The Problem with Blaming the Gun

Leftist scare-mongering about firearms is not just disingenuous. It’s also dangerous.

Jay Rogers | March 8, 2026

I was finishing a workout at the gym in South Orange County the morning I heard about the Austin bar shooting — earbuds in, last set done, the usual Saturday ritual of burning off the week before the rest of the world wakes up.  The country’s at war with Iran.  A naturalized citizen from Senegal just murdered two Americans wearing an Iranian flag on his chest.  And within the same news cycle, the political left pivoted to gun control.

That is the single stupidest, most intellectually dishonest, most politically cowardly response possible to a wartime domestic terrorist attack.  Let me tell you why, starting with three numbers the political class is hoping you never put together.

Politicians demanding assault weapons bans in the wake of every high-profile shooting are either innumerate or dishonest, or maybe both.  The FBI’s own Uniform Crime Reporting data tell the story they won’t.  In 2023, handguns were used in approximately 7,159 homicides — by far the dominant murder weapon in America.  Rifles of all types, including so-called “assault weapons,” were used in roughly 323 homicides.  That is fewer than 3 percent of gun murders.  Knives and cutting instruments killed more people than rifles.  Hands, fists, and feet killed more people than rifles.

An NIH study found that assault-type rifles account for between 2 and 12 percent of guns used in crime generally, with most estimates under 7 percent.  The Crime Prevention Research Center’s analysis of FBI data found that rifles’ share of firearm murders was 4.8 percent before the 1994 assault weapons ban, 4.9 percent during it, and 3.6 percent after it expired.  The ban made no measurable difference, which is what you’d expect when you’re legislating against a fraction of a fraction.

Meanwhile, a 2016 DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of prison inmates found that fewer than 2 percent of criminals who used a gun had obtained it from a retail source.  Seventy-nine percent of crime firearms were obtained illegally.  Every background check bill, every assault weapons definition debate, every magazine capacity argument is aimed at the 2 percent, while the 79 percent watches from the corner.

Fifty-eight mass shootings in 63 days sounds like a national emergency.  It is, in fact, a definitional shell game.  The Gun Violence Archive defines a “mass shooting” as any incident where four or more people are shot, regardless of circumstance.  A gang turf war at a Chicago liquor store at 2 A.M. counts identically to a jihadist terrorist opening fire on civilians in a bar.  The GVA’s own methodology page states explicitly that it includes drive-bys, gang incidents, and narcotics-related violence — by design.

Under an honest definition — the Violence Prevention Project’s standard of four or more killed, in a public location, with no gang or criminal nexus — the U.S. recorded approximately 17 mass killings in all of 2025.  The AP/USA Today/Northeastern database confirmed that as the lowest count since 2006.  Mass shooting deaths accounted for just 2.8 percent of all shooting deaths tracked by the GVA through Q3 2025.  Seventeen versus fifty-eight.  One of those numbers is a policy argument.  The other is a count of gang violence dressed up in activist statistics.

Here is what the gun control press conference doesn’t mention: According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing terrorist attacks and plots outnumber those from the violent far right.  Left-wing incidents averaged 0.6 per year from 1994 to 2000.  From 2016 to 2024, that figure rose to an average of 4.0 per year — a near-sevenfold increase.  Through mid-2025, they were on pace to set a 30-year record.

The evidence is not abstract.  The killer of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, shot in midtown Manhattan in December 2024, was celebrated as a folk hero on the left.  Minnesota House speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated in their home in June 2025.  Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University in September 2025 by a man whose texts showed a premeditated political grievance.  An armed group in tactical gear assaulted a federal ICE detention facility in Texas on July 4, 2025, firing on law enforcement officers.  Arson at the Pennsylvania governor’s residence.  Molotov cocktails and a knife found on a woman arrested near senior officials in Washington in January 2025, her stated targets described as “Nazis.”

The Austin attack was not left-wing political violence.  It was wartime jihadist terrorism, which is a separate and more urgent category.  But the cynical pivot to assault weapons restrictions in the aftermath of a terrorism event, while simultaneously refusing to name the escalating threat of ideologically motivated left-wing violence, is a protection racket.

I have spent 35 years doing financial risk management for some of the wealthiest families in America.  Risk management requires being analytically honest about where the actual danger is.  Here is the honest risk management response to what the data shows.

One: Post-naturalization radicalization monitoring, under FISA oversight, with civil liberties guardrails.  The tools exist.  The political will does not.

Two: Stop lying about the statistics.  Mandate that government- and media-cited mass shooting figures distinguish gang and narco-violence from public-indiscriminate attacks.  Stop letting the GVA’s intentionally inflated count drive legislation aimed at the wrong population.

Three: Confront left-wing political violence with the same institutional seriousness applied to right-wing extremism.  CSIS data are not Republican talking points.  This is a nonpartisan dataset showing a 30-year high in left-wing incident trajectory.  Treat it accordingly.

Four: Pass H.R. 38 and S. 65, the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act.  A trained, licensed, law-abiding citizen with a firearm is statistically the fastest resolution to an active shooter event.  Austin proved it with a badge.  The next situation may require a civilian.  Your concealed carry permit should be honored in all 50 states, the same way your driver’s license is.  The good guy with a gun — trained, permitted, present — is the solution.

Five: Leave the Second Amendment alone.  The data do not support the proposition that restricting legal gun ownership by the most law-abiding demographic in the country reduces terrorism, gang violence, or targeted political assassination.  Rifles are used in under 3 percent of gun homicides.  Criminals obtain their weapons illegally 79 percent of the time.  A terrorist does not read the sign on the door and turn around.

My oldest is at a duty station I can’t disclose, carrying weapons issued by the United States government to defend a country whose government can’t decide whether its own citizens are allowed to defend themselves.  The Austin police officers who ran toward Ndiaga Diagne met the standard.  They were armed.  They ended it.

Know the differences distinguishing a terrorism problem, a gang violence problem, a political violence problem, and a gun problem.  They are not the same diagnosis.  They do not take the same medicine.  And the 100 million Americans who own firearms legally and have done nothing wrong deserve a government — and a media establishment — finally honest enough to know the difference.

Forged, not fragile.  That’s the standard.  Act accordingly.

Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and investment banking, with a background in constitutional law, national security, and public policy. He holds a degree in Criminal Justice from Northeastern University and is an NRA Life Member.

SUPPORT AMERICAN THINKER

Now more than ever, the ability to speak our minds is crucial to the republic we cherish. If what you see on American Thinker resonates with you, please consider supporting our work with a donation of as much or as little as you can give. Every dollar contributed helps us pay our staff and keep our ideas heard and our voices strong. Thank you.

© American Thinker