The president’s passion for gun control leaves him oddly unwilling to claim credit for one of the few signs of progress during his first term. After four years of Obama, poverty and food stamps are up, middle class incomes are down, while debt and deficits soared to record levels.

Rates of violent crime, however, continued their long decline, reduced by 13 percent since the last year of President Bush. In the last 20 years, the murder rate has been cut in half, but President Obama won’t acknowledge this good news because it undermines his efforts to alarm the public about a non-existent surge in gun violence, justifying meddlesome restrictions on law-abiding firearms owners.

It’s understandable that the president ignores the bad news from his first term, but it’s outrageous that he won’t acknowledge the dramatic successes in stopping crime.