Two recent mass casualty attacks have brought to mind Democrat Rham Emmanuel’s admonition to never let a serious crisis go to waste. His fellow Dems do whatever is necessary for political advantage. Dancing on the graves of victims, misrepresenting facts and egregious lying are common.
Traverse City, MI, Population 15, 728, July 26, 2025.
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At 5 PM a 42-year-old man in a WalMart attacked random shoppers with a folding knife. He stabbed 11, critically wounding four. A former Marine WalMart employee attacked him with a shopping cart. The attacker fled to the parking lot where he was surrounded by 5-6 people. One, another former Marine, was armed and disarmed the attacker and held him for police.
New York City—Manhattan—population 7.9 million, July 29, 2025.
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At 6:30 PM, a 27-year-old man, who was caught on video walking up to a high-rise office building while carrying an AR-15 pattern rifle, entered the lobby, killed three and wounded one. Among the dead was an off-duty NYPD officer. Apparently harboring an insane grudge against the NFL, whose offices are in the building, he got into the wrong elevator and missed the NFL’s offices. He shot one more person on the 33rd floor and killed himself.
A suicide note spoke of suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), for which he blamed the NFL, though he never played in the league, and apparently did not play high school or college football. Detectives have already discovered a history of mental illness — including self-reporting that he was suicidal.
And of course, Democrats immediately danced on the victim’s graves:
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Michigan is a “shall issue” state, issuing concealed carry licenses to the qualified with the usual training and background check requirements. New York State, and particularly NYC, make obtaining a permit very difficult, and have declared essentially all of NYC and much of New York State sensitive zones where guns can’t be carried. Even better, no one can carry a handgun onto private property without the express permission of the property owner. While Michigan isn’t as Second Amendment friendly as many states and cities, NYC is actively hostile to the law-abiding.
One of the great advantages of concealed carry is it’s likely someone is carrying anywhere and criminals must act accordingly. Obviously, that’s not true in NYC. It’s perhaps a little surprising more weren’t carrying in that WalMart, but a very good thing that former Marine was. Without him, and several other brave people, more almost certainly would have been injured or killed.
Because no one in that office building was armed, several innocents died, and some present had to resort to barricading entrances with office furniture. There is one horrifying possibility: some might have been armed but knowing the anti-liberty/gun lunacy of NYC officials, decided not to save lives lest they be imprisoned for carrying a gun, perhaps even for killing the shooter.
In Michigan, the weapon was a common folding knife, reportedly with a 3.5” blade. In NYC, a common, intermediate caliber—not “high-powered—rifle. In both attacks, the police had no role in stopping the killers, which is common. That’s not a criticism of the police. There are few of them and when an attack happens, no one is in a better position to know exactly what’s happening and who needs to be stopped than the people present. When seconds count, the police will always be minutes—even hours--away.
But aren’t “assault weapons”—the term is a leftist invention—so dangerous and so often used in murders they must be banned? The FBI’s Uniform Crime report for 2019—the most up to date information—shows rifles of all types were used in 364 crimes. AR-15 pattern rifles were used in only a tiny portion of that 364. But knives and other cutting instruments were used in 1476, while blunt instruments were used in 397 and hands and feet were used in 600. By those results, Rep. Goldman ought to be advocating banning hands and feet and certainly knives. England has pretty much done that, but common kitchen knives are longer and arguably sharper than the knife used by the Michigan attacker.
Credible research reveals armed citizens stop crimes, usually without firing a shot, as many as 2.5 million times each year. The anti-gun Clinton administration did a study certain they’d find enough information to support new gun bans, but to their horror discovered at least 1.5 million citizen gun defenses per year. They unsuccessfully tried to bury the results.
NYC’s gun laws didn’t save lives. Michigan’s did. Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana sums it up well: “We don’t need more gun control, we need more idiot control…”
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.