Cain, a staunch conservative who is entering his fourth term in the Texas House, said he opposes the State Fair’s gun ban because he thinks “gun-free zones are ineffective.” He cited the fact that many “mass public shootings” have occurred in places where firearms are prohibited as proof.
“Since 1998, 82% of mass public shootings — and a staggering 94% since 1950 — have taken place in areas where guns are prohibited,” Cain wrote, citing statistics from the Crime Prevention Research Center, a gun rights group. These numbers exclude shootings at homes or other private places; shootings related to gang or drug violence, and firearms incidents that occur while the perpetrator is committing another crime, such as burglary.
The State Fair, on the other hand, has maintained that the no-gun policy and local police protect fairgoers. . . .
As with most sensational claims made by the anti-borders lobby, the latest attempt to scare the American public into submission falls apart under scrutiny. John R. Lott, Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, did a deep dive into AIC’s claims and found a number of assumptions designed to lead readers to predetermined conclusion.
The costs of detention account for roughly 75 percent of AIC’s cost estimates. Lott explained how, even though most aliens are held in detention for under two months on average, AIC assumes that the federal government would have to build 216 new detention facilities each year to accommodate the deportees. Since facilities like these are built to last for years, however, the reality is that ongoing construction would not be necessary.
AIC also made its projections based on a $237 daily cost of detaining aliens. Lott pointed out that federal medium security prisons in 2022 spent $122.50 daily for inmates, and high-security prisons spent $164.87. Privately-operated prisons for federal inmates spend $93.50 per inmate daily. Does anyone really think the administration that is implementing the Department of Government Efficiency is going to spend more on alien lawbreakers headed to deportation?
All this hand-wringing over costs is rich coming from people who have never met a federal expenditure they didn’t like until the election results came in last Nov. 5. There was no similar concern expressed over a reportthat illegal immigration creates an annual fiscal burden of $150.7 billion for U.S. taxpayers. The Biden administration allocated more than $770 million in 2023 to a handful of sanctuary cities to house illegal migrants. That money went to places like New York City’s The Row Hotel in Times Square, which filled all of its 1,331 rooms with migrants who proceeded to trash the luxury property. The city also arranged daily meals for the migrants, with many of those meals thrown in the trash untouched.
This represents only a small part of the money spent to facilitate the left-wing fetish for illegal immigration. A report by Lott and RealClear Investigations found that crime committed by illegal aliens has cost the United States more than $166.5 billion, a figure calculated from the costs of crime taken from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations. . . .
As John R. Lott, Jr. reported in October in The Federalist, the bureau has been caught fudging the numbers in the Biden years.
“While the FBI claims that serious violent crime has fallen by 5.8 percent since Biden took office, the NCVS [National Crime Victimization Survey] numbers show total violent crime has risen by 55.4 percent,” the story, originally published by RealClearInvestigations, notes. . . .
The news release cites data from the Crime Prevention Research Center between 1998 and 2015 that reports of the 97 countries with identified mass public shootings, “The U.S. ranks 64th per capita in its rate of attacks and 65th in fatalities. Major European countries, such as Norway, Finland, France, Switzerland and Russia, all have at least 25 percent higher per capita murder rates from mass public shootings.”
John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, says that number, which comes from the American Immigration Council, is pretty flawed. He said, “They essentially assume that once every year you have to rebuild all the facilities, which is just crazy. And that’s the one [number] that the media has been going with.”
Lott points out that in 2004, I.C.E. was able to deport around 1.4 million people with a budget of just over $6 billion for that year.
Lott said that even if you give them the benefit of the doubt and assume their number is correct, it’s still way cheaper than allowing these illegal immigrants to stay in the country. He said, “The cost for them committing crimes is going to be something hugely over 3x the cost of deporting them.” . . .
The news release cites data from the Crime Prevention Research Center between 1998 and 2015 that reports of the 97 countries with identified mass public shootings, “The U.S. ranks 64th per capita in its rate of attacks and 65th in fatalities. Major European countries, such as Norway, Finland, France, Switzerland and Russia, all have at least 25 percent higher per capita murder rates from mass public shootings.” . . .
Police forces are chronically short-handed and the quality of applicants is so poor they dramatically reduce entry requirements, hiring the obese, unhealthy, mentally ill, stupid and criminal. It’s going to take a very long time, particularly in blue cities, for qualified, competent people to want to be police officers again. The invaluable John R. Lott surveys the damage:
FBI data shows arrest rates plummeted over the last few years, starting in 2020. For cities with over 1 million people, the arrest rate for reported violent crime averaged 41% in the 24 years from 1996 to 2019, but it dropped to 20.3% in 2022 – a 50% drop. The lowest arrest rate in the preceding 24 years before COVID-19 was 32.6%. That is still 61% higher than the rate in 2022.
That’s one of the few things the FBI has more or less accurately reported in recent years. Blue cities and states, desperate to hide their out-of-control crime, don’t report it.
