October, 2015, By The Numbers, Part 2: What America Wants and What American Politicians Deliver (Or Really Care About)

This is the second post among a few days worth of discussion of “by the numbers.” We do this theme occasionally where we look at the reality of the numbers in the world and not the lies, deceptions, and spin of the American political class. I used to work for a boss whose favorite quote was: “There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the correct number.” By looking at the statistics, trends, and numbers in our world we can cut through the politicians’ smoke screen to truly understand what is going on and hopefully, remedy the issues of the day.

The numbers we will look at this week will often have a common thread running almost through all of them: the views, positions, and opinions of the majority of Americans are often the exact opposite of the views and related actions that our politicians own. Since we are supposed to be living in a representative government system one would hope that the laws, rules, and government functions that our politicians oversee reflect the thinking, hopes, and views of the American citizenry.

As the numbers will usually show, that is nowhere close to reality, which I think reflects two underlying negative trends:

1. American politicians vote and act for their own personal interests first, Americans’ interests and well being being of secondary consideration. If a politician’s actions can get them more votes or more campaign cash for their perpetual reelection campaigns, than that is their priority, usually not the priorities of their constituents.
2. Second, I personally believe that today’s American politicians take care of their special interest friends and financiers first and foremost, and the interests of those special interest friends (e.g.unions, corporations, lobbyists, etc.) are usually not in alignment with what the majority of Americans have as their priorities.

Keep these two possibilities in mind as we go “by the numbers” for the next few days and try to show the major disconnect between what Americans want and what politicians are doing:

1) Judicial Watch recently completed a new study using a lot of official government documents and found that the number of illegal criminal immigrants being released unto U.S. streets and civilians is mind staggering:

• There are now 340 so-called sanctuary cities across the country, cities that are breaking Federal law everyday by allowing illegal immigrants to reside in their cities, protected from deportation by the Federal government.
• Over the nine month period studied, in total, these cities on average allowed 1,000 illegal criminal immigrants to be released every month.
• In those nine months, 9,295 illegal criminal immigrants were set free before Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could get them deported.
• More than 600 of the criminal immigrants had been released twice.
• The majority of the criminal immigrants released (58%) had prior felony charges or convictions, 37% had prior misdemeanor charges and 5% had multiple misdemeanor charges.
• 2,320 of the 9,295 released were subsequently arrested within the nine month time frame for NEW crimes they committed.

Is there any doubt why 59% of Americans want illegal immigrants deported and 78% want a fence built on the Mexican border to keep illegals out of the country, as we discussed in yesterday’s post? If the local politicians will not turn over illegal criminal immigrants for deportation and the Obama administration does nothing to make them obey the law and do them over to the Feds for deportation, this becomes just another example of where the politicians we elect do not reflect the values and desires of those that elected them.

2) Obama and his fellow Democrats are on the warpath to gut or ignore the right to bear arms as outlined in the Second Amendment. One of the efforts they want to try enforcing is crack down on the purchasing of guns at retail stores and gun shows under the false theory that criminals actually buy their weapons at stores and gun shows.

I know, stupid assumption from stupid politicians but the numbers from a recent study actually prove that such lame efforts at gun control are actually that, lame. Researchers from Duke University and the University of Chicago conducted a study of criminal gun purchases that will be published in Preventive Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal. 

According to reporting by the Washington Free Beacon: The study found that due to fears of encountering undercover police officers attempting sting operations, a large majority of the criminals surveyed would only make illegal gun purchases from people they knew. “In discussing the underground gun market in their neighborhoods, most respondents emphasized the importance of connections — prior relationships that could create sufficient trust to reassure the seller that the transaction would not create an unacceptable legal risk,” the survey says. “A majority of the primary guns (40 of the 48 for which we have detailed information on the source) were obtained from family, fellow gang members, or other social connections; the fraction is still higher for secondary guns.”

The study went on to quantify that only 2 out of the 70 primary guns, or 3%, were reported as being purchased from a gun store. NONE of the criminals in the study, NONE, got their weapons from a gun show. The Chicago Sun-Times quoted Harold Pollack, co-director of the crime lab that did the study: “In a survey of almost 100 detainees in the Cook County Jail, few said they get firearms at gun shows or through the Internet. They also said they don’t normally steal guns or buy them at a licensed store.” 

Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, put these numbers in perspective relative to proposed new gun laws: “Criminals don’t obey laws. That’s why we call them criminals.”

3) And to illustrate another disconnect between Americans and politicians, especially those that want to restrict or eliminate gun rights and possession,consider the findings of a recent Gallup poll:

• The majority of Americans feel that more concealed weapons would make America safer.
• In a poll taken between October 7 and 11, 2015, 56% of those polled stated that they would feel safer if more Americans carried concealed weapons vs. 41% who would feel less safe.
• In a somewhat inconsistent manner, while 86% of respondents said they would favor a law which would require universal background checks for all gun purchases, a majority (53%) of the same group said background checks would have no impact on the number of mass shootings and only 19% said it would have a great amount of impact on the number of mass shootings.

Another example where a great many politicians are on the wrong side of what the majority of Americans want. While people like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton threaten to illegally confiscate guns of law abiding Americans, the numbers show that criminals do not buy their guns where these ill informed politicians think they do and the majority of Americans would welcome more concealed weapons in the real world outside of the Beltway while those inside the Beltway want to have NO concealed weapons. 

But of course, people like Obama and Clinton would still have their armed guards available around the clock to protect their families while the rest of us would be stripped of our protection under their views, which are contrary to ours.

That will do it for “by the numbers” today, more proof that those in the Washington political class are so out of touch with the rest of America when you look at the numbers regarding the Second Amendment and the handling of illegal immigrants, especially illegal criminal immigrants who bring danger, violence, and crime to ordinary American citizens.

More numbers tomorrow.