Here we go again:
Forty-five years ago, John Hinckley Jr attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan as he left the Hilton hotel in Washington, injuring the US president and three others. Obsessed with the actor Jodie Foster, and seeking to gain her attention, the shooter had initially pursued Reagan’s Democratic predecessor, Jimmy Carter.
On Saturday night, the hotel again rang to shots as it hosted the annual White House correspondents’ dinner. Tuxedo-clad politicians and journalists dived under tables as bangs were heard from the lobby, and Donald Trump was rushed from the stage. A secret service agent was shot, though saved by his ballistics vest. The echoes of the 1981 attack are a potent reminder that violence has long been a tragic strand of the American political tradition. Gun violence is grimly familiar. This does not diminish the seriousness of an incident that was widely and rightly condemned. Rather, it highlights its importance. …
The shooting also demonstrates once more the calamitous effect of gun culture. The US has 120 firearms for every 100 residents. While shooting homicides fell last year, on average they killed 40 people each day. A 2024 study by the violence research programme at the University of California, Davis suggested that many recent firearms purchasers were open to political violence.
Well, it’s The Guardian (no link because fukkem) so let me just address a few of the fallacies therein.
Let’s start with “the calamitous effect of gun culture.” The really calamitous effects of an unarmed citizenry (the opposite of a gun culture) is when the government starts the wholesale massacre or imprisonment of its citizens. To use but two such examples, we have the Soviet Union in the 1930s and the Cambodian killing fields of the 1980s. Of course, the fucking Guardian isn’t ever going to talk about those because the massacres happened under the type of government — that would be “Marxist” — that they themselves support and wish were in power.
“While shooting homicides fell last year, on average they killed 40 people each day.” Sounds horrible, dunnit? Except that in 2024, the total number of deaths was 3,072,666, or 8,418 per day. Ummmm carry the three… so gunshot deaths (assuming that 40/day is accurate hem hem) accounted for 0.48% of the total. Let’s do a little comparison, shall we?
Gunshot deaths per day: 40. Now the U.S. daily death rate (according to these guys) breaks down by category as follows:
- Heart disease: 1,873 (22%)
- Cancer: 1,698 (20%)
- Accidents (all causes): 541 (6.4%)
- Stroke: 457 (5.4%)
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 399 (4.7%)
- Alzheimer’s: 317 (3.8%)
- Diabetes: 258 (3.1%)
- Liver disease/cirrhosis: 143 (1.7%)
Oh, and I’m willing to bet that the Guardian‘s 40 gunshot deaths per day includes suicides, which each year account for about half of all gun deaths.
Okay, one last thing: “…many recent firearms purchasers were open to political violence.” Yeah, and considering the recent spate of would-be assassins, almost all those thus predisposed were lefties or nutcases. In this country, they are akin to Guardian readers.
Fucking prats, the lot of them.