The arrest rate for murder fell by 37%, rape by 58%, robbery by 50%, and aggravated assault by 54%.
The collapse in the arrest rate for property crime is even more dramatic. The average arrest rate for reported property crime fell from an average of 13% in the 25 years from 1996 to 2021 to 4.5% – a 64% drop. The lowest arrest rate in the preceding 24 years between 1996 and 2019 was 12%. The arrest rate in 2022 was still 61% lower than the previous low rate. The drop in reported larceny theft, the largest property crime category, is dramatic. It declines from an average arrest rate of 14.6% to just 3.8% – a 75% drop.
If you look at arrests as a percentage of all crime (reported and unreported), in these large cities only 8% of all violent crime and 1% of all property crime results in an arrest. . . . .
As John R. Lott, Jr. reported in October in The Federalist, the bureau has been caught fudging the numbers in the Biden years.
“While the FBI claims that serious violent crime has fallen by 5.8 percent since Biden took office, the NCVS [National Crime Victimization Survey] numbers show total violent crime has risen by 55.4 percent,” the story, originally published by RealClearInvestigations, notes. . . .
. . . . The Silent Majority Foundation pushed back on that argument in a news release emailed to The Center Square.
“Research indicates that 90% of mass shootings occur in so-called ‘gun-free zones,’” the news release said. “While proponents of gun control often argue that the United States’ mass shooting problem stems directly from Second Amendment protections, they claim stricter gun laws modeled after other countries are the solution. However, this narrative overlooks historical precedence and does not hold up under closer scrutiny of the data.”
The news release cites data from the Crime Prevention Research Center between 1998 and 2015 that reports of the 97 countries with identified mass public shootings, “The U.S. ranks 64th per capita in its rate of attacks and 65th in fatalities. Major European countries, such as Norway, Finland, France, Switzerland and Russia, all have at least 25 percent higher per capita murder rates from mass public shootings.” . . .
“Our Second Amendment right does not disappear when we cross invisible state lines, and this commonsense legislation guarantees that,” said Rep. Hudson. “The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act will protect law-abiding citizens’ rights to conceal carry and travel freely between states without worrying about conflicting state codes or onerous civil suits. I am proud to see such strong and widespread support, and I will not stop fighting to get this legislation signed into law.”
According to data from the Crime Prevention Research Center, nearly 22 million Americans hold concealed carry permits. Following his sweeping victory on Election Day, President Trump announced his support for full concealed carry reciprocity. . . . .
The Montenegro experience dramatically illustrates the lie put forward by the Left: Mass murder by shooting only happens in the United States. This is illustrated by quotes in the Crime Prevention Research Center study of mass public murder with firearms around the world, published in 2020. The CPRC goes on to show mass public shootings in Europe are pretty common. The study eviscerates the lies of gun control. . . .
Claims that the USA is unique in the number of mass public murders with firearms have become scarce after the presentation of Lott’s paper to Congress. Mass murder with firearms has little to do with the number of firearms legally available to the citizens of a country. . . .
Montenegro has one of the highest rates of private firearms in Europe. Looking at the data collected by the CRPC and presented by John Lott, there are several countries in Europe that surpass the number of people killed in public mass murders with firearms in the United States. Those include Norway, Kosovo, Finland, and France. The trending tactic used to commit mass murder trend is ramming attacks with vehicles, such as the one in France in 2016, in which 84 (updated to 87) people were murdered.
Banning gun ownership by private citizens does not stop mass murder. In some ways, it facilitates mass public murders by greatly restricting the ability to fight back. None of the policies put forward in the wake of public mass murder with firearms in the USA would have been stopped by “universal background checks” or requirements to lock up firearms. . . .
The foundation points to data from the Crime Prevention Research Center, which notes on its website, “Between 1998 and 2024, the number of mass public shootings averaged 3.9 attacks, 32.3 murdered per year, and the number murdered per attack was 7.8. The number of attacks is increasing at an increasing rate, while the number of people murdered and the number murdered per attack is declining. In five-year intervals, the number of mass public shootings varied this way: 2.0 (2000-2004), 3.6 (2005-2009), 3.2 (2010-2014), 4.8 (2015-2019), and 5.6 (2020-2024). In five-year intervals, the number of people murdered in mass public shootings varied this way: 10 (2000-2004), 29 (2005-2009), 24 (2010-2014), 62.4 (2015-2019), and 38.4 (2020-2024).” . . . .
A paper published in the Psychology of Violence is interesting because of what it did not find.
The paper did not find any correlation between legally carrying a gun and four psychopathic measures. The four facets are “affective” (lack of empathy), “interpersonal” (manipulative), “lifestyle” (impulsive), and “antisocial”. “Carry a weapon sometimes for protection” is defined in the four measures as “antisocial.” . . .
None of John Lott’s research is included in the references, nor is the recent major survey on gun ownership and use by Professor English. Critics of John Lott, Hemenway and Azrael, are included in two references.
The study assumes two highly disputed premise, based on two individual papers. . . .
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