During a Wednesday House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on gun violence, Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told colleagues the escalation in the frequency of school shootings, which she established is unique to the U.S., is “internationally embarrassing and delegitimizing.”
The congresswoman from New York asked National Education Association President Becky Pringle, “Between 2009 and 2018, how many school shootings did the United States have?”
Pringle replied, “288.”
Clearly grandstanding, Ocasio-Cortez repeated this number and said, “Now let’s look globally. Our G7 partners, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom – combined, how many school shootings did those countries have?”
Pringle answered, “Five.”
“288 versus five. This is not normal. Not only is it not normal, it is internationally embarrassing and delegitimizing to the United States. Because for all the billions and trillions that this body authorizes in the name of national security, we can’t even keep our kids safe from their schools being turned into a war-zone,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“Now, let’s talk about why,” she said, launching into an angry rant about how profits for gun manufacturers have soared in recent years.
Correlating the U.S. gun industry’s rising profits with the increases in gun deaths, she concludes, “This is about blood money.”
“This is about blood money…” @AOC says the most important thing to lobbyists and the gun industry is profit — and that there is a correlation between gun profits, and gun deaths.
Watch the House Oversight Committee hearing on gun violence: https://t.co/dC17cmjfBM pic.twitter.com/KIbZNbL7Fs
— The National Desk (@TND) June 8, 2022
It should be noted that Ocasio-Cortez was repeating statistics originally reported by CNN in a May 21 article entitled, “The US has had 57 times as many school shootings as the other major industrialized nations combined.” I’m not disputing the numbers. I’m simply pointing out the source of the former bartender’s data.
On Thursday, Business Insider reported that Ocasio-Cortez had “characterized the rate of school shootings in the US as a mark of global shame.” The story of the lawmaker’s fiery words was immediately – and enthusiastically – seized upon by Chinese state media outlet Xinhua and other CCP-run sites and trumpeted to the nation.
Chinese state media loves to see U.S. politicians preaching this sort of self-hatred.
The deepening divide between political groups in America is no longer just a domestic issue. Our adversaries pounce upon these divisions and exploit them at every opportunity.
When progressive politicians bash our country, they need to be aware that it’s not just Americans who are listening.
It’s the entire world.
A previous version of this article was published on The Western Journal.
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I wonder how many knife or machete attacks there have been in these other countries. Because they don’t have access to guns, they do use other weapons. Granted a gun can do more damage more quickly, but the root of the problem is mental illness. Guns are not the problem, people are. When a grown man says he wants to kill a Supreme Court Justice to give his life purpose, it’s not a gun problem, it’s a societal one.
It’s funny how AOC & her friends never cite inner city violence. I’m sure some of the 288 shootings were gang related in schools – these are not all mass shootings either. They love to talk statistics & solutions that hurt innocent, law abiding people to apply a bandaid to the problem, but they never discuss actual causes which is necessary to truly address the problem.
Also, I have read that European countries have more restrictive abortion laws. Are they discussing perinatal abortions like they are here? Perhaps the drum beat of dehumanization & the devaluing of life plays a bigger part in the US.
Japan doesn’t have anywhere the shootings, but you never hear about their SCARY knife violence rate. The UK is banning even pocket and table knives now, and their violent crime rates are still jumping… unless I was landing on a USAF installation and staying on base my whole time there you wouldn’t see me anywhere on the “main island” without full riot gear and hardplates.
288 “School Shootings”? I’d like to see that data that Pringle is quoting, and AOC is parroting. I’ll bet that incidents of gang violence, robberies next to schools (and other such happenings) ‘just somehow’ got included in the totals for the school shootings numbers. How else are the progressive libs going to pump the narrative? Too bad none of the ‘legislators’ present asked her for her data breakdown.
The CNN numbers are cooked. What is classified as a “school shooting” includes shootings between adult gang members near the school, on weekends or after hours, someone living near a school reporting hearing what sounded like a gunshot, and so on. The number of intrusions onto campus by gun wielding and discharging individuals during class hours is much, much lower. But CNN.
AOC provides great material for our enemies.
But that’s what traitors do…