The Left's Cognitive Dissonance On Crime

Gun violence is a subset of criminal violence; how can so many people worry about crime committed using one type of weapon while being relatively unconcerned about crime in general?

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I was doing research when I came across this Pew Research report from last month regarding the American public’s attitude towards gun violence and violent crime more broadly. Take a look at this graphic from the report:

I don’t know about you, but it’s a head-scratcher for me. 81% of Democratic respondents think gun violence is a “very big problem,” but only 52% of the same think violent crime is a very big problem? Something isn’t right here.

By comparison, the collective response saw 60% say gun violence is a very big problem, while 59% say the same for violent crime, so there’s at least consistency there. We’ll come back to the responses by Republicans later; for now, I want to focus on the responses from Democrats.

It’s important to note - like everyone else, Democrats seem to becoming more concerned about crime. After a dip last year, they’re almost back to where they were two years ago. I like to say that if the Democrats are getting worried about the same thing Republicans are getting worried about, there’s probably something to it. Despite this, however, there’s always been a tremendous disparity between their concern regarding gun violence and crime in general, as the data shows.

We live in a world where all sorts of strange combinations exists. I still have trouble wrapping my brain around this one. Gun violence is a subset of criminal violence; how can so many people worry about crime committed using one type of weapon while being relatively unconcerned about crime in general? Especially if guns are the weapon of choice in violent crimes? If you’re going to worry about gun violence, you have to worry about violent crime more broadly. There’s no way to isolate the two phenomena from each other.

It’s like someone being more worried, in the wake of 9/11, about aircraft being used as weapons than terrorism itself. This wouldn’t make sense to anyone, because the reason why aircraft are being weaponized is to murder and terrorize. So how does it make any sense to think crimes committed using guns is far more concerning than crime in general? Put still another way, if we consider the threat triangle - means, motive, opportunity - a gun satisfies only one of those three components. A threat doesn’t exist until all three components have been satisfied. Yet in the minds of many, many people, a threat exists the instant the means of violence become present, even if motive and opportunity aren’t.

The only way the Democratic worldview makes sense is if you think the mere presence of a gun makes a crime more likely to occur. The same Pew Research report suggests, in fact, this is exactly what Democrats believe:

78 percent. That’s a landslide. I also find it interesting, but not surprising, that the majority of urban respondents feel the same. Given that violent crime in general occurs disproportionately in urban areas, I can understand why people who live in these areas believe access to firearms exacerbates, rather than alleviates, violence.

But really - if the government seized every last gun from private hands, do they actually think we’d become a less violent society? Again, this makes sense only if you believe gun possession instantly makes you a more violent person. It certainly makes you a more dangerous person, but this isn’t synonymous with being violent. The latter is mindset; such a person regards the use of force, including the deadly variety, as not just a first resort, but as a morally acceptable means of dealing with others. Thanks to this wonderful thing called civilization, most of us manage to suppress or have outright removed that instinct from our make-up, for good and ill. As someone on Twitter said and I paraphrase: There are over 200 million guns owned by Americans. If we were really a problem, you’d know it. The implication being, if gun ownership alone were the issue, then our country would be a veritable war zone and there would be no escaping gun violence for anyone.

But again, Democrats do think gun violence is super-pervasive and that our country does resemble a war zone at times (so do Republicans), which makes their comparatively ambivalent attitude towards crime all the more baffling. If you’ve been following me for long, however, you know that I think the Left’s stance towards crime is actually quite coldly rational. I’ve spoken at length and will continue to speak at length about anarcho-tyranny, but here I’m going to add that “gun violence” and “violent crime” are regarded differently because the Left sources each problem differently.

