they're being made out to be in this piece or the original video. Even including domestic terrorists, they're still less than a tiny fraction of a percent in the overall total.
What's happening here, though, is that by building up a strawman of mass killers and domestic terrorists, the people involved in this nonsense can try to make it out like that's the threat.
The threat has nothing to do with race and never has. The threat has to do with culture, including an entire subculture that glorifies violent outbursts targeting anyone who wrongs them in some way. Those subcultures are all over our inner cities and, yes, include a lot of black and Hispanic men.
But if you act as if mass murders are the totality of the problem with violence in this country, you're deluding yourself.
