On the one hand, Fareed Zakaria – the perpetually hapless hack for the left – has been suspended for plagiarism.

On the other hand?  At least when he plagiarizes, he has a chance of sounding smart.

On his dim little CNN show a few weeks back, in the immediate aftermath of the Aurora shooting, Zakaria noted perfunctorily that (and i’m paraphrasing closely here) “while some people note that there might be a link between psychology and gun violence, you are entitled to your opinion, but not to your own facts; it’s all about the availability of guns”.

In so doing, he ignored, well, the facts:

• Crime is broadly down nationwide – a drop that has closely paralleled the skyrocketing sales in guns.
• Notwithstanding the nationwide trend, violence is steady to up in places with the tightest gun control – Chicago and DC.
• On the other hand, it’s been generally down in New York, which has gun laws that Benito Mussolini would love.
• On the other hand, crime is lower still in many places with gun-friendly shall-issue laws…
• …and plenty high in other places with shall-issue laws, like the Deep South, with a culture of violence that started long before the age of civilian firearms (where crime is well above the national average, but has also fallen faster than the national average).
• Even in areas that are ostensibly identical, violent crime rates vary wildly.  Minneapolis and Saint Paul are part of the same metro area; by state statute, they have identical gun laws.  And yet Minneapolis’ murder and violent crime rates are a dramatically – as in, 50% – higher than in Saint Paul.

So when Zakaria – one of the most noxious anti-Second Amendment orcs there is – says “you’re not entitled to your own facts”, what he really means is “ignore the facts that gut the chanting point I’m repeating”.

Good riddance.