CRIME DATA: 90% of “Victims” Have Prior Criminal Records

In the aftermath of Speaker Anthony Rendon’s statement to the LA Times that personal tragedy “puts a face on shootings”, GOC agrees.

But. Wait.

We also must add our 2 cents of accuracy because the picture is far bigger and more complex than the one painted by Rendon and his legislative cohorts.  Playing the “victim” card as Gavin Newsom proficiently and frequently does may be highly effective, but is it accurate – or fair to the issue as a whole?

Nope.  Not in the least.

Without question, Rendon’s family has faced not one, but multiple horrors of losing loved ones to criminal activity with firearms and this must never be minimized – no matter where one stands on the gun issue.  That said, however, it’s also incumbent on all parties that the debate be honest, which means cop killers and terrorists should never be listed as victims of gun violence.  To do so is an affront to the families of innocent victims who have been slain by some murderous thug or gang member.

The conversation regarding who is actually a victim of gun violence might make a lot of people uncomfortable, but then again – the truth often does.

Christopher Dorner – who killed four, including two police officers is not a victim.

Boston Marathon terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev is not a victim.

Aquilla Bailey, who was shot while attempting to assassinate a pharmacist and his mother is not a victim.

48-year-old David Weatherton of Fremont, who was killed while attacking two of his children with a baseball bat covered in nails is not a victim.

Neither is Jimmy Ray Phea of Fresno who was killed by police after threatening to kill his sister and her children.

These are just a few California names plucked from a “victims of gun violence” list circulated throughout the state by anti-gun stalwart Senator Kevin De Leon.

Nationally, the Washington Examiner reported that a “preliminary analysis of the list of shooting “victims” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s group Mayors Against Illegal Guns is reading at rallies for new gun control laws finds that one in 12 are crime suspects killed by police or armed citizens acting in self-defense.”

Right there, the list should be scrapped.

In Wisconsin, reports indicate that almost two-thirds of the fatal shootings occur in Milwaukee, and in almost all cases, both victims and alleged perpetrators have criminal records.

Mallory O’Brien, of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission has stated that “(About) 94 percent of our victims have an arrest history and 93 percent of our suspects have an arrest history.”

And in Baltimore, of 2015’s 344 homicide victims, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said “There are both perpetrators on that list and very likely victims on that list.”

2015 crime data confirms this, revealing that nearly 90 percent of the 344 victims had a prior criminal record:

• 80.2 percent had a prior drug arrest
• 60.8 had been arrested for a violent crime
• 50% had a prior gun charge.
• The average victim had been arrested 13 times before, and 26.2 percent were suspected gang members.

Is it reasonable, or is it outrageous, that these 309 names (90% of the 344 homicides in Baltimore) are used to demonstrate the number of “victims” of gun violence?

We call it outrageous.

There is no intent to minimize the horror of losing a loved one – no matter the cause…. whether it’s a child being killed by a drunk driver, losing a sibling to cancer, or a cousin in a drive-by shooting.  That being said, it doesn’t take a study, or task force or some highfalutin higher education review panel of experts to conclude that many of those vulnerable to violence are also perpetrating violence, and by including them in a list of victims presents a factually incorrect and distorted picture.

In the words of Ronald Reagan, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”