The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week that the number of gun-related murders in 2020 was the highest since 1994. Gun purchases also reached record levels that year, but the CDC noted that its findings “do not support causal inferences” because studies have not established a direct link between more gun sales and more gun violence.
Unfortunately, much of the media commentary surrounding the horrific shootings last weekend in my hometown of Buffalo, N.Y., is infused with causal inferences. A young man fueled by racial hatred stands accused of traveling 200 miles just to kill black people. A shocked and sickened nation is mourning because his actions are so unrepresentative of who we are as Americans in the third decade of the 21st century.
Yet tragedies today no longer can be understood as such by our elites. Instead, they too often are viewed through ideological prisms to advance a preferred narrative. Gun control advocates are using the Buffalo shootings to talk about the availability of firearms. Political partisans are using them to dump on Fox News. And activists, who ignore or play down racially motivated attacks by black perpetrators, are implying that all whites—via white supremacy—are responsible of the actions of one white person.
When a black driver with a history of posting antiwhite screeds on social media plowed his vehicle through a parade in Waukesha, Wis., late last year, killing six white people, the press was reluctant even to mention his race. President Biden traveled to Buffalo this week to visit the site of the shooting. Tellingly, he never went to Waukesha.
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