The Media Would Rather Talk About Race Than Stop Mass Shootings or Crime

Every time there is a mass shooting in the U.S., partisans on both sides hold their collective breath waiting for the perpetrator to be identified in order to see whose worldview will be vindicated. The left gets excited about murders involving police officers shooting unarmed black people, as well as those perpetrated by white supremacists or believers in QAnon; the right highlights Muslim terrorists and Antifa. Yet the number of killings in 2020 that can be attributed to all of these causes put together is in the dozens, representing a tiny fraction of the over 20,000 murders that took place in the United States.

Even for America, a country whose murder rate is an outlier among developed nations, this number was the highest in over two decades. Liberals tend to blame the rise on the widespread availability of guns or COVID-induced poverty, while conservatives point to factors such as the breakdown of the family, or police being afraid to do their jobs amid criticism from Black Lives Matter.