U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The anti-gun activists at The Trace – the propaganda arm of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s vast anti-gun empire – have created a new bogeyman for their ongoing war against our gun rights: Killer Gas Stations.
In a story published Monday titled “Gas Stations Become a Magnet for Violence in Philadelphia,” the author would have you hold your breath, suspend all disbelief and actually accept that mom-and-pop gas stations somehow play a role in the escalating gang violence sweeping the city, even though the author’s own data does not support such a claim.
According to the story, there were nine killings at Philadelphia gas stations during all of 2021 and 2022 – nine homicides in nearly two years. However, citywide over the same time period there were 1,021 murders – 562 during 2021 and 459 in 2022. To be clear, gas station murders made up less than one-percent of Philadelphia’s total homicides.
And who would a young anti-gun activist turn to in order to buttress his false claim that service stations are somehow culpable for murder? How about a local attorney who has filed lawsuits against nine gas stations because people were shot in their parking lots.
“I don’t think the public is aware of this because they may think of shootings usually happening at bars or nightclubs, certainly not at gas stations,” said attorney David P. Thiruselvam, who has filed nine lawsuits against gas stations. “But it’s becoming an epidemic, and the gas station industry is aware of it because it’s in the news all the time. But they are not doing anything about it.”
Not only is the gas station industry not doing anything about this “epidemic,” the City of Philadelphia didn’t leap into action either.
“While Philadelphia has no laws that address gas station safety, other communities have recently approved ordinances in response to violence there. Stations can no longer stay open 24 hours in Oak Park, a close-in suburb of Chicago bisected by the busy Eisenhower Expressway, while stations in DeKalb County, outside of Atlanta, must have working security cameras at all times,” the author wrote.
In yet another letdown for the author, a spokesman for the Philadelphia City Council told him that the city has already spent a record amount of taxpayer dollars on anti-violence initiatives, adding: “none is aimed specifically at bolstering gas station security.”
Takeaways
The Trace describes itself as the “only newsroom dedicated to reporting on gun violence.” It has slick digital packages that are chockfull of stories, photos and videos, so it’s easy to confuse them with an actual news website. But a news website it is not. Bloomberg founded The Trace in 2015 to create anti-gun agitprop for his other anti-gun groups, which include Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, which the billionaire former mayor also bankrolls.
While The Trace has always been a bit nutty, their killer gas station theory elevates their nuttiness to even higher levels. Nine gas-station killings over two years – in a city that saw more than 1,000 murders over the same time period – is not a trend. It’s a statistical blip at best, a non-story, pure propaganda.
Besides, Philadelphia offers its visitors and residents a plethora of other venues where they can get shot, stabbed or robbed – not just gas stations. The city is a violent cesspool, which is overrun by hundreds of drug crews, all competing for dollars, product and street corners.
According to a recent report from the Heritage Foundation, titled “The Blue City Murder Problem,” Philadelphia has the eighth highest homicide rate in the country. The study found that it was liberal policies retraining prosecutors from holding criminals accountable – not gas stations – that made Philadelphia one of the most dangerous cities in America.
While it is somewhat refreshing that The Trace is no longer blaming firearms or another inanimate object for the increasing murder rates in cities that historically have been run by Democrats, they’re still skirting the real issue. Neither guns nor gas stations are responsible for murders in the City of Brotherly Love. It’s the soulless criminals with no regard for the sanctity of human life who are to blame. The longer anti-gun activists like those at The Trace try to shift the public’s attention away from the real problem, the longer it will take to stop the killings.
This story is presented by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and wouldn’t be possible without you. Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support more pro-gun stories like this.
About Lee Williams
Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.
Gas station safety . . . HAHAHAHAHahahahaha It’s like gun safety . . . but with gas stations. Everything you want to get rid of . . . safety. Wait till you can’t just “GAS & GO”! Wait till you are DEAD IN THE WATER . . . waiting for a charging station . . . plug in . . . wait HOW LONG TO CHARGE??? Lotta very VULNERABLE travelers . . . dead in the water . . . waiting for a charge . . .Will probably end up being much more dangerous than “GAS STATION SAFETY”! PS –… Read more »
At least in anti-2A NJ and soon to be anti-2A Oregon, you can stay locked in your vehicle and they’ll pump fuel for you.
Filthadelphia : The City of Murderers and Thugs.
Mr. Williams, thank you for this article. I see two immediate problems in Philadelphia, PUBLIC SCHOOLS K-16+, and the ensconced democrats and their constituents. After all Philly went in big for senator-elect Uncle Festerman and his lovely soon to be senator-in-waiting spouse, Morticia.
Here’s the money quote in your superb article, “The study found that it was liberal policies retraining prosecutors from holding criminals accountable – not gas stations – that made Philadelphia one of the most dangerous cities in America.”
Who trains prosecutors? The same communists who train defense lawyers.
The left is willing to blame the violence on anything except the real cause, which is the dystopian urban culture of ignorance, insolence, arrogance, and violence. Until that is addressed, urban America will be a war zone.
Note that I am careful to say “urban culture.” Though that culture was once populated almost exclusively by one race, giving fodder to the racists of the world, today we see other races embracing the urban culture, so that even rural America is beginning to have murders over small slights and young people glorifying even the most evil violence in song.
Little is being done by the “a.g.”s of these States who are complaining about people being shot at gas stations. The “a.g.”s of these states are turning CRIMINALS and WANNABE THUGS out of jails left and right! ALSO, with the increase if VALUE of gasoline and diesel, it is expected that CRIMINALS would be attacking these “places of opportunities”! The State PROSECUTORS MUST BEGIN to hold the CRIMINAL AGGRESSORS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE, NOT the PROPERTY OWNERS!!!
It is clear that you do not understand “EQUITABLE JUSTICE”, Laddyboy.
The media is DUMBFOUNDED over the Idaho stabbing murder of 4 people.
They are AMAZED that someone could kill 4 people and NOT HAVE A GUN!
They are showing a VERY, VERY DANGEROUS hunting knife with, get this, A 6 INCH BLADE!!! A very scary, sharp, POINTY 6 inch blade.
WHO COULD EVER POSSIBLY EVER NEED SUCH A DANGEROUS KNIFE?!!? (ASSAULT KNIFE???)
Get ready . . . knife control on the horizon.
They did not have the same metallurgy or knife designs back in 1776. Clearly the 2nd only applies to blades that existed at the time of the founding and not to any blade designs ever used by any soldier anywhere because those would be “military assault knives”. This includes, of course, anything used by company cooks – from cleavers to paring knives.
We demand gas station control now! Duh!
Dear friends Happy Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for. A quick update. Went to the Wannenmachr Arms Collectors’ Show in Tulsa, had fun; made enough profit to pay the propane bill for the winter; picked up a really nice… used … virus.
Symptoms began the morning that I got home. That blew the whole next week, but now, I am back at it. Barn cleaning is the order of the day.
The current dispatch is awaiting approval.
I freely admit that I am a none mask wearer!