Democrat gun control advocates gathered at the Capitol on Thursday to put out a rally call for the Senate to take up the universal background check for gun purchases bill the House passed 114 days ago, claiming 11,400 people have since died from “gun violence.”
That claim, which puts the “gun violence” toll at 100 a day, can’t be squared with any existing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which tracks mortality from guns but does not have data from this year. Even the so-called Gun Violence Archives, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer referenced in his remarks, doesn’t jibe with the stats cited at the rally.
The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit formed in 2013, states on its website that 6,635 people have died in 2019 so far from “gun violence.”
Schumer also claimed that there have been 102 mass shootings in the United States since the House passed HR 8, but according to the Gun Violence Archives he references, 176 mass shooting are recorded there and those include a wide range of incidents ranging from domestic murder-suicides to drug and gang-related incidents.
“So let’s think of that — two numbers — 102 people killed; 114 the number of days the bill has sat in the Senate,” Schumer said. “It is outrageous.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) spoke at a rally at the Capitol on Thursday urging the Senate to take up a universal background check gun bill that passed in the House in March. (Penny Starr/Breitbart News)
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) opened the rally with a backdrop of volunteers from gun control activists groups holding placards with white stick figures. Volunteers also held signs with the “11,400 dead” figure.
“Behind us this afternoon are representations of the 11,400 individuals who have died by gunshot wounds since our colleagues in the House of Representatives passed the bipartisan background checks bill,” Murphy said. “That piece of legislation will save lives.”
“But over the course of the past 114 days, since this legislation has been waiting for action in the United States Senate, America has lost another 11,400 individuals — 100 a day,” Murphy said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) also recited the same 11,400 number while quoting George Bernard Shaw — “the sign of a truly intelligent person is that he or she was swayed by statistics.”
But even the leftist VOX website and the New York Times reported that the vast majority of gun deaths are from suicide — 65 percent in 2015, the latest year that the CDC has data.
The CDC reports that in that same year only 23.5 percent of the 31,415 deaths from guns were homicides.
A statistic missing from the Democrat rally is how many gun fatalities involved guns that had or had not involved background checks.
Democrats also invited former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), who survived a shooting in her home state of Arizona eight years ago. Giffords played to the emotions of the crowd and she spoke briefly, telling her supporters to “fight, fight, fight” for gun control.
But as Breitbart News reported, the man who attacked her had undergone a background check, so the bill she supports would not have spared her.
Former Congresswomen Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), who survived a shooting eight years ago, spoke at a rally on Thursday at the Capitol to support a gun control bill. (Penny Starr/Breitbart News)
Breitbart News also reported the other mass shooters who underwent background checks: Virginia Beach (May 31), Virginia Tech gunman (April 16, 2007), the Fort Hood gunman (November 5, 2009), the Aurora movie theater gunman (July 20, 2012), the D.C. Navy Yard gunman (September 16, 2013), the Fort Hood attacker (April 2, 2014), the Orlando Pulse gunman (June 12, 2016), the Las Vegas gunman (October 1, 2017), the Texas church gunman (November 5, 2017), the Parkland high school gunman (February 14, 2018), and many more.
The list from the CDC shows death from guns as Number Ten on its list of the top causes of death in America following heart disease, cancer, accidents, respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, flu and pneumonia, and kidney disease.
Pelosi also cited the statistic that 47 children die from gun violence every day.
But according to the Worldometers research site, abortion is a much greater threat; in 2019 so far almost 20 million children have died from abortion, or 125,000 abortions a day.
Some 50 million abortions have taken place in the United States since the United States Supreme Court legalized the procedure in 1973 in its Roe v. Wade decision.
You can watch the whole rally here.
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