Rantz: Georgia school shooting becomes political ammo for Democrats, but Trump kept us safer
Sep 5, 2024, 6:39 PM
(Photo: Mike Stewart, AP)
Democrats wasted no time exploiting the tragic deaths of two students and two teachers after a school shooting in Georgia. Almost everything they’re spewing is either wrong, absurd or downright offensive.
It’s as if they’re sitting by their computers with pre-written, Mad Libs-style statements, just waiting to plug in the name of the latest school. The moment there’s news of a shooting, they pounce. They don’t bother waiting for any real details because the only one they care about is a gun was involved.
Meanwhile, pundits on radio, TV and in print perform their predictable and oddly selective outrage. Where’s this passion when grandmas in Seattle are murdered in carjackings, kids in Chicago are gunned down on the streets, or illegal immigrants commit heinous acts of rape and murder? Apparently, those tragedies aren’t politically useful enough to earn left-wing outrage.
“We can’t go on like this. Congress must take action,” Squad grandmother and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Seattle) immediately tweeted, not telling us the action though she means gun bans.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) weighed in on X, immediately blaming Republicans for the shooting: “It is simply not asking too much to demand that Republicans work with Democrats to pass commonsense gun safety laws.”
Which common sense gun laws would have prevented this shooting? She doesn’t say because what she hopes for isn’t common sense.
More from Jason Rantz: After brutal dogwalker murder, will Seattle wake up to crime reality?
Are Democrats lying about gun violence stats after the Georgia school shooting?
Easily, the most egregious and disingenuous statement came from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). These statements always come from Murphy, a ghoul who hasn’t met a school shooting he wasn’t willing to shamelessly use to get on television.
“It’s not as if we don’t know what to do,” Murphy said on MSNBC. “We know what to do. It’s just states like Georgia run by Republicans, run by Donald Trump-supporting Republicans choose to do nothing because they care about the gun industry more than they care about the health of our kids.”
Because he’s a deeply dishonest man who preys on fear, he went on to falsely claim that “the AR-15 that is literally designed to assassinate as many people as quickly as possible.”
Of course, he also used this tragedy to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Mass shootings are actually down this year compared to last year,” he said. “I know it doesn’t feel that way but it’s true because we passed a law two years ago with Kamala Harris’s support that makes it a little bit harder for bad people to get their hands on guns. Donald Trump says he’s going to go backwards to the days where we had even fewer protections for our kids. So it’s just a choice. You want to stop these mass shootings, you got Kamala Harris who says she’s going to make this a priority, you got Donald Trump who says that he’s going to put the profits of the industry first.”
As always, he’s arguing in bad faith.
More from Jason Rantz: Seattle deputy mayor says downtown activation plan a ‘roaring success.’ Biz owner says no, it’s not
There were fewer mass shootings under Donald Trump than Kamala Harris
Think about the absurdity of Chris Murphy’s argument: if you want fewer mass shootings like the one in Georgia this week, vote for Kamala Harris — who is already in office, presiding over the current surge in violence.
Democrats and the Harris campaign have been bending over backward to distance themselves from their own administration because their policies are so deeply unpopular, but this is a weird claim. Meanwhile, Murphy hopes that you don’t bother to check the stats. He’s banking on the fact that no one will notice the glaring inconsistency in pushing for re-election when their track record on violence is a complete disaster.
There were fewer mass shootings (as defined by four or more victims killed or injured in a single shooting event) under former president Donald Trump than under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Under Trump, the number of mass shootings was 1,706. So far, under Biden and Harris, it’s 2,349. If not for the Radical Left passing their so-called “criminal justice reforms,” Trump’s numbers would have been even lower.
These stats even use a deceptive definition by left-wing Gun Violence Archive meant to inflate the number of mass shootings so we can pass more gun restrictions. Ironically, it’s Democrats who are now suffering from the misleading data because of the surge of gang violence under Democrat leadership. But gangs shooting each other is hardly what the American people think of when you mention a mass shooting. And this kind of crime requires different solutions than a mentally ill person stealing a gun and using it to irrationally exact revenge or express grievance.
After defunding police, releasing criminals from jail en-masse, ending cash bail, and purposefully going easy on even violent offenders, violence skyrocketed in 2020. The violence was driven by cities run by Progressives who embraced the reforms the most. Under Biden and Harris, those stats continued. But even when you take into account the violence caused by left-wing policies, Trump has a better record on mass shootings.
More from Jason Rantz: Developer pauses massive residential project over Seattle crime crisis
Democrat arguments on gun violence don’t make much sense
Murphy and other disingenuous Democrats love to claim that under Trump, the gun industry was running the show, loosening gun control laws wherever they could. If that were true, you’d think Democrats might start rethinking their talking points about how their gun control laws are supposed to reduce gun violence.
How is it that there were fewer mass shootings under supposedly looser gun laws, but now, under more restrictive gun laws, gun violence has surged? Even locally, in Seattle — a city with some of the strictest gun laws and a deeply anti-gun culture — we saw the highest number of homicides in history.
Gun violence in Seattle and King County has skyrocketed since 2020. Are we really supposed to blame Republicans for that? A party with zero power in Seattle or King County? Are there secret MAGA Republicans pulling the strings that we just don’t know about?
Maybe, just maybe, gun laws aren’t the deciding factor in gun violence. But Democrats can’t admit that because it would shift the spotlight to their own disastrous, soft-on-crime policies. Policies that have turned Biden and Harris’s America into a crime-ridden mess. Instead of being honest and saving lives, Democrats double down, pretending they care more about lives than Republicans while pushing policies that clearly result in more violence. And they’re not ashamed to exploit dead children and teachers to deceive the public into supporting their agenda.
More from Jason Rantz: Tacoma business owner robbed at gunpoint says ‘not a matter of if, but when’ crime crisis impacts you
Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, Instagram and Facebook.