GANG-RELATED GUN VIOLENCE IS MUCH MORE PREVALENT THAN MASS SHOOTINGS

Pols ignore mass shootings we can do something about: gang violence 

 

By Rich Lowry

 

 

New York Post 

June 6, 2022

 

 

While mass shootings like the one in Uvalde, Texas capture the attention of the nation, gang-related gun violence is much more prevalent

 

The headlines coming out of the weekend were grim. 

Axios: “At least 54 injured, 11 killed in 7 separate mass shootings this weekend.” NBC News: “At least 12 dead in another weekend of mass shootings across America.” Yahoo! News: “At least 12 dead in 10 mass shootings in US over the weekend.”

The headlines are clearly designed to create the impression that the United States is experiencing a Buffalo or Uvalde almost every day. It isn’t true. None of the shootings over the weekend had anything in common with those horrific events. As far as I could determine, none was carried out with AR-15s, and most involved beefs among people at parties or in or around bars, with many having the hallmarks of gang shootings. 

The first incident in the Axios report involved two cars pulling up at a graduation party in Summerton, SC, and opening fire, killing one and wounding another seven. Almost all the victims were in their teens. According to police, it was a gang-related shooting stemming from previous drive-by shootings. 

The quotidian violence of teenagers shooting teenagers in petty disputes and gang-related vendettas shouldn’t be minimized — in fact, it’s a significant blight on American life, disproportionately affecting young African-American men and rendering certain neighborhoods in our country borderline unlivable. But they are a different category from what we commonly think of as a mass shooting.

 

The Department of Justice’s National Gang Center reports that gang violence accounted for 13% percent of all homicides between 2007 and 2012

There’s a difference between the phenomenon of a disturbed young male who has been inspired by prior mass shooters to go to a school or other public place and slaughter as many people as possible and the gang member who targets rivals.

The former are relatively rare, uniquely shattering events for a community and the nation at large that are, unfortunately, very difficult to combat.

The latter are much more common, typically don’t garner national attention and are more susceptible to standard anti-crime initiatives, including more cops and robust prosecution. 

 

Activists hold signs as they listen to speakers during a Students Demand Action event, near the West Front of the US Capitol, Monday, June 6, 2022, in Washington

A bizarre feature of the debate around gun homicides is that the same people who most fervently believe we need to enact gun-control measures that will have very little effect on the former category of shootings tend to be hostile to or indifferent toward measures that will unquestionably diminish the latter category of shootings.

The Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics wore shirts emblazoned with the phrase “End Gun Violence” prior to their NBA Finals game the other night. That sentiment is anodyne and politically correct enough to be perfect for professional athletes, but slogans don’t accomplish anything and the usual gun-control measures aren’t going to “end” gun violence.

These same players presumably wouldn’t dare wear shirts urging the adoption of policies to keep young men from shooting other young men in the nation’s dispiriting, much more routine cycle of violence — “Support More Policing,” “Prosecute Gun Crimes” or “Incarcerate Repeat Offenders,” for example. That would cause an uproar in polite circles and so is considered utterly unacceptable.

The fact is that gun control is ideologically congenial to the media and the left, whereas arresting and incarcerating people isn’t.

 

Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown wears a shirt that reads End Gun Violence while warming up before the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco, Sunday, June 5, 2022

 

It is difficult to tell exactly how many gun homicides in the country are gang-related (among other things, witnesses are reluctant to talk). But the Department of Justice’s National Gang Center, in what is almost certainly an undercount, reports that there were roughly 2,000 gang homicides annually from 2007 to 2012, accounting for about 13% of all homicides. In Chicago and Los Angeles, around half of all homicides were gang-related.

If we are going to take these killings more seriously, that’s a good thing. Tough-on-crime policies, as well as more tailored anti-gang measures like simultaneous targeted arrests, have been shown to have an effect. It doesn’t make any sense to strike a pose against gun violence in general without taking on this scourge in particular — unless striking the pose is the point.