The Trace is funded by anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg with the purpose of advancing the gun control narrative. On Monday, though, they admitted that "gun violence" is declining. Cam touched on that on Monday.
The Citizens Committee on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is actually celebrating the piece.
Why?
Well, when an anti-gun organization basically says we don't need any more gun control laws, even if they didn't mean it, it's a case worth celebrating.
From a press release.
A remarkably candid article in The Trace, billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun news publication, declares “gun violence” is trending downward, a scenario which tells the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms that no further gun control laws are necessary.
“Look at the information provided in this article, and it leads to only one conclusion,” stated CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “The Trace says violence involving firearms is ‘trending downward for more than three quarters of cities with the most shootings.’ This comes at a time when more than 21 million Americans are licensed to carry, and in 29 states, no license is required, so the actual number of citizens going armed for personal protection is likely much higher.
“No doubt unintentionally,” Gottlieb observed, “The Trace article has literally put the lie to anti-gun propaganda which has festered for decades, that more law-abiding citizens carrying guns would result in widespread mayhem, more bloodshed and increased homicides. Yet, by its own admission, The Trace just told America—including anti-gunners on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures from coast to coast—their campaign of hysteria was, at a minimum, misguided and loaded with misinformation.
“Actually,” he said, “when you come right down to it, this revealing article in The Trace could easily be interpreted to support the argument that more legally-armed citizens have definitely contributed to this decline in so-called ‘gun violence,’ and may, indeed, be the key factor. The Trace’s own article provides strong evidence that law-abiding armed citizens are responsibly exercising their rights. The only logical conclusion we can draw from this is that America doesn’t need any more gun control laws, and common sense suggests we can get along with even fewer restrictions.
“For a couple of generations,” Gottlieb noted, “we have seen one gun control myth after another used as excuses to restrict our Second Amendment rights. Yet here we are, at a time when those rights are being gradually restored, when states have adopted Constitutional Carry laws, more people own guns and more people are legally carrying them for personal protection, and The Trace acknowledges violent crime involving guns is declining. Looks like we’ve been right all along, and the anti-gun media essentially just admitted it.”
Let's remember that this decline is in a universe we were told that we'd see the opposite after the Bruen decision, where the expansion of constitutional carry led to anti-gunners saying we'd see the opposite, and where every pro-gun move is met with the same doomsaying rhetoric.
And it didn't come to pass.
If you look at the spikes in violent crime through the years, you start to see some patterns. In the 1920s, we saw a spike that started declining when Prohibition ended. In the 1960s, though, we see a spike that starts right after the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed, which continued on through until states started making pro-gun moves.
The 1994 Assault Weapon Ban happened as homicides were already decreasing. They continued to decrease well after the ban sunset in 2004.
Now this.
Look, I get that your rank-and-file anti-gunner just wants to see violent crime reduced. They think the issue is guns because they've been told repeatedly that the issue is guns. The media lies to them and the pundits lie to them, and those of us offering an alternative view based on, you know, reality, get left in the gutter.
But a lot of the people doing the leaving know the truth. They've seen this trend themselves. Either they're too stupid to recognize it, too evil to want to actually solve the issue, too dedicated to some other purpose to acknowledge the truth, or some combination thereof.
For The Trace to acknowledge that gun violence is in decline is big. The fact that they can't connect the dots--or, perhaps more accurately, won't so as to not alienate their sugar daddy--is irrelevant.