For the Left, gun violence is due to the availability of guns, which is the consequence of the Constitution’s Second Amendment. In turn, they lay the blame for gun violence at the feet of those who defend the Second Amendment and support gun ownership by private citizens. At the same time, however, who’s doing the shooting doesn’t matter - a law-abiding gun owner is just as likely to use their firearms unlawfully as a criminal. If they blame any one type of shooter, animated by mass shootings that receive massive media coverage, they point the finger at White males, attempting to spread the narrative that all the gun violence in America is at their raging hands.

Whether there’s validity to that assertion isn’t the point. That’s because, in turn, the Left downplays the urgency of violent crime as a major issue in this country since they know that criminals are disproportionately Black, even as there are roughly equal numbers of White offenders (though the number of White offenders is skewed by including Hispanic/Latino). Furthermore, crime committed within our major population centers tend to be committed by Black offenders. Given their racialist worldview and sensitivity to the perception of racial minorities, but especially Blacks, as anything other than victims of a horribly racist society, the Left downplays the prevalence and urgency of crime overall thinking it’ll take the heat off Blacks and allow them to overcome America’s prejudices. You saw this mindset on display in the wake of Jordan Neely’s death at the hands of Daniel Penny. We were lectured to by leftist, urban Whites who not only said Neely presented no threat, but that putting up with someone like Neely is just the cost of the good life in the city.

The perversity of this kind of thinking can’t be understated. In the Left’s mind, crime isn’t a problem not because it’s actually not a problem, but because it might implicate those we’re not supposed to implicate. It’s not even about avoiding blaming the wrong people - they blame White males for everything, regardless of what the data says - but crafting a specific narrative.

Since taking away the guns hasn’t gone anywhere, the Left has pursued a policy of placing greater constraints on the lawful use of force to effectively invalidate the right to bear arms. It doesn’t matter how many guns you have, after all, if you’re not allowed to use them when needed. The problem is, you can’t tell people not to defend themselves, either. Self-defense isn’t just a legal concept, but a human instinct. The Left seems to think if you take away the weapons and makes the laws overly restrictive, people will just quit fighting back. Many of us will, unfortunately. We’re already there. But still many others will fight back when attacked or if they sense danger. It’s the same with crime - taking away the weapons or prohibiting certain behavior won’t make people less violent. Since when do criminals obey the law, anyway?

By contrast, Republicans are less concerned about gun violence and more concerned about violent crime. This stance makes more sense because again, guns are tools. Being worried about a tool and not the act itself is irrational. Furthermore, both “gun violence” and “violent crime” have become politicized terms, but the former is arguably more politically-charged than the latter. Why would Republicans view gun violence as a problem, knowing the Left blames them and sees them as the perpetrators?

Even as both sides increasingly view crime as a problem, there still exists a tremendous disparity in terms of how bad a problem they regard it as and why it’s a problem. Logic dictates the Left would likely be less concerned about crime if gun violence - mass shootings in particular - were far less prevalent, meaning it’s not even crime they’re worried about, thereby confirming the Right’s worst suspicions about the Left. I think history has proven it takes a lot before the Left begins taking crime more seriously.

The inability to reach a consensus on what kind of country we live in and what our problems are exactly has become a defining feature of our time. For now, our politics remain fairly low-stakes because, no matter who’s in power, neither side seems to lose in any tangible way. That’s beginning to change with the Left’s increasingly totalitarian impulses, but it’s still not quite at the point where our personal fortunes are tied to who’s in power.

By now, you ought to know that I’m not saying everything’s fine. It’s not. It’s not that the culture wars nor our political differences don’t matter, as even some otherwise intelligent people suggest. They absolutely do. It’s just that differences are easier to paper over when your needs are met and your overall bottom line isn’t threatened. During my lifetime, I regard it as a certainty that politics will become more existential, as our standard of living and economic well-being cannot be maintained into perpetuity. There’s a lot of luck we’ve been riding on and that luck is now beginning to fade. As it does, these disagreements will constitute more than just differences in opinion - they’ll become indictments against the other side.

What do you make of the Democrats’ concerns over gun violence and comparative lack of concern about crime? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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