If you listen to the claims made by Dan Gross from Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, 4,500 people were killed in the streets of America in the weeks the House and Senate were on summer recess.

You can almost see report Tim Devaney’s eyes roll as he typed up Brady’s hysterical claims.

Thousands of Americans were shot to death while Congress was on its summer break, according to gun control activists. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reported Tuesday that 4,500 people have been shot and killed since lawmakers left town in mid-July. Lawmakers will be greeted by protests from gun control advocates Tuesday as they return to Capitol Hill. “Congress is in for a rude awakening today if they thought seven weeks of vacation would wipe the slate clean,” Brady President Dan Gross. “While Congress enjoyed nearly two months of sun and fun, the American people paid the ultimate price for Congress’ inaction, with 4,500 shot and killed during August recess alone. Now that they’re finally back at work, gun violence must be a priority for Congress.” The group intends to “plaster offices of the corporate gun lobby’s most loyal lap dogs” with the names of their constituents who were shot to death during August recess.

Interestingly, Gross and Brady didn’t provide any data to support their claims.

That’s because they’re being intentionally duplicitous.

8,124 people were murdered with firearms in all of 2014, the last year for which we have complete data from the FBI. Dan Gross and Brady are being dishonest (as they always are) by including suicides to grossly inflate their numbers, while asserting that there is a “gun violence problem” in the United States.

Objectively, there is no “gun violence problem” in the United States, no matter how you slice it.

Per capita criminal homicides are at an all time record low. So are accidents with firearms. Violent crime in general is down, in part of a multi-decade trend.

This long-term decline in human criminal violence is occurring as so-called “Gun Culture 2.0” has been birthed over the past decade, with younger, female, and urban gun owners becoming the fastest growing demographics of new gun owners. Female handgun owners in particular are seeing incredible growth. As a result of this surge in gun ownership, gun sales and concealed carry at at record highs, month over month.

Gun ownership and sales are up. Criminal and accidental deaths from firearms are down. Interesting, isn’t it?

Gross and his allies are attempting to rebrand their failed 1990s “gun control” efforts as “gun violence.” The reality remains that there are only violent people, and that firearms are a commonly owned tool very rarely used in crimes.

What we have is a violent subculture problem, where certain violence-prone people in the United States embrace criminal behavior, and the majority of violent crime in the nation can be isolated by just a double-handful of ZIP codes. Just five neighborhoods in Chicago account for more criminal violence than 165 less violent neighborhoods in the same city. Heck, these five bloody neighborhoods account for more carnage than many states see in a year.

The Austin and Englewood neighborhoods alone have accounted for more homicides (113) so far this year than did the states of Idaho, (32), Rhode Island (25), Maine (21) Wyoming (16), and New Hampshire (12) combined in all of 2014 (106).

It’s not a “gun violence”problem. It’s a thug culture problem.

The band 21 Pilots had some insightful comments from their song “Heathens,” which was part of the soundtrack for the movie Suicide Squad. They did an excellent job in pointing out the reality that some small subgroups of people are incredibly violent; and that the tools they chose are all but irrelevant.

“Just because we check the guns at the door

Doesn’t mean our brains will change from hand grenades

You’re lovin’ on the psychopath sitting next to you

You’re lovin’ on the murderer sitting next to you

You’ll think, how’d I get here, sitting next to you?”

Gross and his allies—radical left-wing Democrats all—aren’t really interested in stopping violent crime. If they were, they’d target criminal subcultures and change them. This would provide a maximum effect on crime, for minimal effort.

If they really cared about saving lives, they could likely cut the criminal homicide rate IN HALF by advocating for full-sentences for violent crimes, no deal-cutting, and increased police presences in the handful of neighborhoods in each metropolitan area where violent crime is rampant. More importantly, they could attempt to force their allies in the entertainment industry to stop glorifying criminal violence in movies, video games, and especially music.

If Dan Gross and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence they want to decrease suicides—by far the leading cause of deaths with tools of all kinds in the United States—they could take steps to help people get better mental health care, faster, without having to face the fear that they’ll lose their gun rights for a lifetime over a short-term need for mental health counseling to get through a temporary crisis.

But instead of helping, Brady has supported laws that make people avoid getting mental health care for fear they’ll lose their rights. Unfortunately, some of those individuals then take their lives. Those deaths are much higher than the number of criminal homicides every year. Yes, it’s entirely fair to blame Dan Gross and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence for the far greater number of suicides committed with firearms if they’re going to blame the gun industry, 110+ million American gun owners, and gun rights groups for the smaller number of homicides.

The Brady Campaign, once called Handgun Control Inc, has always been about citizen disarmament. The have a four-decade track record that shows they have no serious interest in dramatically reducing violent crime or reducing the stigmas attached to getting mental health care. In fact, the laws they’ve championed encourage people to avoid getting treatment, contributing to suicides.

How many of those 4,500 deaths do you want to claim create for, Dan? How many of those suicide-inflated numbers came because of your warped focus, moral confusion, and intentional subterfuge in the pursuit of raw political power?

Dan Gross and Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence love casting blame on others.

Lets see how much blame their willing to accept for their own refusal to attack the actual problems of both mental health care and violent subcultures that glorify all forms of violence.