Vice President Kamala Harris has expressed concern about the "epidemic of gun violence" in the country, but her comments ring hollow in light of how her allies in the media have downplayed concerns about crime raised by Republicans. This double standard suggests that Democrats care more about gun violence when it can be used to demonize conservatives than when it affects communities of color.
In the wake of the tragic school shooting in Winder, Georgia, Vice President Kamala Harris lamented the "epidemic of gun violence" in the country and expressed concern about students and parents living in fear.
While Harris is right to voice concerns about school shootings, her reference to an "epidemic" rings hollow given how her allies in the media have consistently downplayed concerns about rising crime raised by Republicans.
Democrats' Double Standard on Crime: Outrage for School Shootings, Indifference to Urban Violence
For example, The New York Times and Vox have both argued that crime is not out of control, despite evidence to the contrary. NBC News even suggested that a decline in violence could potentially undermine President Trump's campaign message.
The implication is that Republicans are fearmongering and lying about the level of crime to gin up angst about Democrats' approach to public safety.
Democrats' Double Standard on Crime: Outrage for School Shootings, Indifference to Urban Violence
However, this double standard raises a glaring question: Which is it? Is crime down so much that we should dismiss Republican concerns about urban violence, or are we experiencing an epidemic of gun violence that justifies fears of school shootings?
The answer is unclear, and the Democrats' refusal to acknowledge the problem of urban violence suggests that they only care about gun violence when it can be used to demonize conservatives.
Democrats' Double Standard on Crime: Outrage for School Shootings, Indifference to Urban Violence
Suburban school shootings like the tragedy in Georgia receive far more attention than the mass shootings that occur on the streets of cities like Memphis, Philadelphia, and Baltimore every day.
The firearm homicide victimization rate of Black men is more than twenty times that of white men, yet concerns about the incidents driving that disparity are dismissed with statistics showing declines in nationally aggregated crime measures.
"High profile" mass shootings garner national news coverage and "off-script" moments from the vice president, while the everyday shootings on city streets—what the criminological literature refers to as "community gun violence"—are largely ignored.
This disparity suggests that the Democrats' focus on gun violence is more about politics than about public safety.
As I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, data from cities like Chicago suggests that a key driver of America's gun violence problem is the systemic failure to meaningfully incapacitate repeat offenders before they kill.
The Democrats have spent more than a decade running against "over-policing" and "mass incarceration," which has resulted in a decline in the number of violent criminals incarcerated.
But police are key drivers of public safety, and meaningfully reducing incarceration requires releasing or not incarcerating the violent, high-rate offenders who constitute the vast majority of America's prisoners.
Acknowledging these realities would force the Democrats to admit an error, which is why they have tightly clung to recent declines in certain crime measures.
The idea that crime is no longer a big deal is one they are free to sell to voters. But they shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways and throw that line out the window whenever there is a shooting that fits a preferred narrative.
If Vice President Harris is right about there being an "epidemic" of gun violence in this country, then she ought to reconsider her commitment to the sorts of police and criminal justice reforms she has pushed over the years.
And she should apologize to those of us who have been saying so all along.
